58 



PROHIBITORY LAWS AGAINST COMMERCE. 



It is perfectly clear that no system of govern- 

 ment can be effective, as far as the public prospe- 

 rity is concerned, if it be not perfectly understood 

 by those whose conduct it is intended to control. 

 This is true, even where the intentions of the rulers 

 are honest, and have for their sole object the wealth 

 and happiness of the people. But when the object 

 is the reverse of this, and when the welfare of the 

 country is studiously repressed, there cannot be 

 conceived a more efficacious plan to perpetuate its 

 degradation. The evil was immensely aggravated 

 also by the manner in which this unintelligible 

 system was constituted. Every individual com- 

 posing it was a stranger in the land, born in a 

 distant country, and had no fellow-feeling nor 

 common interest with the inhabitants. Neither 

 worth nor talents were thought of in nominating to 

 these appointments, the colonial offices being sold 

 in Madrid, and the proceeds at one time made no 

 inconsiderable item in the royal revenues. " All 

 public offices," says the manifesto of Buenos 

 Ayres, " and employments, belonged exclusively to 

 Spaniards ; and although Americans were equally 

 called to them by the laws, they are appointed 

 only in rare instances, and even then not until they 

 have satisfied the cupidity of the court by enormous 

 sums of money. Of one hundred and seventy 

 viceroys that have governed this country, only four 

 have been Americans ; and of six hundred and ten 

 captain-generals and governors, all but fourteen 

 have been Spaniards. The same took place in 

 every other post of importance ; and even amongst 

 the common clerks of office, it was rare to meet 

 with Americans." This was a most grievous op- 

 pression ; but the chief evil which resulted from it 

 consisted not so much in the absolute loss sus- 

 tained by them, in consequence of their exclusion 

 from stations of profit and honour, as in the moral 

 degradation consequent upon the absence of all 

 motive to generous exertion, and the utter hope- 

 lessness that any merit could lead to useful dis- 

 tinction. 



This exclusion did not stop with official prefer- 

 ment, but pervaded every branch of the state : the 

 Spanish government, not content with tying up the 

 hands of the Americans, and forcing them to be 

 idle and vicious, extended this tyranny even to the 

 mind, and forbade the cultivation and exercise of 

 I those faculties which, least of all it might be 

 thought, ought to be subjected to the control of 

 despotism. Not only were agriculture and the 

 arts, and manufactures and commerce, prohibited 

 ; to the natives of the soil ; but literature, and every 

 | species of useful knowledge, was rigorously inter- 

 dicted. To secure this exclusion, the inhabitants 

 were forbid, upon pain of death, to trade with 

 foreigners, none of whom were allowed to visit the 

 country : Spaniards themselves could not set foot 

 in the colonies without special permission, and for 

 a limited time ; and even the inhabitants of the 

 different provinces were denied, as far as it was 

 possible, all intercourse with one another, lest by 

 mutual communication they should increase their 



knowledge. 



The difficulty of governing distant countries 

 with justice and with due consideration for the 

 rights and happiness of the inhabitants, is familiar 



to the mind of every one who has studied our own 

 Indian politics ; where, with the purest intentions 

 of doing everything for the best, innumerable arti- 



fices and anomalous provisions encumber the 

 executive administration, and render the system 

 utterly unintelligible to the natives. Were the 

 same system in the hands of the crown, without 

 being, as at present, administered by a number 

 of individuals of all parties, and, comparatively 

 speaking, indifferent to political power and pa- 

 tronage, there can be little doubt that its practical 

 operation would soon prove destructive of the 

 happiness of the Indian population, even were the 

 intentions of the political authorities at home ever 

 so virtuous. If this be true, with our represen- 

 tative government, and with the numerous consti- 

 tutional checks which arrest the undue exercise 

 of authority at every turn, how much more must 

 it have been in the case of South America ! 

 With us, public opinion, as is universally allowed, 

 is the best safeguard of the happiness of India, 

 and of the permanence of our authority. But 

 in South America, where principles of govern- 

 ment diametrically opposite prevailed, the instant 

 public opinion was allowed to exert its influ- 

 ence, the authority of the parent state was at an 

 end. 



In proportion to the apprehension which the 

 Spaniards felt that the presence of strangers might 

 lessen their authority, they enforced their prohi- 

 bitory laws with rigour. When the Spanish 

 General Morillo captured Carthagena, he seized 

 all the British and foreign merchants, threw them 

 into dungeons, and would unquestionably have 

 shot them all, for a breach of the laws of the 

 Indies, had it not been for the timely interference 

 on the British Admiral of the West India station. 

 It was a capital crime, according to that code, for 

 any foreigner to enter the Spanish dominions with- 

 out a licence. An apprehension of the resentment 

 of other nations has generally prevented the en- 

 forcement of the law to its utmost extent ; but the 

 same end was, perhaps, more effectually served by 

 the most barbarous imprisonments. In Mr. Ro- 

 binson's interesting Memoirs of the Mexican Re- 

 volution, many curious anecdotes are given, which 

 show the pertinacious and vindictive determination 

 with which these regulations were enforced. Mr. 

 Robinson's cruel confinement of two years and a 

 half, for no other crime than having been found 

 in the country without a licence, is an ample com- 

 mentary on the whole subject. " The dungeon in 

 the Castle of San Juan de Ulua, in which he was 

 confined, was fourteen feet under the arches of 

 the castle, and a faint gloomy light was admitted 

 by a small grating at the top." One of his fellow- 

 prisoners, a citizen of the United States, had the 

 skin of his leg chafed by the iron. " From the 

 want of dressings and wholesome aliment, the sore 

 rapidly increased. The irritation and pressure of 

 the iron caused the muscles to become completely 

 ulcerated to the bone. Unavailing were his peti- 

 tions to have his irons taken off, though his groans 

 and excruciating agonies at length so far arrested 

 the attention of his keepers, that he was removed 

 to the hospital. The physician, on examining the 

 horrid state of the leg, immediately addressed a 

 representation to the governor, stating, that unless 

 the irons were removed, death would inevitably 

 ensue. Upon the margin of the memorial, the 

 governor wrote the following inhuman reply, and 

 sent it to the officer of the guard : ' Que los lleva, 

 mientras rcspira.' — ' Let him wear them while ho 



