130 RELATIVE POSITION OF SPANIARDS AND CREOLES. 



artillery. An individual enjoying any of these privileges was 

 elevated above the civil authority, and, whether as plaintiff or 

 defendant, was subject only to the chief of the body to which he 

 belonged, both in civil and criminal cases. So great a number of 

 jurisdictions created an extricable labyrinth, which, by keeping 

 up a ceaseless conflict between the chiefs in regard to the extent 

 of their powers, stimulated each one to sustain his own authority 

 at all hazards, and, with such resoluteness as to employ even 

 force to gain his purpose. 1 Bribery, intrigue, delay, denial of jus- 

 tice, outrage, ruin, were the natural results of such a system of 

 complicated irresponsibility ; and consequently it is not singular 

 to find even now in Mexico and South America large masses of 

 people who are utterly ignorant of the true principles upon which 

 justice should be administered or laws enacted for its immaculate 

 protection. The manifesto of independence issued by the Buenos 

 Ayrean Congress in 1816, declares that all public offices be- 

 long exclusively to the Spaniards ; and although the Ameri- 

 cans were equally entitled to them by the laws, they were 

 appointed only in rare instances, and even then, not without satia- 

 ting the cupidity of the court by enormous sums of money. Of 

 one hundred and seventy viceroys who governed on this continent 

 but four were Americans ; and of six hundred and ten Captains 

 General and Governors, all but fourteen were natives of old 

 Spain ! Thus it is evident that not only were the Spanish laws 

 bad in their origin, but the administrative system under which 

 they operated denied natives of America in almost all cases the 

 possibility of self government. 



The evil schemes of Spain did not stop, however, with the 

 enactment of laws, or their administration. The precious metals 

 had originally tempted her, as we have already seen, and she did 

 not fail to build up a commercial system which was at once to 

 bind the colonists forever to the mines, whilst it enriched and 

 excited her industry at home in arts, manufactures, agriculture, 

 and navigation. As the Atlantic rolled between the old world and 

 the new, America was excluded from all easy or direct means of 

 intercourse with other states of Europe, especially at a period 

 when the naval power of Spain was important, and frequent wars 

 made the navigation of foreign merchantmen or smugglers some- 

 what dangerous in the face of her cruisers. Spain therefore inter- 

 dicted all commercial intercourse between her colonies and the rest 



1 Mendez, Observaciones sobre les leyes de Indias y sobre la independencia de 

 America. London, 1823. p. 174. 



