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that union is composed wholly of whites, and of 

 Negroes, who, torn from their country, or born 

 in the New World, are become the instruments 

 of the industry of the whites. In Mexico, Gua- 

 temala, Quito, and Peru, on the contrary, there 

 exist in our day more than five millions and a 

 half of natives of copper-coloured race, whose 

 isolated position, partly forced and partly volun- 

 tary, attachment to ancient habits, and mistrust- 

 ful inflexibility of character, will long prevent 

 their participation in the progress of the public 

 prosperity, notwithstanding the artifices em- 

 ployed to disindianize them. 



I dwell on the differences between the free 

 states of temperate and equinoxial America, to 

 show, that the latter have to struggle with ob- 

 stacles connected with their physical and moral 

 situation ; and to remind the reader, that the 

 countries embellished by nature with the most 

 varied and precious productions, are not always 

 susceptible of an easy, rapid, and uniformly 

 extended cultivation. If we investigate the 

 limits, which the population may attain, as de- 

 pending solely on the quantity of subsistence, 

 that the land can produce, the most simple 

 calculations would prove the preponderance of 

 the communities established in the fine regions 

 of the torrid zone ; but political economy, or 

 the positive science of government, distrusts 

 ciphers and vain abstractions. We know, that 



