CONTRABAND TRADE. 



313 



who enforced every penalty with the utmost ri- 

 gour. Many foreigners, too, by means of bribes 

 and other arts, succeeded in getting into the 

 country, so that the progress of intelligence was 

 gradually encouraged, to the utter despair of the 

 Spaniards, who knew no other method of govern- 

 ing the colonies but that of force, unsupported by 

 the least shadow of opinion, or of good will. 



How long it might have been before this slow 

 importation of knowledge, and this confined de- 

 gree of intercourse with foreigners, if unaided by 

 other causes, would have stimulated the Ameri- 

 cans to assert their birth-right, it is very difficult to 

 say. Unforeseen circumstances, however, brought 

 about that revolution, in some parts of the coun- 

 try perhaps premature, which has recently broken 

 their chains, and enabled them, by a display of 

 energy altogether unlooked for, even by them- 

 selves, to give the lie to those cruel aspersions 

 cast on their national character by their former 

 rulers. 



The operation of unrestricted trade is certainly 

 the most conspicuous and striking result that has 

 followed upon the new order of things. But the 



