LETTER XXVIII. 
MEXICAN CHARACTER. 
I HAVE adverted already in previous letters to the private character and 
domestic customs of the Mexicans, and confess, that I came to the coun- 
try with opinions anything but favorable to the morals, tastes, or habits 
of the people. It was alleged, that they entertained a positive antipathy 
to foreigners, and that the exclusive system of Spain, under which they 
were educated, had excited in them a distaste for innovation ; an insouciant 
contentment with the "statu quo;" and, in fact, had created in our New 
Worl'd a sort of China in miniature. 
I think it exceedingly reasonable, that the Mexicans should be shy of 
foreigners. They have been educated in the strict habits of the Catholic 
creed ,• they know no language but their own ; the customs of their coun- 
try are different from others ; the strangers who visit them are engaged 
in the eager contests of commercial strife ; and, besides being of differ- 
ent religion and language, they are chiefly from those northern nations, 
whose tastes and feelings have nothing kindred with the impul- 
sive dispositions of the ardent south. In addition to the selfish spirit of 
gain that pervades the intercourse of these visitors, and gives them no 
character of permanency or sympathy with the country, they have been 
accustomed to look down on the Mexicans with contempt for their obso- 
lete habits, without reflecting, that they were not justly censurable for 
traditional usages which they had no opportunity of improving by com- 
parison with the progress of civilization among other nations. 
Yet, treating these people with the frankness of a person accustomed 
to find himself at home wherever he goes, avoiding the egotism of na- 
tional prejudices, and meeting them in a spirit of benevolence ; I have 
found them kind, gentle, hospitable, intelligent, benevolent, and brave. 
Among their better classes, no people see more clearly than they do the 
vices of an ill-regulated society and the misery of their political condi- 
tion ; but, when rebuked in the presumptuous and austere spirit of arro- 
gant strangers, they repel the rudeness by distance and reserve. The 
consequence is, that these disturbers of social decency are seldom the 
chosen friends or inmates of their dwellings. The Mexicans are a proud 
