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Kingdom of New Spain, the surfaces are indicated in square 

 leagues of twenty-five to a degree, as they are for the most 

 part in the statistical works published in France. I repeat 

 these statements, because several modern authors, while 

 they have copied the estimates of surfaces contained in the 

 Political Essay, have confounded, in their reductions, the 

 leagues of twenty-five to a degree with nautical and geo- 

 graphical leagues ; a confusion as lamentable as that of the 

 centigrade and octogesimal scales of the thermometer. By 

 the side of an invariable element, that of the area, depending 

 on the degree of precision of the maps which I constructed, 

 I have placed a very uncertain element, that of population. 

 The following statements will throw light on this subject, 

 which may long have been reasonably called plenum opus 

 alece. In the study of political economy, ciphers, like the 

 elements of meteorology and astronomical tables, can only 

 progressively acquire precision, and we must stop most fre- 

 quently at numbers within certain limits. 



A. POPULATION. 



Mexico. I believe I have proved in another place from 

 positive data, that the population of the Viceroyalty of New 

 Spain in 1804, including the provincias internas and Yucatan, 

 but not the capitania general of Guatimala, contained at least 

 5,840,000 inhabitants, of which 2,500,000 are natives of 

 copper-coloured race ; 1,000,000 of Mexican Spaniards, 

 and 75,000 Europeans. I even announced (Essai politique, 

 Tom. i, p. 65 — 76), that the population in 1808 would be 

 nearly 6,500,000, two or three fifths of it, or 3,250,000, 

 being Indians. The intestine wars, which have long agi- 

 tated the governments of Mexico, Vera Cruz, Valladolid, and 

 Guanaxuato, have no doubt retarded the progress of the 

 annual increase of the Mexican population, which at the 

 time of my stay in the country was probably more than 

 150,000 {Essai pol. torn, i, p. 62 — 64). The proportion of 



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