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THE NATURE AND CAUSES OE

the country which they in some measure possess, the Spanish colonies are considered as less populous and thriving thanthose of almost any other European nation. The progresseven of the Spanish colonies, however, in population andimprovement, has certainly been very rapid and very great.The city of Lima, founded since the conquest, is representedby Ulloa, as containing fifty thousand inhabitants near thirtyyears ago. Quito , which had been but a miserable hamlet ofIndians, is represented by the same author as in his timeequally populous. Gemelli Carreri, a pretended traveller, itis said, indeed, but who seems everywhere to have writtenupon extreme good information, represents the city of Mexico as containing a hundred thousand inhabitants; a numberwhich, in spite of all the exaggerations of the Spanish writers, is, probably, more than five times greater than whatit contained in the time of Montezuma. These numbers ex-ceed greatly those of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia ,the three greatest cities of the English colonies. Before theconquest of the Spaniards there were no cattle fit for draughteither in Mexico or Peru . The lama was their only beast ofburden, and its strength seems to have been a good deal in-ferior to that of a common ass. The plough was unknownamong them. They were ignorant of the use of iron. Theyhad no coined money, nor any established instrument ofcommerce of any kind. Their commerce was carried on bybarter. A sort of wooden spade was their principal instru-ment of agriculture. Sharp stones served them for knives andhatchets to cut with; fish bones and the hard sinews of cer-tain animals served them for needles to sew with ; and theseseem to have been their principal instruments of trade. Inthis state of things, it seems impossible that either of thoseempires could have been so much improved or so well culti-vated as at present, when they are plentifully furnished withall sorts of European cattle, and when the use of iron, of theplough, and of many of the arts ol Europe , has been intro-duced among them. But the populousness ot every countrymust be in proportion to the degree of its improvement andcultivation. In spite of the cruel destruction of the nativeswhich followed the conquest, these two great empires are,probably, more populous now than they ever were before:and the people are surely very different; for we must ac-knowledge, 1 apprehend, that the Spanish creoles are in manyrespects superior to the ancient Indians.