The Mexican paintings are extremely singular, being on stags skins prepared for the purpose; on paper made of the agave, and on other substances. These people preserved by symbolical paintings, the memory of former events relating to their general and particular history; the colours are extremely bright, and the designs, though rude, are well executed. _Manufactures._--The manufactured articles of New Spain, consist chiefly in cottons, woollens, soap, and soda, plate, coin, powder, cigars, and snuff. The manufacture of tobacco is a royal monopoly, and carried on by the government; the others are principally carried on by individuals, (coin and powder excepted,) who employ the Indians, mulattoes, negroes, &c., and are (in large establishments) allowed a certain number of slaves. There are some trifling manufactories of crockery-ware and glass in the cities near the capital. The silver and gold taken from the mines, is either wrought into services of plate for the table, for the churches, in ornamental works, or is coined at the royal mint of Mexico, which was established by Antonio de Mendoza, first viceroy of Mexico, fourteen years after the conquest; it is estimated that upwards of four hundred and eight millions of money has issued from this mint since that period. The Indians manufacture beautiful toys of bone, wood, &c. Cabinet-ware and turnery are executed with great skill by the white artisans, the woods they are able to employ being cheap and beautiful; carriages are also made in New Spain, but most of those which are in use in the capital and great cities, by the nobility and gentry of fashion, are the productions of the London workshops. _Commerce._--The commerce of New Spain has been of late years considerably augmented, both by the great additions made to agriculture, and by the formation of good roads from the interior; when these shall become sufficiently finished to admit of the conveyance of merchandise by means of waggons instead of on the backs of horses, mules, and Indians, the commercial relations of New Spain, will embrace the most remote countries of the Old World. The internal traffic consists chiefly in maize, ingots of metal carried from the mines of the capital to be coined or assayed, hides, flour, tallow, woollens, European goods, of which iron and mercury form the most prominent articles; cocoa, chocolate, copper, woods for the cabinet-makers, cottons, wines, tobacco, sugar, rum, pulque, wax, powder for the mines, &c.