224 



NEW SPAIN. 



No one who has ever spent a month in Mexico will 

 pretend to say that the present state of the country is 

 flattering to the advocates of republicanism. He de- 

 tects want of system ; want of public and private faith ; 

 want of legitimate means of carrying on the govern- 

 ment, of enforcing the laws, or maintaining order ; total 

 absence of patriotism ; a general ignorance ; indiffer- 

 ence to the value of education, linked to overweening 

 arrogance and pride ; an incredible absence of men of 

 either natural or acquired talent of any description ; 

 and intolerant support of ihe darkest bigotry and super- 

 stition. The meanest partisanship stands in the place 

 of patriotism. The government of the moment has 

 not the power of effectually governing, even if it were 

 sincere in the desire. No parly is trusted ; no man in 

 the country can command even the respect, much less 

 the co-operation of all ; (I say respect, because a man 

 of undoubted talent and probity and honest views, will 

 be respected even by his political adversaries ;) and 

 why ? — because self-seeking and self-aggrandizement is 

 the purpose of all. They vapour about patriotism, and 

 know not the signification of the word. 



The people of the United States, and the partisans of 

 their system all the world over, find a ready answer or 

 apology for the disreputable state of things among these 

 their imitators ; and lay the present disorganization to 

 the charge of the ancient tyranny. No — even granting 

 that Spain in the government of her colonies was tyran- 

 nical, there are other causes which incapacitate the 

 Mexicans from treading in the footsteps of the states 

 more to the north, and which will, it is probable, always 

 prevent them attaining to their respectable position, how- 

 ever it were to be wished. They have neither the prin- 

 ciples of government, nor the reason, nor the conviction 

 of the value of education, and more than all, the strong 

 moral sense and general diffusion of religious principle, 

 which distinguish their more northern neighbours. And 

 what is to give it them ? 



I have now but little more to add of a character likely 

 to interest you. 



