= = 
(267, si 
amongst the great mass of the people; they had neither time nor money for 
it, and it did partly not suit their ambitious plans to govern a more en- 
lightened p Poors 
Where shall the enlightening of the masses and the stability of govern- 
ment now come from? I cannot help thinking that if Mexico, debilitated 
by the present war, should afterwards be left to itself, the renewal of its 
internal strifes will hurry it to its entire dissolution; and what the United 
States may refuse at present to ia as the spoils of ‘the war, will be offer- 
ed to them in later years as a boo 
The fate of Mexico is sealed. "Unable to govern itself, it will be gov- 
erned by some other power; and if it should not fall into worse hands than 
those of the United States, it may yet congratulate itself, because they 
would respect at least its pene and Sth to it what it never 
had before, a republican government. 
That the whole of Mexico would as well derive advantage from such a 
change as the whole civilized world, if this wonderful country should be 
opened to the industry of a more vigorous race, there is no doubt in my 
mind; but I doubt the policy on the part of the United States to keep the 
whole of Mexico in their possession, even if they could, because a hetero- 
geneous mass of seven or ef millions of Mexicans, who have to be con- 
verted from enemies into friends, and raised from an ignorant and op- 
pressed condition to the level of republican citizens, could not be as easily 
assimilated to the republic as a similar number of European immigrants, that 
arrive here in great intervals of time, with more knowledge, and with the 
fixed intention to live and die as America 
. in the end of this war the United States will probably be bound to in- 
emnify themselves for the large expenses of the war, by some Mexican 
provinces; but the more valaatle the tetttory and the fewer Mexicans they 
acquire in this way, the more will the new acquisition be useful to 
the United States. In the northern provinces of Mexico both those con- 
ditions are united. 
Let us suppose, for instance, that from the mouth of the Rio Grande a 
boundary line should be drawn up to Laredo, the headpoint of steam 
navigation on the Rio Grande, and in the latitude of Laredo a line from 
thence west to the gulf of California, that territory would embrace, besides 
the old province of ‘Texas, a small portion of the States of Tamaulipas and 
Coahuila, the greatest eet of the State of Chihuahua, the State of Sonora, 
exico, and both Californias. The Mexican population of those 
States—if we except the highest probable estimates, and inclade a Sinstoad of 
the small slice of ‘Tamaulipas and Coahuila, the whole population of the 
State of Chihuahua—is the following: 
Chihuahua - - - - - 160,000 inhabitants. 
nora - - ne - - - 130,000 Ge : 
New Mexico - . - a - 70,000 & 
Upper California - - ‘ - 35,000 « 
Lower California - : — 3 - 6,000 ce 
¥ é i 
_ 400,000 as 
The whole population of those States amounts, therefore, only to about 
400,000 souls, while this territory, according to to the usual Mew call esti- 
