profit upon the importation there, and therefore they will have no right
to complain of the duties levied in the ports of Mexico upon the
consumers of those goods--the people of Mexico. The whole money
collected would inure to the benefit of our own Government and people,
to sustain the war and to prevent to that extent new loans and increased
taxation. Indeed, in view of the fact that the Government is thrown upon
the ordinary revenues for peace, with no other additional resources but
loans to carry on the war, the income to be derived from the new system,
which it is believed will be large if these suggestions are adopted,
would be highly important to sustain the credit of the Government, to
prevent the embarrassment of the Treasury, and to save the country from
such ruinous sacrifices as occurred during the last war, including the
inevitable legacy to posterity of a large public debt and onerous
taxation. The new system would not only arrest the expensive transfer
and ruinous drain of specie to Mexico, but would cause it, in duties and
in return for our exports, to reflow into our country to an amount,
perhaps, soon exceeding the $9,000,000 which it had reached in 1835 even
under the restrictive laws of Mexico, thus relieving our own people from
a grievous tax and imposing it where it should fall, upon our enemies,
the people of Mexico, as a contribution levied upon them to conquer a
peace as well as to defray the expenses of the war; whereas by admitting
our exports freely, without duty, into the Mexican ports which we may
occupy from time to time, and affording those goods, including the
necessaries of life, at less than one-half the prices which they had
heretofore paid for them, the war might in time become a benefit instead
of a burden to the people of Mexico, and they would therefore be
unwilling to terminate the contest. It is hoped also that Mexico, after
a peace, will never renew her present prohibitory and protective system,
so nearly resembling that of ancient China or Japan, but that,
liberalized, enlightened, and regenerated by the contact and intercourse