Bubbles and Bonanzas : British Investors and Investments in Mexico, 1824-1860

It is a little known fact of British history that between 1824 and 1825, British people invested approximately 10 million pounds in Mexico. This enormous sum of money did not come from the British government, the Bank of England, or, for the most part, rich merchants, landowners, or British aristocrats. It came from the incomes, pensions, and savings of thousands of ordinary British people, including rural vicars, country doctors, merchants, local bankers and solicitors, retired army and navy officers, shopkeepers and myriad other individuals who risked their money in the future of Mexico. Why did they do it? Why did the four Cazenove brothers of the banking family, or the three Twining brothers of tea fame, or Dr. Peter Roget, author of the famous Theasaurus that most of us still use today, choose Mexico for their investments? What did they know about the country, its history, economoy, politics and prospects? Why was it that the British, even after losing millions of pounds in their Mexican investments, continued to believe that Mexico was a land of unlimited opportunity? Bubbles and Bonanzas is the first detailed study of British investments and investors in Mexico in the first four decades after independence. Costeloe gives economic history a human face that offers fascinating detail and new information about the origins and scope of British interest in independent Mexico.