so full of contradictions that the ablest lawyers were uncertain what laws were in force and what in disuse, what had been wholly repealed and what had been modified, what had a general, and what a local, application. This constituted one of the chief grievances of the Creoles, for the judges were always Spaniards, and strained every point against the natives in favour of their own countrymen.

The system of exclusiveness was carried out to the most pernicious extreme by the establishment of fueros, which were special privileges granted to corporate bodies and different professions. The fueros of the clergy embraced all dignitaries of the church, canons, inquisitors, monks, members of the sacerdotal colleges, and even their dependents. Persons employed in public affairs, merchants, the militia, the navy, the engineers, the artillery corps, and the army in general, all had their respective fueros. These fueros exempted the holders from being tried by the regular judicial authorities, and gave them the right, in all civil and criminal cases, of selecting for their judges the members of the special tribunal attached to their own profession or corporation. Thus, in all matters of law, an imperium in imperio existed, and as these fueros were rarely granted to any but Europeans, the natives had scarcely a chance of obtaining justice, and in no instance without encountering delay, vexation, and expense, for a Spaniard might hold a triple fuero, as a merchant, a militiaman, and a government civil officer, in which cases it was almost impossible for a Creole to bring his European opponent into court.

The local government of the interior districts, provincias internas, was entrusted to functionaries called "alcaldes," and "regidores," and they composed the ayuntamientos or municipalities. Originally these officers were elected by the respectable inhabitants, but as corruption increased, their situations were put up to auction, and disposed of to the best bidder. But the most extraordinary and iniquitous organization of these bodies was effected in 1794, by brigadier Calleja, afterwards Conde de Calderon. He decreed that, in every town and village, the captain of the militia should be perpetual alcalde; the first and second lieutenants, regidores; and the first sergeant, procurador, or legal adviser to the corporation. By this absurd system, in the distant provinces, where the municipalities were the only tribunals for the decision of all petty disputes, a corporal, or even a private, in the absence of his superiors, was entrusted with the administration of justice. The sentence pronounced by these incompetent functionaries could only be reversed by an appeal to the governor of the province, or to the provincial audiencia, thus exposing the suitors to vexation and expense.

We have already remarked that, according to Spanish jurisprudence, the colonies were vested in the crown, not in the state. This principle was rigidly applied to the ecclesiastical establishments, nor did the court of Madrid ever allow the direct interference of the Roman pontiff in its

transatlantic possessions. Papal bulls could only be introduced into America through the permission of the council of the Indies, and this privilege was never conceded without a bargain being struck between the king and the pope. Indulgences and dispensations were purchased at Rome on account of the Spanish monarch, and these he sold to his American subjects at an enormous profit. The keenest vigilance was employed in the regulation of this discreditable traffic, and a native, convicted of smuggling any of these religious documents into the country, was deemed guilty of a crime, even more flagitious than treason.

The collection of the customs and the revenue generally employed a vast number of officers, called "intendentes," each of whom presided over a district. Their power was considerable, and as they held their situations directly from the council of the Indies, they were almost independent of the viceroys. But though the viceroy was not supreme in the fiscal department he had many opportunities, by holding out bribes, of influencing the officers of the revenue, and thus doing indirectly what he could not do directly. As he was absolute master of the army, and filled up all vacancies by granting new commissions to whomsoever he pleased, that patronage alone secured to him the most ready and obsequious submission.

Such is an outline of the political system adopted by Spain towards America, and if we fairly consider the spirit of the age in which it was framed, we must allow that in theory it was far from defective. By the old laws the natives were eligible to every office, even to the viceroyalty, but they were practically excluded from any participation in public. authority. Every situation in the gift of the crown, down to the lowest custom-house officer, was conferred on an European. It was the favourite policy of the court of Madrid to prevent the slightest identity of interests between the Spaniards and the Creoles, and, among other antisocial regulations, no member either of the central audiencia, or even of the provincial ones, was permitted to marry a native. The Spaniards assumed the exclusive airs of a privileged caste, and their habits, feelings, and sentiments, were all enlisted against the local interests of the colonists. Indeed it was a maxim with them, "that while a Manchego mule, or a Castilian cobler remained in the Peninsula, either the beast or the man had a right to govern America."

