xvi A Discourse on Agriculture, 



pirics and military tyranny, scourged and flayed, her agricul- 

 ture has flourished ; since, in consequence of her revolution, 

 that property has hecome generally divided which had heen 

 accumulated in the hands of the crown, the great lords and 

 the church. The people have hecome proprietors ; are re- 

 leased from the feodal services and tenures ; and have heen 

 encouraged and permitted freely to follow their agricultural 

 occupations. Nor, until their late catastrophe, had their soil 

 been trodden by hostile feet during a long period. 



Spain continues to exhibit a melancholy proof, that autoc- 

 racy and agriculture cannot cordially exist together. The 

 plough has long been almost idle, in that country. Cursed by 

 the productions of her American mines (as a punishment for 

 the crimes by which they were acquired) she has, for an age, 

 neglected to cultivate her fertile soil, with activity and agri- 

 cultural intelligence; depending on the precious metals, in- 

 stead of the more precious produce of the fields. Indolence, 

 poverty, ignorance and its attendant bigotry, have been the 

 lamentable consequences, among the great mass of a popula- 

 tion capable of wonderful exertions and gallant exploits, when 

 honestly and wisely directed. Her '< beloved" Ferdinand has 

 gained no wisdom by misfortune. He has restored all the dele- 

 terious and sordid corruptions of her old government; which 

 has relapsed into the darkness of the middle ages. All her 

 bright prospects have vanished. Her splendid achievements, 

 which of late dazzled and delighted us, have passed away like 

 gaudy and glowing meteors corruscating o'er the bosom of 

 night ; and have served only to render her darkness more hor- 

 ribly visible. If, in the course of uncontrolable events, her 

 foreign TreasiiiWs should be taken from her ; industry, for- 

 ced by necessity, would create more permanent and beneficial 

 resources. Her deserts and trackless wastes, now the fre- 

 quent haunts of a daring banditti, would smile with cheerful 

 labour and exuberant plenty. Her wandering shepherds and 

 starving cultivators of the vine and the olive, would seize the 

 plough, as the implement which would cause general wealth 

 and exhaustless abundance to rise from the surface of the 

 earth ; in place of fascinating but fugatious treasure, obtained 



