121 



Quilo, Santa F£, and Caraccas, where an in- 

 terest in statistical researches will be developed 

 only through the enjoyment of an independent 

 government. They who are accustomed to ex- 

 amine ciphers before they admit their truth 

 know, that in newly founded free states delight 

 is taken in exaggerating the increase of the pub- 

 lic fortune ; while in old colonies the list of 

 evils, which are all attributed to the influence 

 of the prohibitory system, is augmented. The 

 people seem to avenge themselves of the mother 

 country, when they exaggerate the stagnation 

 of trade, and the slow progress of population. 



I am not ignorant, that travellers, who have 

 recently visited America, regard this progress as 

 far more rapid than the numbers on which I 

 have fixed in my statistical researches seem to 

 indicate. For the year 1913 they promise one 

 hundred and twelve millions of inhabitants in 

 Mexico, of which they believe that the popula- 

 tion is doubled every twenty-two years ; and for 

 the same epocha one hundred and forty millions 

 in the United States*. These numbers, I con- 

 fess, do not affright me from the motives, that 

 would alarm the zealous disciples of the system 

 of Malthus. Two or three hundred millions of 

 men may very possibly find subsistence one day 

 in the immense extent of the new continent 



Robinson's Memoirs on the Mexican Revolut'ion,\o\. ii, p. 315. 