The public functionaries merely consulted their own private emolument, and regarded the natives simply as instruments by which they could accumulate wealth. The salary of the viceroys was fixed at sixty thousand dollars, and yet, living in a style of almost regal splendour, they usually returned to the mother country with fortunes exceeding a million of dollars. This plunder was realized by granting mercantile licenses to the great commercial houses of Vera Cruz and Mexico, for which enormous sums were paid; and as the merchants always derived immense

profits from these illegal monopolies, the real tax was ultimately levied upon the native consumers. Such was the avidity with which the people of the Peninsula sought after colonial appointments, that, under the administration of the prince of peace, they were readily accepted, even without a salary, as a sure road to affluence. Nor was the system of extortion confined to the acts of individuals, for the principle itself was sanctioned by the fiscal laws of the government. The court of Madrid reserved to itself the right of supplying all the demands of the colonists, The cultivation of the vine and the olive, to which the climate of America is admirably suited, was absolutely prohibited, and the growth of what is called colonial produce (as cocoa, coffee, and indigo,) was only allowed to the extent that the mother country itself might require. No foreigner was permitted to trade with the natives, and no foreign vessel was permitted to enter their ports; nay more; no American could be a shipowner. In Spain itself the trade was confined, for upwards of a century, to the single port of Seville, from which every vessel chartered for America was bound to sail, and to which it was compelled to return. The violation of this law was punishable with death.

Until the year 1700 the whole of the supplies destined for America were introduced through the ports of Porto Bello and Vera Cruz, from the first of which remittances were made through Panama, (on the opposite side of the Isthmus,) to the whole line of coast on the Pacific, comprising Guyaquil, Quito, Chile, and Peru. During the war of Succession, the trade with Peru was opened to the French; and many Americans are of opinion, that to this temporary enjoyment of the sweets of foreign intercourse the late revolution may be traced. At the peace of Utrecht, 1713, Great Britain, with the Asiento, (or contract for the supply of slaves), obtained a direct participation in the American trade, by virtue of the permission which was granted to her, to send a vessel of five hundred tons annually to the fair of Porto Bello. This privilege ceased with the partial hostilities of 1737, but Spain found herself compelled, on the restoration of peace, in 1739, to make some provision for meeting that additional demand which this comparatively free communication with Europe had created. Licenses were granted with this view to vessels, which were called register ships, and which were chartered during the intervals between the usual periods for the departure of the galleons. In 1764 a further improvement was made, by the establishment of monthly packets to the Havanna, Porto Rico, and Buenos Ayres, which were allowed to carry out half a cargo of goods. This was followed, in 1774, by the removal of the interdict upon the intercourse of the colonies with each other; and this again, in 1778, by what is termed the decree of free trade, by which seven of the principal ports of the Peninsula were allowed to carry on a direct intercourse with Buenos Ayres and the South Sea.

That these were ameliorations of the old system must be admitted.

But the measure of reform was partial and inadequate. Commerce still continued fettered by unjust restrictions, and the freedom of trade was cramped by monopoly. In the mining districts quicksilver and gunpowder were indispensable. These articles were supplied from the mother country, and always in quantities incommensurate with the demand, and this deficiency enabled the government employés to excite an injurious competition among the purchasers, and thus raise the price of these commodities. The natives were in fact compelled to receive just such supplies as the mother country chose to remit, and pay whatever sums she chose to demand.

