LAWS OF THE INDIES. 



285 



lustrated by a few well authenticated anecdotes, 

 selected not so much on account of any peculiar 

 point or interest in themselves, as from their serv- 

 ing to show the general temper and spirit of the 

 policy by which the government of Spain was ac- 

 tuated, in her administration of the colonies. 



The Spanish American possessions were consi- 

 dered, in law, from the time of the conquest, as 

 integral parts of the monarchy, not as colonies of 

 the mother country : they were held in fief by the 

 crown in virtue of a grant from the Pope ; and 

 their aftairs were supposed to be regulated, not 

 by the government of Spain, but by the King, as- 

 sisted by a special board, named the Council of 

 the Indies. A separate code of laws also was es- 

 tablished expressly for them, called the Laws of 

 the Indies. America, then, was nominally inde- 

 pendent of the Spanish nation ; and upon this 

 principle, the South Americans, after Ferdinand's 

 imprisonment by Buonaparte, claimed an equal 

 right with Spain to name Juntas to regulate their 

 affairs, in the absence of the King, their only le- 

 gal head. At a moment such as that alluded to, 

 this argument had some force and utility ; but. 



