MEXICO. 53 The valley of Cuernavaca suffered much in the first years of the revolution, and particularly during the siege of Cuautla Amilpas, in 1814, when most of the neighbouring estates were destroyed by the contending armies. They have, how- ever, recovered their losses during the last ten years, and I could not discover that there was any reason to believe that the total produce of the valley ever much exceeded that of the present day. The establishment of a Trapiche (a term implying all the works requisite for a sugar estate) is attended with too much expense for me to venture to predict any very rapid extension of the cultivation of sugar ; although, in thirty years, (from 1763 to 1793,) the number of Ingenios, (sugar plantations,) in the island of Cuba, increased from seventy, to three hun- dred and five ; and, in ten years more, (1796 to 1806,) rose from three hundred and five, to four hundred and eighty : but this was occasioned by an influx of planters from Hayti, who brought with them both capital and science ; whereas, in Mexico, the men who possessed the largest share of both these essential requisites, (the old Spanish proprietors,) have quitted the country, and abandoned in many instances, Avhat- ever property they could not realize. This is a drawback, for which the present freedom of intercourse with the Old World cannot afford any immechate compensation. That it will do so, ultimately, I cannot doubt ; for the advantages of this mode of investing capital must long be great, in a coun- try where the home consumption alone has kept the price of sugar, during the last ten years, at nearly double the average market-price in the Havanna,* and where the system of free labour renders the expense of working the estate infinitely less. That it does produce this effect, seems to be proved by
- The prices at the Havanna averaged, from 1810 to 1815, sixteen to
twenty reals per Arroba; in 1822. from ten to fourteen reals; in 1826, from nine to thirteen, or twenty-four dollars the case. — Vide Humboldt Essai Politique sur I'lle de Cuba.
