INTRODUCTION. 101 



" Observe the difference that a year of independence has produced 

 in public opinion. In those whom youthen looked upon as enemies 

 you have discovered your truest friends ; and those that were esteem- 

 ed friends have proved to be your enemies. Remember the ideas 

 that were received a short time since, concerning commerce and 

 manufactures ; and compare them with the just and liberal notions 

 you now entertain on these matters. Did you not, accustomed to 

 the blind habits of Spanish monopoly, believe, that it would be a 

 robbery to Guayaquil if her commerce were not limited to her own 

 merchants ? Were not all strangers forbidden by restrictive laws 

 from attending to their own business or interests, as if they had come 

 only for your benefit ? and you kept officers, seamen, and ships, for 

 your own commerce, without needing that of other nations. Now 

 you perceive the truth ; and an enlightened government is ready not 

 only to follow the public opinion in the promotion of your riches, 

 happiness, and strength, but to assist it by the glorious privilege of 

 disseminating, by means of the press, the just opinions of great and 

 wise men on political matters, without fear of the Inquisition, the 

 stake, or the faggot. 



" It is very gratifying to me to observe the change that has taken 

 place in your ideas concerning political ceconomy, and to see that 

 you can appreciate and despise as it deserves the clamour of the 

 few that still perhaps desire to interrupt the general prosperity, 

 although I cannot believe that any inhabitant of Guayaquil can be 

 capable of placing his private interest in competition with the public 

 good. However, if such a one do exist, let us ask that monopolist, 

 if his particular profit is superior to that of the community, and if 

 commerce, agriculture, and manufactures are to be paralysed for him ? 



" Enlightened Guayaquilenos ! cause your public press to declare 

 the consequences of monopoly, and affix your names to the defence 

 of your system : demonstrate that if the province of Guayaquil 

 contains 80,000 inhabitants, and that eighty of those are privileged 

 merchants, the effects of the monopoly bear upon 9999 persons 

 out of 10,000, because the cottonsj coffee, cocoa, tobacco, timber, 



