POLITICAL ECONOMY. 



terprize was the discovery of several valuable gold mines, at 

 the same time that others which had been long neglected, on 

 account of the defe6l of the necessary communications, were 

 again worked. In a word, the efforts of this dignitary of the 

 church, to remedy evils, to eradicate abuses, to promote pub- 

 lic works, and to advance the sciences, are incredible. His 

 discourse, at the opening* of the Economical Society of 

 Quito, which has been already referred to, deserves to be given 

 at length, on account of the soundness of policy it displays, 

 and of the masterly eloquence in which it abounds. It is as 

 follows : 



" The extreme poverty experienced by this my beloved ca- 

 pital, and by the whole of my diocess, has notably afflicted 

 me, as I have manifested in several of my edicts, and in re- 

 iterated communications made to the king, our sovereign lord. 

 Amid this gloom and despondency, I had the particular satis- 

 fadlion to read, a few days ago, I think, in the moral work 

 entitled * the Education of Eusebius,' that * not only those ca- 

 pitals and provinces are felicitous in which abundance abounds, 

 but likewise those in which abound misery and scarcity.' I 



* This meeting took place, in the great hall of the new royal university of Quito, 

 on the 30th of November 1791, and was attended by a numerous assemblage of dis- 

 tinguished personages. At the head of the principal females and matrons of Quito, 

 was the lady of the president of the province, by whose order the chief artisans, or 

 masters of all the corporate trades, were admitted. A subscription, by which a fund 

 to defray the expences of the Society might be formed, was proposed by the bishop, 

 in his quality of direflor ; and, in setting the example, which was generally fol- 

 lowed, he himself subscribed three hundred piastres. The annual subscription of 

 the associates and honorary members, for the benefit of the Society, was likewise 

 regulated on this occasion. 



3 B confess 



