OF METALS FROM AMERICA. 



81 



made, participated, at once, in the treasures that were found in the 

 possession of the Indian rulers. Such, however, was not the case. 

 The historian Ranke, in his essay on the Spanish finances, has 

 shown, by new documents and official vouchers, the small quantity 

 of the precious metals which the American mines, and the supposed 

 treasures of the Incas yielded. 1 It is probable that the conquerors 

 did not make exact returns to the court of their acquisitions, or 

 that the revenue officers, appointed at an early period of American 

 history, were not remarkable for the fidelity with which they trans- 

 mitted the sums that came into their possession as servants of the 

 crown ; and thus it happened that neither the king of Spain nor his 

 kingdom, was speedily enriched by the New World. Baron Hum- 

 boldt, in one of his late publications, gives an interesting extract 

 from a letter written by a friend of Ferdinand the Catholic a few 

 days after his death, which exhibits the finances of that king in a 

 different light from that in which they have been hitherto viewed. 

 In an epistle to the bishop of Tuy, Peter Martyr says, that this 

 "Lord of many realms, — this wearer of so many laurels, — this 

 diffuser of the Christian faith and vanquisher of its enemies,- — died 

 poor, in a rustic hut. Whilst he lived no one imagined that after 

 his death it would be discovered that he possessed scarcely money 

 enough either to defray the ceremony of his sepulture, or to furnish 

 his few retainers with suitable mourning ! " 2 The adventurers in 

 America, were doubtless enriched, and duly reported their gains to 

 friends at home ; but Spain itself was not speedily improved by 

 their acquisitions. 



The rise in the prices of grain and other products of agriculture 

 or human industry, about the middle of the sixteenth century, and 

 especially from 1570 to 1595, indicates the true beginning of the 

 plentiful flow of the precious metals to the Old World, in conse- 

 quence of which their value diminished and the results of European 

 industry increased in price. This is accounted for by the com- 

 mencement of the beneficial working of the American mines about 

 that period. The real opening of the mines of Potosi, by the 

 Spanish conquerors, dates from the year 1545; and it was between 

 this epoch and 1595, that the splendid masses of silver from Tasco, 

 Zacatecas, and Pachuca, in New Spain ; and from Potosi, Porco 

 and Oruro, in the chain of Peruvian Andes, began to be distributed 

 more uniformly over Europe, and to affect the price of its produc- 



» See Ranke : Fursten and Volker, vol. L, pp. 347, 355. 

 2 Pet. Mart. Epist. lib. xxix., No. 556, 23d January, 1516. 

 K 



