Page:Mexico as it was and as it is.djvu/459

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378
APPENDIX.

ports on the coast from Valparaiso to Panama, better security would be afforded to British merchants against the revolutions, to which the property of all persons resident on those shores is so often exposed, from the feebleness of the Governments, and the successive changes which are the consequence of that weakness.

The establishment of steamboats would render the return of correspondence, against the prevailing southerly winds, of equal rapidity. The trade-winds are not violent in that sea, and men-of-war, in particular, have generally made the pas¬sage down the coast with great dispatch. However, the introduction of Steam Navigation in the West Indies, having already shown that merchant sailing vessels are disposed to carry sufficient coal in ballast, for the supply of fuel; it is equally obvious that the same facilities might be afforded to carry out coal to the Pacific coast, until such time as, from its raised value and the increased demand for it, the inhabitants of those regions may think it worth their while to work the veins of coal, which are well known to exist at various places on the western coast.[1]

London, Sept. 6, 1835
  1. South America and Pacific. Lond. 1838. Vol. II. P. 281