MIXED POPULAIlOIf. 
127 
ur ready to be sold in lots for the profit of the state, are 
^^ucli less common than Europeans imagine. Hence it 
tollows, that the progress of colonization cannot be every- 
'' here as free and rapid in Spanish America, as it has 
hitherto been in the western jiroidnces of the United States, 
-‘■he population of that union is composed wholly of whites, 
and of negros, who, having been torn from their country, or 
porn in the New World, have become the instruments of the 
^dnstry of the whites. In Mexico, Guatemala, Quito, and 
I prUj on the contrary, there exist in our day more than five 
pnihons and a half of natives of cop])er-coloured race, whose 
isolated position, partly forced and partly voluntary, together 
'' fl their attachment to ancient habits, and their mistrustful 
Ihtlesibility of character, will long prevent their participation 
'h the progress of the public prosperity, notwithstanding the 
ofiorts employed to disindianize them. 
I dwell on the differences between the free states of tem- 
porate and equinocthd America, to show that the latter 
'nve to contend against obstacles connected with their 
Physical and moral position; and to remind the reader 
‘at the countries embellished with the most varied and 
precious productions of nature, are not always susceptible 
an easy, rapid, and uniformly extended cultivation. If 
“ consider the limits w-hich the population may attain, 
' ® depending solely on the quantity of subsistence w'hich 
.'0 land is capable of producing, the most simplo calcula- 
pvould prove the preponderance of the communities 
® abliglied in the fine regions of the torrid zone; but poli- 
eal economy, or the positive science of government, is dis- 
“sttul of ciphers and vain abstractions. We know, that by 
multiplication of one family only, a continent previously 
may reckon in the space of eight centuries more than 
fo° inhabitants; and yet these estimates, 
tw**^*^*^^ on the hj'pothesis of a continuous doubling in 
qj. ®“l^y-five or thirty years, are contradicted by the history 
mery country already advanced in civilization 'The 
W’hich await the free states of Spanish America, 
pi,; glorious to require to be embellished by illusions and 
morical calculations. 
the fhe thirty-four million inhabitants spread over 
‘^ast surface of continental .‘Vmerica, in which estimate 
