industry capable of producing such beneficial effects? And alone capable of producing them: for Mexico, without her mines, (I cannot too often repeat it,) notwithstanding the fertility of her soil, and the vast amount of her former Agricultural produce, can never rise to any importance in the scale of nations. The markets of the Table-land must be home-markets, and these the mines alone can supply. On the Coasts, indeed, the productions of the Tropics, which we term Colonial Produce, might serve as an object of barter; but these, supposing their cultivation to be carried to the greatest possible extent, could never cover the demand upon European industry, which the wants of a population of eight millions will, under more favourable circumstances, occasion, as their value must decrease in proportion to the superabundance of the supply, until they reach the point, at which their price, when raised, would cease to repay the cost of raising them. Thus the trade of Mexico would be confined to her Vanilla, and Cochineal, (of which she has a natural monopoly;) while the number of those who consume European Manufactures in the Interior, (which does not yet include one half of the population,) would be reduced probably to one-tenth. Fortunately, there is no reason whatever to apprehend the approach of that scarcity of mineral productions, with which many seem to think that New Spain is menaced. Hitherto, at least, every step that has been taken in exploring the country, has led to fresh indications of
