272 



HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



ricans fupport on their moulders, he would never have 

 reproached them with feeblenefs. 



But nothing demonftrates fo clearly the robuftnefs of 

 the Americans as thofe various and lafting fatigues in 

 which they are continually engaged. Mr. de Paw fays 

 (0), that when the new world was difcovered, nothing 

 was to be feen but thick woods ; and that at prefent 

 there are fome lands cultivated, not by the Americans 

 however, but by the Africans and Europeans ; and that 

 the foil in cultivation is to the foil which is uncultivated 

 as two thoufand to two millions. Thefe three affertions 

 are precifely as many errors. To referve, however, what 

 belongs to the labours of the ancient Mexicans for ano- 

 ther DifTertation, and to fpeak only of latter times, it is 

 certain that fmce the conquefl: the Americans alone have 

 been the people who have fupported all the fatigues of 

 agriculture in all the vaft countries of the continent of 

 South America, and in the greater part of thofe of 

 South America fubject to the crown of Spain. No Eu- 

 ropean is ever to be feen employed in the labours of the 

 field. The Moors, who, in comparifon of the Ameri- 

 cans, are very few in number in the kingdom of New 

 Spain, are charged with the culture of the fugar-cane 

 and tobacco, and the making of fugar ; but the foil def- 

 tined for the cultivation of thofe plants is not with re- 

 fpecl: to all the cultivated land of that country in the 

 proportion of one to two thoufand. The Americans are 

 the people who labour on the foil. They are the tillers, 

 the fowers, the weeders, and the reapers of the wheat, 

 of the maize, of the rice, of the beans, and other kinds 

 of grain and pulfe, of the cacao, of [he vanilla, of the 

 cotton, of the indigo, and all other plants ufeful to the 



fuftenance* 



(e) Defence dc Recherches, cap. xii. 



