292 



MORILLO. 



fluence, the authority of the parent state was at 

 an end. 



In proportion to the apprehension which the 

 Spaniards felt that the presence of strangers 

 might lessen their authority, they enforced their 

 prohibitory laws with rigour. When the Spanish 

 General Morillo captured Carthagena, he seized 

 all the British and foreign merchants, threw them 

 into dungeons, and would unquestionably have 

 shot them all, for a breach of the laws of the In- 

 dies, had it not been for the timely interference 

 of the British Admiral on the West India station. 

 It was a capital crime, according to that code, for 

 any foreigner to enter the Spanish dominions 

 without a licence. An apprehension of the resent- 

 ment of other nations has generally prevented the 

 enforcement of the law to its utmost extent : but 

 the same end was, perhaps, more effectually ser- 

 ved by the most barbarous imprisonments. In 

 Mr Robinson'^s interesting Memoirs of the Mex- 

 ican Revolution, many curious anecdotes are 

 given, which show the pertinacious and vindictive 

 determination with which these regulations were 

 enforced. Mr Robinson's cruel confinement of 



