This page has been validated.
PREFACE.
xi
I was surrounded, than that which I could not but feel, in operations in which British capital to so large an amount is invested.
I never have possessed a single Mining share; yet, from circumstances stated in the body of my work, I have, perhaps, seen more of the mines of New Spain, and am in possession of more data, with regard to their former produce, than the majority of those, whose fortunes depend upon the result of the present attempt to work them by foreign capital.
With regard to my opinion of their present prospects, the public is now in possession of the data upon which it is formed, and may rectify any errors in which I may inadvertently have been betrayed.[1] Convinced that publicity ought to be
- ↑ Amongst these errors I should mention that, in the First Section of the Fourth Book, I may be thought to have challenged a principle of political economy, by alleging an increase in the rate of interest in Mexico as a proof of the diminution of the circulating medium; whereas it might be an indication only of the possibility of employing capital to greater advantage. The fact, however, is correct; for the chasm in the circulation, created by the remittance of the property of the Old Spaniards to Europe, was not filled up by the investments of foreigners, or by the produce of the mines; the two together not having furnished any thing like an equivalent for the amount of the specie withdrawn.
