130 



births to the population appeared to be one to seventeen; 

 and that of deaths one to thirty. In admitting for eighteen 

 years only an increase of a million of inhabitants, I believe 

 I have estimated high enough the effects of those popular 

 commotions, which have interrupted the working of mines, 

 commerce, and agriculture. Researches made in the country 

 itself have recently proved, that the estimates I formed 

 twelve years ago are not far from the truth. Don Fernando 

 Navarro y Noriega has published at Mexico the results of 

 an extensive inquiry into the number of curatos y missiones 

 of Mexico ; he estimates the population of the country in 

 1810 at 6,128,000. (Calaloga de los curatos que tiene la Nueva 

 Espdfta, 1813, p. 38 j and Rispuesta de un Mexicano al n° 

 200 del Universal, p. 7). The same author, enabled by his 

 offiee in the finances (Contador de los ramos de arbitrios) to 

 examine the statistic statements on the spot, thinks (Memo- 

 ria sobre la poblacion de Nueva Espana, Mexico 1814, and 

 Semanario politico y literario de la Nueva Espana, n°. 20, p. 94) 

 that in 1810 the population of New Spain, without including 

 the provinces of Guatimala, was composed of the following 

 elements : 



1,097,928 Europeans and American Spaniards. 

 3,676,281 Indians. 

 1,338,706 of mixed race. 



4,229 secular ecclesiastics. 



3,1 L2 ecclesiastics of the regular clergy. 



2,098 nuns. 



6,122,354 



\ am inclined to believe, that New Spain has at present 

 nearly seven millions of inhabitants, and this is also the 

 opinion of a respectable prelate, the archbishop of Mexico, 

 don Jose de Fonte, who has travelled through a considerable 

 part of his diocese, and whom I had recently the honour of 

 seeing again at Paris. 



