103 



aristocracy. Those who exercise an absolute 

 power, instead of availing themselves skilfully 

 of the influence of a few powerful families, dread 

 what they call the spirit of independance of 

 small boroughs. They prefer leaving the body 

 of the state without strength and animation, to 

 favouring those centres of action which escape 

 their influence, and to keeping up that partial 

 life which animates the whole mass, because it 

 emanates rather from the people^ than from the 

 Supreme authority. In the time of Charles V 

 and Philip II the institution of municipalities 

 Was wisely protected by the court. Powerful 

 men, who had acted a part in the conquest, laid 

 the foundation of towns, and formed the first 

 tabildos, in imitation of those of Spain. An 

 equality of rights then existed between the men 

 of the mother country and their American de- 

 scendants* Politics, without being frank, were 

 less suspicious than at present. The continent, 

 recently conquered and ravaged, was considered 

 as a distant Spanish possession. The idea of a 

 colony, in the sense annexed to it in our days, 

 developed itself only with the modern system of 

 commercial policy; and this policy, while it 

 recognized the real sources of national wealth, 

 soon became narrow, mistrustful, and exclusive. 

 It prepared the disunion between the colonies 

 and the mother-country ; it established among 



