429 



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the safety of their anchorage at different seasons, 

 possess all the advantages of the interior Carib- 

 bean Sea. The communications with the greater 

 islands, and even with those that are to wind- 

 ward, can no where be more frequent than from 

 the ports of Cum ana, Barcelona, La Guay- 

 ra, Porto Cabello, Coro, and Maracaybo ; and 

 no where has it been found more difficult to 

 restrain an illicit commerce with strangers. 

 Can we wonder, that this facility of commercial 

 intercourse with the inhabitants of free America, 

 and the agitated nations of Europe, should 

 have augmented in conjunction, in the pro- 

 vinces united under the Capitania-General of 

 Venezuela, opulence, knowledge, and that rest- 

 less desire of a local government, which is 

 blended with the love of liberty and republican 

 forms. 



The copper-coloured natives, or Indians? 

 constitute a very important mass of the agri- 

 cultural population only in those places, where 

 the Spaniards found regular governments, a 

 civil community, and ancient and very com- 

 plicated institutions, at the Conquest; as in 

 New Spain, south of Durango ; and in Peru, 

 from Cusco to Potosi. In the Capitania-Gene- 

 ral of Caraccas, the Indian population is incon- 

 siderable, at least beyond the Missions, and in 

 the cultivated zone. At the moments of great 

 political dissentions, the natives excite no fear 



