SPANISH COMMERCIAL SYSTEM. 



CI 



CHAPTER XXII. 



Commercial System. — Ordinance against the Hospitable 

 Reception of Strangers. — Coast Blockade.— Contraband 

 Laws. — Influence of the Catholic Religion. — Benefits 

 conferred upon the New World by the Spaniards. 



The commercial system was in strict character 

 with all the rest of this extraordinary mass of 

 misgovernment. The old principle, that the colo- 

 nies existed only for the henefit of the mother 

 country, was acted up to completely. The sole 

 objects thought of were to gather wealth into 

 the hands of Spaniards, by abstracting the riches 

 of South America ; and to take care that the 

 Americans neither supplied themelves with any 

 article which Spain could possibly produce, nor 

 obtained these supplies from any but Spaniards. 

 No South American could own a ship, nor could 

 a cargo be consigned to him ; no foreigner was 

 allowed to reside in the country, unless born 

 in Spain ; and no capital, not Spanish, was 

 permitted in any shape to be employed in the 

 colonies. Orders were given, that no foreign 

 vessel, on any pretence whatever, should touch at 

 a South American port. Even ships in distress 

 were not to be received with common hospitality, 

 but were ordered to be seized as prizes and the 

 crews imprisoned. 



The capture of Lima has put the Patriots in 

 possession of many curious state papers, some of 

 which have been published, reflecting much light 

 on the details of the colonial system. Amongst 

 these is a curious extract from the report of the 

 proceedings of Don Teodoro de Croix, viceroy of 

 Peru and Chili, between the years 1784 and 1790, 

 drawn up by himself for the use of his successors. 

 He gives at great length, and with as much 

 importance as if the whole Spanish colonies de- 

 pended upon it, an account of an American ship 

 from Boston having touched at the island of 

 Juan Fernandez in distress. She had lost, it 

 appears, one of her masts, sprung her rudder, 

 and had run short of water and fire-wood. The 

 viceroy states that the governor of the island 

 sent off to the vessel, and, on discovering her to 

 be in great distress, and that she had no cargo 

 on board, after some hesitation as to what was 

 the proper line of conduct on such an occasion, 

 decided to act hospitably ; (se habia decidido 

 por la hospitalidad ;) and having allowed her to 

 repair her damages, and to take in wood and 

 water, permitted her to sail. " In my answer to 

 the governor," adds the viceroy, " I expressed 

 my displeasure for the bad service which he 

 had rendered to the king in allowing the strange 

 ship to leave the port, instead of taking pos- 

 session both of her and the crew, and giving an 

 account of his having done so to his immediate 

 superior, the president of Chili, whose orders 

 he ought to have waited for. I expressed my 

 surprise that the governor of an island should not 

 know that every strange vessel which anchored 

 in these seas, without a licence from our court, 

 ought to be treated as an enemy, even though 

 the nation to which she belonged should be an 

 ally of Spain. This is in conformity to the royal 

 ordinance of the 25th of November 1692. And 

 I gave orders that if the ship should appear 

 again, she should immediately be seized and the 



crew imprisoned. I also wrote to the viceroy 

 of New Spain to give him an account of this 

 transaction, and to recommend him to look out 

 for the ship in question. Finally, I desired a 

 complete statement of the whole affair to be 

 transmitted to his majesty.'" 



The president of Chili, it seems, wrote to the 

 viceroy to justify the governor of the island for 

 what he had done, on the ground of an existing 

 treaty between the two countries, by which the 

 Spaniards were bound to give succours to vessels 

 in distress, together with a royal ordinance in 

 the law of the Indies to the same effect. The 

 viceroy, however, true to the spirit of the com- 

 mercial regulations, replies to the president's re- 

 presentation, by again calling his attention to the 

 above ordinance, and reprimanding him and the 

 Audiencia, for not having wit enough to see that 

 the treaty and the article alluded to in the laws of 

 the Indies were meant to apply solely to his Ca- 

 tholic majesty's dominions, ports, and coasts, north 

 of the Americas ; in which regions alone foreign 

 powers had any territories ; and " not at all to the 

 coasts of the South Sea, where they neither have, 

 nor ought to have, (ni tienen ni deben tener,) any 

 territories requiring their ships to double Cape 

 Horn, or to pass through the Straits of Magellan 

 or Le Maire." The viceroy further reports, that 

 this affair of the Boston ship induced him to send, 

 with all due circumspection, (con la reserva con- 

 veniente,) repeated cautions and orders to the in- 

 tendants and other officers along the whole coast 

 of Peru, " not to allow any foreign vessel what- 

 ever to anchor ; and that, should any one enter the 

 port, the local authorities were sagaciously and 

 carefully to use every artifice to take possession of 

 her and of the crew. And," he adds, " lest the 

 strangers should demand supplies, and threaten to 

 use force, the cattle and other articles in the 

 neighbouring farms, which might afford relief to 

 them, are to be carried off to the interior upon 

 these occasions." He also desires that sentinels 

 and look-out men be placed on all the hills over- 

 looking the coasts, in order that immediate infor- 

 mation may be given of any vessel appearing. " I 

 had again occasion to repeat these cautions," says 

 the Viceroy, " in consequence of having received 

 intelligence from a Spanish vessel, lately arrived 

 at Callao, that an English ship had been seen in 

 lat. 50° south, giving herself out to be in search 

 of whales." 



Had Spain been engaged in the hottest war 

 with America and England, measures more hostile 

 could not have been taken. And it gives not a 

 bad picture of the feverish jealousy with which 

 the colonies were guarded, when we see the single 

 arrival of a dismasted American ship producing 

 a commotion along the whole coast of New Spain, 

 Peru, and Chili ; and when the accidental ren- 

 contre of a Spanish ship with an English whaler, 

 at the distance of thirty-eight degrees of latitude, 

 is considered sufficient cause of alarm by the vice- 

 roy of Peru, to induce him to send orders to the 

 authorities on the coast from Guayaquil to Iqui- 

 que, to redouble their vigilance in watching for 

 strangers. 



This curious and characteristic example, though 

 it be not one which shows the immediate inter- 

 ference of the government with the happiness of 

 the Americans, discloses the real extent of that 



