XII PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 
General Education, and entire Doniestic Tranquillity, what might not 
Mexico become, in a few years under the hand of a strong and virtuous 
Government ! During my residence there and my travels throughout 
the Republic, I had often to recognize fine talents, good personal qualities, 
and vast natural resources, but all, generally neglected or denied the 
opportunity of advancement, I never saw a modern plough on a Mexi- 
can farm, a rake in a husbandman's hand, a wheelbarrow in a labor- 
er's grasp, a cart bearing the ordinary burthens of trade, or a Bible 
in a Mexican house ! That strange race of antique men in which Celti- 
Gallic, Celt-Iberian, Carthagenian, Roman, Vandalic,Visigothic and Moor- 
ish blood had mingled, was, again, crossed in Mexico by the Indian, and 
even dashed, in some instances, with the African, It is a mosaic blood 
and furnishes a curious matter for the study of physiologists. It is a race 
striving for new things, yet regretting to quit its grasp on the old. In 
speculation it looks forward ; yet, in the Superstitions of Religion and in 
the crude primitiveness of Art and Trade, it cleaves to the past. Mexico 
is a graft rather of the wild Arab on the base Indian, than of the Spanish 
Don on the noble Aztec. From the bondage of superstitious custom 
Mexico requires disenthralment. But, to effect this delivery she must 
have TEACE imposed on her by a firm hand. Since 1823, no less than 
seventeen revolutions have succeeded her rejection of the Spanish yoke. 
Can it be said that such a nation is competent to govern itself? Has it 
ever governed itself? Nay, has it done so, peacefully, even for a single 
year ? Can such a miscalled democracy have an effective public opinion ? 
With rulers shifting like the winds, what permanent policy can such a 
government pursue. Indeed, in all her vicissitudes, in what has Mexico 
exhibited the slightest symptom of constancy, save in her deep, immedi- 
cable hostility to our Union ? 
If this were a mere abstract, sapless dislike, — a sort of hereditary hatred 
like that between France and England or between the Genoese, the Tus- 
cans and the Neapolitans — we might pass it over and trust to Time to 
make us better friends ; but this animosity is growing into an active, un- 
tiring, energetic, agent of annoyance, until we see no possible termina- 
tion to our difficulties but such authoritative interposition as will convince 
Mexico that this Union means to maintain its station as head of the Ameri- 
can governments, and is resolved to put an end forever to the idea of 
European interference in the affairs of our Continent, This is a policy 
that should be adopted, and, if successfully pursued, would unquestionably 
terminate in a firm alliance between the two Republics and the formation of 
a treaty, offensive and defensive, which would secure our perpetual amity. 
In regard to the domestic peace of Mexico, I have great hesitation in 
speaking with any certainty as to a mode by which it might be secured. 
The notion, broached in European and American papers, that Mexico is 
willing to establish a monarchy and receive a royal scion of some Euro- 
pean house to grace her throne, is only one of the thousand ridiculous 
surmises thai are hazarded by blundering paragraphists. Nothing can be 
