RAOES. 



247 



interval of time elapsed from the peace of the Ver- 

 sailles to the revolution of St. Domingo, Havana has 

 seemed ten times nearer to Spain than Mexico, Car- 

 accas, or New Granada. During my residence in 

 the colonies, fifteen years later, this apparent inequa- 

 lity had already become greatly diminished. At the 

 present time, when the independence of the conti- 

 nental colonies, the importation of the products of 

 foreign industry, and the outflow of the coinage of 

 the new States, have increased the intercourse 

 between Europe and America ; when distance is so 

 much diminished by improvements in navigation, 

 and the inhabitants of Mexico, Colombia, and Gua- 

 temala, rival each other in visiting Europe, the 

 greater part of the old colonies of Spain, at least 

 those washed by the Atlantic, seem also to be much 

 nearer to our continent. 



Such are the changes produced in a few years, 

 and which are extending in an extraordinary degree, 

 by the diffusion of knowledge, and by an activity 

 which had been long repressed, that the contrasts of 

 manners and civilization, which I had observed in 

 the beginning of the present century, in Caraccas, 

 Bogota, Quito, Lima, Mexico, and Habana, have 

 become less apparent. The influence of the original 

 Basques, Catalans, Gallegos, and Andalusians is 

 daily becoming less ; and at this time it would be, 



