INTRODUCTION. 



found in cloisters and colleges, while the numher of 

 works of modern date which came by stealth into 

 their hands was small. If the revolution found a 

 number whose attainments were respectable, it is to 

 be attributed to the vigor and elasticity of their minds, 

 which broke through the surrounding gloom. The 

 Htter indifference of the people of Caraccas in the year 

 ^97^ is known to have been the only cause which at 

 that time, frustrated an attempt on the part of some 

 of the most enlightened inhabitants to throw off the 

 Spanish yoke. Their mental faculties had sunk into 

 a state of torpor from the want of those subjects of 

 higher interest, which alone could rouse them to ac- 

 tion. There were none of those springs of public feel- 

 ing to be touched, which on ordinary occasions suf- 

 fice to rouse and animate a people. 



Having taken a hasty glance at the geographical 

 features of Spanish America and its population, I shall 

 proceed to speak somewhat more in detail of the prin- 

 ciples of the colonial government and policy; conceiving 

 this in some degree necessary, in order to form a just 

 idea of the nature of the contest which now prevails 

 in those unhappy countries. The theory may be seen 

 in the volumes of the Recopilacion de las leyes de In- 

 dias; but the practical operation is to be sought else- 

 where. The admirable work of Campillo, a Spanish 

 minister, unfolds its evils in a masterly manner, and 

 with a boldness at which I was not a little surprised, 

 considering the slavery of the Spanish press. Depons, 

 in his Caraccas, has given some of its most prominent 

 features; and while he affects to admire them, he ac- 

 knowledges that they are but a mask concealing the 

 most disgusting deformities. The occasional hints 



