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by the multiplication of one family only, a con- 

 tinent previously desert may reckon in the space 

 of eight centuries more than eight millions of 

 inhabitants ; and yet these estimations, founded 

 on the hypothesis of a constant doubling in twenty- 

 five or thirty years, are contradicted by the his- 

 tory of every country already advanced in civil- 

 ization. The destinies, which await the free 

 states of Spanish America, are too glorious, to 

 stand in need of being embellished by illusions, 

 and chimerical calculations. 



Area and Population. — To fix the attention of 

 the reader on the political importance of the 

 ancient Capitania general of Venezuela, I shall 

 begin by comparing it with the great masses, in 

 which the various nations of the New Continent 

 are now grouped. It is by rising to more general 

 views, that we may hope to throw some interest 

 on the detail of those statistical data, which are 

 the variable elements of national prosperity and 

 power. Among the thirty-four millions of in- 

 habitants spread over the vast surface of con- 

 tinental America, in which estimate the savage 

 and native inhabitants are comprised, we dis- 

 tinguish, according to the three preponderant 

 races, sixteen millions and a half in the posses- 

 sions of the Spanish Americans, ten millions in 

 those of the Angloamericans, and nearly four 

 millions in those of the Portuguese Americans, 

 The population of these three great divisions is, 



