436 



the court of Spain to have those excellent no- 

 tions of political economy delivered to the 

 editors of the Peruvian Mercury, which they 

 have published. It was in Mexico, and not at 

 Madrid, that I heard Count de Revillagigedo, 

 the viceroy, blamed for having informed all New 

 Spain, that the capital of a country, which has 

 six millions of inhabitants, contained in 1790 

 only two thousand three hundred Europeans, 

 while it was computed, that there were more 

 than fifty thousand Hispano-Americans. The 

 persons who uttered these complaints considered 

 the fine establishment of posts, by which a letter 

 travels from Buenos Ay res to New California, as 

 one of the n>ost dangerous conceptions of Count 

 Florida Blanca. They counselled (happily with- 

 out success) the rooting up of the vines of New 

 Mexico and Chili, in order to favour the com- 

 merce of the mother country. Strange blind- 

 ness, which can make it believed, that num- 

 berings will reveal to the colonies the conscious- 

 ness of their strength ! It is only in times of 

 discord and internal troubles, that an exami- 

 nation of the relative preponderance of casts 

 that ought all to be animated by one interest, 

 seems intended to estimate beforehand the num- 

 ber of combatants. 



If we compare the seven united provinces of 

 Venezuela to the kingdom of Mexico and the 

 island of Cuba, we shall succeed in finding the 



