"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 nor 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 Cholulu 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,[95]--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."[96] 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 with regard to 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 a 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. Thus does a Mexican leave the door open to the foreigner. CONCLUSION. Such are some of the prophetic voices about America, differing in character and importance, but all having one augury, and opening one vista, illimitable in extent and vastness. Farewell to the idea of Montesquieu, that a republic can exist only in a small territory.