NEW SPAIN. 



223 



It would be deemed presumptuous in one who had 

 spent but three months in a country, if he were to pre- 

 tend to speak decidedly as to the condition of its in- 

 habitants and character of its government. Little as 

 we saw, nevertheless there are certain broad traits which 

 strike the foreigner immediately, and I believe the cor- 

 rectness of his first impressions is fully substantiated 

 by the experience of all whose position has yielded an 

 occasion of looking at the state of society more closely. 

 My hastily imbibed impressions of the inhabitants of 

 New Spain were far from being favourable either to 

 the people or to the system they have been pleased to 

 adopt for their guide. If I may judge by what I saw 

 and what I learned, I should infer that the barber ? 

 whose opinion I have elsewhere mentioned, was in the 

 right, and that, of all countries I had ever seen, New 

 Spain contains the largest proportion of canaille. How 

 few, in that motley population, from the bedizened offi- 

 cial of an hour to the lazar sleeping on the steps of the 

 churches, merit any other name. 



In the United States, however strong your bias to 

 the opinion, you pause in asserting that the theory of 

 popular self-government can never be reduced to suc- 

 cessful practice among the present races of mankind. 

 However strong your secret conviction, that, though 

 circumstances may have there favoured it thus far, it 

 will, however wise and however reasonable in theory, 

 ultimately prove itself inapplicable to man in his fallen 

 state, even in that vaunted instance, there exists, far 

 the time being, so much which would appear to tell in 

 its favour, that you may as well shun the war of words. 

 You feel that you had better hold your tongue and not 

 argue, but let Time, the prover of all things, speak for 

 you. But here in New Spain the case is otherwise; 

 and the same may be said of all its southern neigh- 

 bours in like positions : the experiment is one of which 

 the madness is evident, and that it has not been, thus 

 far, attended with like evils in the United States, is to 

 be attributed to the difference of lineage, blood, and 

 position ; not that the theory is a wise one. 



