MIXED POPULATION. 127 



or ready to be sold in lots for the profit of the state, are 

 much less common than Europeans imagine. Hence it 

 follows, that the progress of colonization cannot be every- 

 where as free and rapid in Spanish America, as it has 

 hitherto been in the western provinces of the United States. 

 The population of that union is composed wholly of whites, 

 and of negros, who, having been torn from their country, or 

 born in the New "VVorld, have become the instruments of the 

 indmstry of the whites. In Mexico, Guatemala, Quito, and 

 Peru, on the contrary, there exist in our day more than five 

 millions and a half of natives of copper-coloured race, whose 

 isolated position, partly forced and partly voluntary, together 

 with their attachment to ancient habits, and their mistrustful 

 inflexibility of character, will long prevent their participation 

 in the progress of the public prosperity, notwithstanding the 

 efforts employed to disindianize them. 



I dwell on the differences between the free states of tem- 

 perate and equinoctial America, to show that the latter 

 have to contend against obstacles connected with their 

 physical and moral position; and to remind the reader 

 that the countries embellished with the most varied and 

 precious productions of nature, are not always susceptible 

 i if an easy, rapid, and uniformly extended cultivation. If 

 we consider the limits which the population may attain, 



pending solely on the Quantity of subsistence which 

 the land is capable of producing, the most simple calcula- 



- would prove the preponderance of the communities 

 Mi>hed in the fine regions of the torrid zone; but poli- 

 tical emnomy, or the positive science of government, is dis- 



: ful of ciphers and vain abstractions. We know, that by 



the multiplication of one family only, a continent previously 



x-kon in the space of eight centuries more than 



: millions of inhabitants; and yet these estimates, 



on the hypothesis of a continuous doubling in 



i ve or thirty years, are contradicted by the history 



country already advanced in civilization The 



i nies which await the free states of Spanish America, 



are too glorious to require to be embellished by illusions and 



chimerical calculations. 



Among the thirty-four million inhabitants spread over 

 the vast surface of continental America, in which estimate 



