I 



COMMERCE. 



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come up, not only from the people of Havana, but 

 frequently also from Spanish executive officers, in 

 defence of the freedom of trade in America. Through 

 the enlightened zeal and patriotic views of the inten- 

 dant., Don Olaudio Martinez Pinillos, another step 

 has been recently taken, favoring the employment 

 of capital, in conceding to Havana a warehousing 

 system or trade in bond,* under the most favorable 

 auspices. 



In Havana, as everywhere, where commerce and 

 its consequent wealth experience a rapid increase, 

 the evil influence it exercises over ancient customs 

 is complained of. This is not the place to compare 

 the former state of Cuba, covered with pasture 

 before its capture by the English, and its present 

 state, when it has become the metropolis of the 

 Antilles ; neither will we weigh the frankness and 

 simplicity of the customs of a nascent society, with 

 those which appertain to a more advanced civiliza- 

 tion. A love of wealth springs from the spirit of 

 commerce, and as a necessary consequence, the 

 mass contemns whatever- cannot be ■ obtained with 

 money; but it is the good fortune of human affairs, 

 that whatever is most worthy of being desired, most 

 noble and most free in man, we owe only to the 

 inspirations of the soul, and to the improvement of 

 oar intellectual faculties. 



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