The education of the Americans was contracted within the narrowest limits, for the court of Madrid, being aware that knowledge was power, used every effort to retain the Creoles in ignorance. Nothing can illustrate this policy more strongly than a royal decree, of 1785, addressed to the viceroy of Peru by Galvez, who was at that time president of the council of the Indies. This decree states, that in consequence of the many representations made to the king, respecting the bad effects produced by the college for the education of noble Indians at Lima, the subject had been taken into serious consideration, and that his majesty "convinced that, since the conquest, no revolution had been attempted among the Peruvians which had not originated with some one better informed than the rest," had determined that the question should be referred to the viceroy, with orders to give an opinion, as soon as possible, respecting the propriety of reforming, new modelling, or entirely suppressing the said college.

Upon the same principle, liberty to found a school of any kind was (latterly) almost invariably refused. The municipality of Buenos Ayres was told, in answer to a petition in favour of an educational establishment, in which nothing but mathematics was to be taught, that learning did not become colonies. The Padre Mier, (author of a very curious work on the Mexican revolution,) enumerates various instances of a similar kind. In Bogota the study of chemistry was prohibited, though permitted in Mexico; and in New Grenada, the works of the celebrated Mutis, though purely botanical, were not allowed to be published. Permission to visit foreign countries, or even the Peninsula, was very rarely granted, and then only for a limited time. A printing press was conceded, as a special privilege, by the council of the Indies, but only to the viceroyalties, Mexico, Buenos Ayres, and Peru: to Caraccas, and many other considerable towns, it was denied altogether. The utmost vigilance was exercised to prevent the importation of books from Europe which were not approved of by the government, and this department was confided to the Inquisition, whose officers had the right of making domiciliary visits whenever they pleased, and searching the closets and boxes of all persons whom they suspected. So late as 1807, a Mexican, named Don Jose Roxas, was

denounced by his own mother for having a volume of Rousseau in his possession, and confined for several years in the dungeons of the holy office. He ultimately made his escape to New Orleans, where he died in 1811.

Such is a rapid summary of the system of colonial policy enforced during three centuries by the court of Madrid. Whether we consider the mode of administering justice, of regulating commerce, of electing the municipalities, or of directing education, we observe partiality and exclusiveness every where dominant. The interests of each individual Creole were sacrificed to those of each individual Spaniard, and the interests of America at large were sacrificed to those of the mother country. Let our readers reflect on the principle of fueros-on the class of persons from whom the alcaldes and regidores were selected-on the general character of the ayuntamientos on the exclusion of the natives from every public office; let them consider the prohibitions on local agriculture-the restrictions on internal and external commerce-the peculations of the custom-house, and the private trading licenses granted by the viceroys: let our readers meditate on all these facts, and they will find in them an ample justification of the war of independence. But the most heinous crime, at least in our eyes, committed against the colonists, was the interdict on education, for the spirit and intention of that law was to keep the intellect of America stationary, and perpetuate the ignorance of the natives. This policy was, indeed, equally observed in the mother country, for the priests of Spain have ever opposed foreign trade, and recommended the government to keep the Peninsula, as much as possible, a purely agricultural nation. They have always dreaded the intercourse of Protestant merchants, manufacturer, and sailors, with the Spanish population, lest new thoughts might be excited and new opinions brought into play, which would gradually, but certainly, undermine the foundations of their power.

It was not, then, the insurrection at Aranjuez, nor the invasion of Buonaparte, nor the captivity of the Spanish king, nor the abdication of the old dynasty at Bayonne, which caused the American revolution; these events merely afforded a favourable opportunity to the Creoles of asserting their liberty. The war of independence was created by three centuries of intolerable oppression, during which time the materials of revolt had been gradually accumulating. The minds of men were fully prepared to throw off the yoke, and they had before them the successful example of North America, which had to encounter a much more formidable opponent than the court of Madrid.

In subsequent numbers of this Magazine we propose to sketch the outline of the war of independence from the first operations of the curate Hidalgo to the deposition of Iturbide. This will necessarily confine us to Mexico, which is peculiarly interesting to Englishmen, on account of the large capitals invested by British speculators in the mines. We intend,