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The viceroyalty of New Spain is divided into three provinces and twelve intendancies; which again suffer also some other minute subdivisions, which the enumerations will hereafter be given.

The three provinces and twelve intendancies are as follow:—The province of New Mexico; two provinces of California, or Old and New California. The intendancies of New Biscay, or Durango, Sonora, San Luis Potosi, Zacatecas, Guadalaxara, Guanaxuato, Valladolid or Mechoacan, Mexico, Puebla or Tlascala, Vera Cruz, Oaxaca, or Guaxaca, and Merida or Yucatan. The civil affairs of these great territories are under the control of two supreme councils, called Audienzas Reales, which govern the districts situated to the north and south of a certain line beginning thirty miles to the northward of the Panuco river, or Rio Tampico, in the Gulf of Mexico, and thence to St. Luis Potosi, along the southern boundary of the intendancy of Zacatecas and west side of the intendancy of the Guanaxuato, through the intendancy of Guadalaxara to Guatlan, a port on the Pacific.

To the north of this line, the audienza of Guadalaxara exerts its authority, and the southern part, till New Spain is bounded by the kingdom of Guatimala, is subject to the audienza of Mexico.

This immense viceroyalty is situated partly in the northern temperate, and partly in the torrid zone; and is politically governed by a viceroy nominated by the Court of Spain, and two captain-generals or comandantes generales, who are in some measure under his authority. These last named governors have authority over—Sonora, New Biscay, New Mexico, and the two Californias, which comprise the western captain-generalship; and Coaguila, Texas, the colony of New Santander, and New Leon, in the Intendancy of St. Luis Potosi; which comprise the eastern captain-generalship: part of these are, however, only subject to their authority as military commands, and to name those would afford no satisfaction, as the minute subdivisions of the governments of so vast a country are liable to constant changes.