131 



Guatimala. This country, which has been hitherto de- 

 signated as a kingdom, comprises the four bishoprics of 

 Guatimala, Leon de Nicaragua, Chiapa or Ciudad Real, and 

 Comayagua or Honduras. A numbering made in 1778 by 

 the secular government, which was kindly communicated 

 to me by Mr. Del Barrio (deputed to the Cortes of Madrid 

 before the declaration of the independence of Mexico), gave 

 only a populution of 797,214 inhabitants ; but don Domingo 

 Juarros, the learned author of the Compendio de la historia de 

 Guatemala, published successively in 1809—1818, has 

 proved, that this result is very inaccurate (vol. i, p. 9 and 

 SI). The numberings made at the same period by order 

 of the bishops gave above a third more. During my stay 

 at Mexico, the population of Guatimala, where the Indians 

 are extremely numerous, was computed from official docu - 

 ments at 1,200,000 ; and it is now estimated by persons, to 

 whom the localities are well known, at two millions. Being 

 always desirous of stopping at numbers erring on the de- 

 ficient side, I have reckoned the population only at 1,600,000. 



Cuba and Portorico. The population of the great island 

 of Portorico is little known ; it has much increased since 

 the year 1807, when it was computed at 136,000 inhabitants, 

 of which 17,500 were slaves. The census of the island of 

 Cuba gave in 1811, as we have said above, 600,000 in- 

 habitants, of which 212,000 were slaves. (Documentos de que 

 hasta ahora se compone el expediente sobre los negros de la isla 

 de Cuba, Madrid, 1817, p. 139.) In another official do- 

 cument much more recent (Reclamazion hecha por los Repre- 

 sentantes de Cuba contra le ley de aranceles, Madrid, 1821, 

 p. 6), the total population is computed at 630,980 souls. 



Columbia. The seven provinces, which heretofore formed 

 the Capitania general of Caraccas, had, at the beginning of 

 the 19th century, at the moment when the revolution burst 

 forth, nearly 800,000 inhabitants, according to the ma- 



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