COMMERCE. 



295 



Cuba does not arise solely from the wealth of its 

 products, nor from its demand for the wares and 

 fabrics of Europe ; but that this importance is based, 

 in part, upon the admirable situation of the port of 

 Havana, at the entrance of the Mexican Gulf, and 

 immediately where the great routes of the commer- 

 cial nations of both worlds cross each other. The 

 Abbe Eaynal has said, at a time when its agricul- 

 ture contributed, in sugar and coffee, barely two 

 millions to the commerce of the world, " The island 

 of Cuba alone may be worth a kingdom to Spain." 



These memorable words have been, in some 

 degree, prophetic, and since she has lost Mexico, 

 Peru, and so many other States that have attained 

 their independence, they should be seriously pon- 

 dered by the statesmen who may guide the political 

 interests of Spain. The island of Cuba, to which 

 the court of Madrid has long since conceded great 

 freedom of trade, exports, through licit and illicit 

 channels, its own productions of sugar, coffee, 

 tobacco, wax, and hides, to the amount of fourteen 

 millions of dollars at the present time (1825). This 

 is only one-third less than that of Mexico at the 

 time of her greatest mining prosperity. It may be 

 said, that Havana and Vera Cruz are to the rest of 

 America, what New York is to the United States. 

 The tonnage of the thousand or twelve hundred 

 merchant ships that annually arrive at the port of 



