SCHEME OF SPANISH COLONIAL TRADE. 



131 



of the world, thus maintaining a strict monopoly of trade in her 

 own hands. All imports and exports were conveyed in Spanish 

 bottoms, nor was any vessel permitted to sail for Vera Cruz or 

 Porto Bello, her only two authorized American ports, except from 

 Seville, until the year 1720, when the trade was removed to Cadiz 

 as a more convenient outlet. It was not until the War of the 

 Succession that the trade of Peru was opened, and, even then, only 

 to the French. By the peace of Utrecht, in 1713, Great Britain 

 with the asiento, or contract for the supply of slaves, obtained 

 a direct participation in the American trade, by virtue of a permis- 

 sion granted her to send a vessel of five hundred tons annually to 

 the fair at Porto Bello. This privilege ceased with the partial 

 hostilities in 1737, but Spain found herself compelled, on the 

 restoration of peace in 1739, to make some provision for meeting 

 the additional demand which the comparatively free communica- 

 tion with Europe had created. Licenses were granted, with this 

 view, to vessels called register-ships, which were chartered during 

 the intervals between the usual periods for the departure of the 

 galleons. In 1764, a further improvement was made by the estab- 

 lishment of monthly packets to Havana, Porto Rico and Buenos 

 Ayres, which were allowed to carry out half cargoes of goods. 

 This was followed in 1774, by the removal of the interdict upon 

 the intercourse of the colonies with each other; and, this again, 

 in 1778, under what is termed a decree of free trade, by which 

 seven of the principal ports of the peninsula were allowed to carry 

 on a direct intercourse with Buenos Ayres and the South Sea. 1 

 Up to the period when these civilized modifications of the original 

 interdict were made, the colonists were forbidden to trade either 

 with foreigners or with each other's states, under any pretext 

 whatever. The penalty of disobedience and detection was death. 



Having thus enacted that the sole vehicle of colonial commerce 

 should be Spanish, the next effort of the paternal government was 

 to make the things it conveyed Spanish also. As an adjunct in 

 this system of imposition, the laws of the Indies prohibited the 

 manufacture or cultivation in the colonies, of all those articles 

 which could be manufactured or produced in Spain. Factories 

 were therefore inhibited, and foreign articles were permitted to 

 enter the viceroy alties, direct from Spain alone, where they were, 

 of course, subjected to duty previous to re-exportation. But these 

 foreign products were not allowed to be imported in unstinted 

 quantities. Spain fixed both the amount and the price ; so that by 



'Ward's Mexico in 1827, vol. 1, p. 116. 



i 



