“Mexico will be, without doubt, a land of prosperity from its natural advantages, _but it will not be so for the races which now inhabit it_. As it seemed the destiny of the peoples who established themselves therein at different and remote epochs to perish from the face of it, leaving hardly a memory of their existence; even as the nation which built the edifices of Palenque, and those which we admire in the peninsula of Yucatan, was destroyed without its being known what it was or how it disappeared; _even as the Toltecs perished by the hands of barbarous tribes coming from the North_, no record of them remaining but the pyramids of Cholula and Teotihuacan; and, finally, even as the ancient Mexicans fell beneath the power of the Spaniards, _the country gaining infinitely by this change of dominion, but its ancient masters being overthrown_;--so likewise its present inhabitants shall be ruined and hardly obtain the compassion they have merited, and the Mexican nation of our days shall have applied to it what a celebrated Latin poet said of one of the most famous personages of Roman history, STAT MAGNI NOMINIS UMBRA,[645]--Nothing more remains than the shadow of a name illustrious in another time. “May the Almighty, in whose hands is the fate of nations, and who by ways hidden from our sight abases or exalts them according to the designs of His providence, be pleased to grant unto ours the protection by which He has so often deigned to preserve it from the dangers to which it has been exposed!”[646] Most affecting words of prophecy! Considering the character of the author as statesman and historian, it could have been only with inconceivable anguish that he made this terrible record for the land whose child and servant he was. Born and reared in Mexico, honored by its important trusts, and writing the history of its independence, it was his country, having for him all that makes country dear; and yet thus calmly he consigns the present people to oblivion, while another enters into those happy places where Nature is so bountiful. And so a Mexican leaves the door open to the foreigner. CONCLUSION. Such are prophetic voices, differing in character and importance, but all having one augury, and opening one vista, illimitable in extent and vastness. Farewell to the narrow thought of Montesquieu, that a republic can exist only in a small territory![647] Through representation and federation a continent is not too much for practical dominion, nor is it beyond expectation. Well did Webster say, “The prophecies and the poets are with us”; and then again, “In regard to this country there is no poetry like the poetry of events, and all the prophecies lag behind their fulfilment.”[648] But my purpose is not with the fulfilment, except as it stands forth visible to all.