but because it has been extremely difficult, during the last three years, to obtain data, in Mexico, sufficiently exact to warrant any definitive opinion.
It will, therefore, often be impossible for me to demonstrate satisfactorily the correctness of the conclusions which I may be inclined to form, even where general appearances are sufficiently strong to justify them to myself; and this must give an appearance of vagueness to the results of my enquiries, which I have endeavoured, in the preceding Sections, most studiously to avoid.
Having pointed out the difficulties with which this part of my undertaking is attended, I shall enter upon it without farther preamble, commencing, as I have always done, my account of the present state of the Mexican trade, with a retrospective view of what it was before 1810.
From the time of the Conquest until the commencement of the Revolution, the Trade of Mexico was confined to the two Ports of Ăcăpūlcŏ and Vĕrăcruz, through which a very limited supply of Chinese, and European manufactures was introduced for the consumption of the inhabitants. The Acapulco trade was conducted by one Royal Galleon, of from twelve, to fifteen hundred tons; and, until the year 1778, when a certain freedom of trade was conceded to the Colonies, the European imports were, in like manner, conveyed to the Eastern coast of New Spain in fleets of Register ships, chartered expressly by Government for the purpose, and placed
