172 SPANISH LOANS. 



constant and variable between Cadiz, Bilboa, Barcelona and Ma- 

 dridbetween each other or with the metropolis as exist between 

 Paris and London, or Hamburg and Amsterdan, The Privilegis de 

 Morcaderes in the thirteenth century exhibits a system of custom- 

 house law remarkable for its liberality. The Navigation Act, justly 

 regarded as the foundation of our maritime renown and commercial 

 superiority, far from being, us commonly assumed, a master dis- 

 covery of the political and economical wisdom of Great Britain, had 

 long (from the thirteenth century) been known and acted upon in 

 principle in Catalonia ; had been adopted into the public code of the 

 Peninsula 100 years before it became nationalized here. Even the 

 theory of value on which paper-money is based was early known 

 among the Spaniards, for in the commencement of the seventeenth 

 century we find Don Juan Judice Fiesco proposing to the Cortes, in 

 order to remedy the evil of a deficient currency, that the escrituras 

 de juros State Annuity Deeds should be converted into notes pay- 

 able to bearer, in convenient amounts, and bearing interest, which 

 might circulate in commerce as money a species of paper security 

 almost exactly resembling and performing the functions of our ex- 

 chequer bills. From this time forward until the extinction of the 

 Austrian dynasty Spain did nothing but retrograde. Upon the acces- 

 sion of the house of Bourbon a certain impulse was however again 

 communicated to the march of national improvement, but the useful 

 sciences, which'are as the breath of its nostrils, are not the growth of 

 a day, and made no very sensible progress until the accession of 

 Carlos III. In that reign the people were numbered twice, the last 

 census giving a population of 10,342,550 inhabitants, or little less 

 than the number now assigned to Spain ; so that in population as in 

 the arts and sciences the Peninsula has remained nearly stationary 

 during the last fifty years. Under this enlightened monarch the bank 

 of San Carlos was founded, an institution of high national 'utility 

 During the provident administration of Don Miguel de Muzquiz, 

 public faith was vindicated by the first extinction of vales, and the 

 public creditor for the first time reinstated in the capital advanced 

 in moments of emergency to the government. This was indeed an 

 epoch without parallel in the national history. Galvez directed a 

 mortal blow at the monopoly of Cadiz and its galeones, so famous in 

 the records of our nautical exploits, by throwing open at once to trade 

 twenty-two ports in the Peninsula, and the ultramarine dependencies 

 of America. Public roads, splendid works for those days, were 

 opened in the interior, and canals made and projected. The esta- 

 blishment of patriotic and economical societies, carefully fostered in 

 most of the great cities by this paternal government, under the title of 

 amigos del pais, had, by spreading knowledge and exciting emula- 

 tion, greatly contributed to these providential results ; public spirit 

 and public confidence knew no bounds. The direct consequences, 

 in a financial and national point of view, were, that the revenues of 

 the Indies ascended from 100,000,000 reales vellon to 240,000,000 ; 

 that in the space of eight years the Colonial trade was trebled in 

 amount; the net disposable revenues of the state advanced from 



