

PREFACE. 



The following Work contains literally what the title-page expresses, Extracts from a 

 Journal written at very momentous periods, during short professional visits to the principal 

 ports on the western coast of South America and Mexico. 



It has no pretensions whatever to be considered as a detailed account of those countries. 

 But, at the present moment, when everything connected with the New World engages so 

 great a share of public attention, it was thought that a few characteristic sketches, by an eye- 

 witness, of the progress of the revolutions, and of the state of society, domestic and political, 

 in regions so little known, might be favourably received ; as tending to give more correct 

 ideas respecting them than have hitherto prevailed. 



From various nautical and scientific researches, which have already appeared in the 

 Philosophical Transactions, or formed the subject of official reports to the Admiralty, a 

 short Memoir on the Navigation of those seas has been selected, and added in an Appendix. 



Edinburgh j April 1, 1824. 



