130 



COMMERCE. 



vatcd, and the commerce and circulation of their produce 

 exercised and facilitated ; it being evident that a depopulated 

 state cannot make any successful progress in these branches of 

 industry. But, in the same way as every kingdom has need of 

 agriculture for its subsistence, so has every increase, to be sus- 

 tained, need of a population either proper or extraneous, 

 that is, of purchasers who may secure to the cultivator the 

 enjoyment of the fruit of his labours. Where there is, there- 

 fore, a deficiency of hands for the rural operations, and of 

 mouths for the consumption, encouragement is void ; inso- 

 much, that abundance itself, far from constituting riches, be- 

 comes real and substantial misery. 



If the situation of Peru be regulated by these principles, it 

 must be acknowledged that there are insuperable difficulties 

 and impediments, which oppose the ideal proje6ls of felicity 

 founded on the augmentation of her natural productions, and 

 on the assiduous cultivation of her plains. Compared with 

 her extensive territory, the population forms what may be 

 termed a desert : a million of inhabitants, or, according 

 to the highest computation, a million and four hundred 

 thousand, is a sad disproportion to so many leagues of 

 extent. 



Spain, in a smaller space, maintained in the time of Julius 

 Caesar fifty-two millions of souls. It appears by a discourse 

 addressed, in 1624, to the churches of Castille, by Manrique, 

 Bishop of Bajadoz, that in his time there was a deficiency of 

 seven parts in ten. of the ancient population ; and, according 

 to the national political writers, this vacuity is the real cause 

 of there being, in one of the most fertile provinces, that of 

 Estramadura, uncultivated lands capable of producing more 



than 



