# Mexico in 1827/Volume 1/Chapter 4

SECTION IV.
SPANISH COLONIAL SYSTEM.
Under this head, it is my intention to give some account of the mode in which the Internal government of the former Spanish Colonies was carried on, before the year 1810, and to add a short sketch of those prohibitory laws with regard to foreign trade, which formed so marked a feature in the policy of the Mother country. It is true, that these laws have ceased to exist, but an acquaintance with them, as well as a knowledge of the political institutions by which they were supported, are essential to a right understanding of the events that have since taken place; for it is in the complication of abuses, to which the Old System gave rise, that we must seek the causes of that Revolution, which has changed the face of the New World.
With the exception of Brazil, Dutch and French Guiana, and our present colonies of Demerara and Esequibo, the Spanish possessions occupied the whole of South America, the Isthmus of Panama, and a portion of the Northern continent, which extended to the confines of the United States. ​This vast territory was divided into four Viceroyalties, Mexico, Peru, Rio de la Plata, (Buenos Ayres,) and New Granada; and five Captain-general-ships, which comprised the Peninsula of Yŭcătān, Guatĕmāla, Chile, Vĕnĕzuelā, and the Island of Cuba. The Captains-general, although holding situations of minor importance, were independent of the Viceroys, as were the Viceroys of each other: indeed, in most cases, natural barriers precluded the possibility of communication.
The government of each of the Colonies was rested in the hands of one of these great servants of the crown. In Mexico, the Viceroy was endowed with all the prerogatives of royalty, and considered as the alter ego of the King himself. The only checks upon his authority were the "Residencia," or legal investigation of his conduct, to which, at the King's pleasure, he might be subjected, on his return to Spain, but which was seldom, if ever, enforced; and the "Audiencia" or court of appeal in dernier resort, with which, as honorary president, he had many means of cultivating a good understanding. The Audiencia, however, which was composed entirely of Europeans, possessed ​considerable power and influence: it had a control over all other tribunals, ecclesiastical as well as civil, in all cases where the value of the object in litigation did not exceed ten thousand dollars; and it enjoyed the privilege of corresponding directly with the sovereign, and with the Council of the Indies; a board created in 1511, by Ferdinand II., and remodelled by Charles V. in 1524, for the exclusive superintendence of the affairs of the Colonies. At this board the King was supposed, constantly, to preside in person; orders and decrees, though emanating from the crown, were to be communicated through it, before they acquired the force of law; and all projects of reform were to receive its sanction, before they could be carried into execution.
The right of communicating directly with this formidable tribunal, gave, of itself, great weight to the Audiencia; and this was increased by the care with which its members were usually selected, and by the pains that were taken to keep them distinct from the natives in interest and feelings. They were forbidden to intermarry with a Creole, (as were the Viceroys and their children;) or to engage in trade, or even to hold property in the country in which they resided. As some compensation, they were entrusted with the vice-regal power, in the event of the Viceroy's decease, which was held by the Regent, ​or eldest Oidor, until a new viceroy was appointed; and enjoyed a number of other privileges, which left them but little reason to regard the position of any of their countrymen as more advantageous, (even in a pecuniary sense,) than their own. In the more extensive Colonies, branches of the Audiencia were established in the provinces most remote from the seat of government, but these exercised no independent jurisdiction, and an appeal lay from them, in all cases, to the Audiencia of the capital.
The "Recopilacion de las Leyes de las Indias," or General collection of the laws of the Indies, is the name given, in Spanish jurisprudence, to that heterogeneous mass of statutes, by which, during the last three centuries, the decisions of these tribunals were supposed to be determined. These statutes were, originally, nothing more than Decrees upon different subjects, emanating from the King, or from the Council of the Indies, often contradictory, and generally unconnected with each other, but bound up at last together, and published in four folio volumes. No pains having been taken to class, or reduce them to any thing like system, they were full of the most glaring inconsistencies; and, as every new case became the subject of a new Decree, which, from the moment of its publication, had the force of law, it is hardly possible to conceive a more complete chaos than that presented by the legislative code ​of America. As early as the reign of Charles III. the decrees not included in the Recopilacion, were more numerous than those which it did contain: many of these, again, were annulled by others of a later date; so that, at last, not even the lawyers knew what decrees were in force, which had fallen into disuse, and which had been suspended, either in their application to particular Provinces, or to the Colonies in general. The consequences of this confusion were such frequent discrepancies in the Royal orders, as to render it extremely difficult, even in the clearest cases, to prevent the defendant from sheltering himself under the sanction of some decree unfavourable to the injured party; a circumstance, which encouraged, not a little, that corrupt system of administering justice, which has so long disgraced the Mother country, and which it is almost impossible to correct, where there is no check from publicity, and where, in the multiplicity, and inconsistency, of the laws themselves, the judge is sure to find a plea for the most glaring-injustice.
The special privileges, or Fueros, enjoyed by the different professions, and Corporate bodies, greatly increased this confusion. There were Fueros of the clergy, which embraced all dignitaries of the church, canons, inquisitors, and their dependents, and all members of colleges; Fueros of all persons employed in public offices; fueros del Consulado, or merchants Fueros; special Fueros of the militia, the navy, the ​engineers and artillery corps; and Fueros of the army in general. Each of these Fueros exempted those who chose to plead it, from the jurisdiction of the ordinary authorities, and made them amenable, in all civil and criminal causes, to the tribunal of the chief of that corporation, or body, to which they belonged.
In this clash of interests and jurisdictions, the native Americans were usually the sufferers, as it increased the difficulty of obtaining redress in any dispute with an European, who usually enjoyed a double, or triple fuero as a merchant, a government officer, or, at least, as holding some rank in the militia.
The municipal establishments, throughout the New World long retained some vestiges of that spirit of freedom, and that predilection for popular institutions, which Charles V. so effectually quelled in the Peninsula, upon his accession to the throne. We can desire no better proof of the importance originally attached to them, and of the authority with which they were supposed to be invested, than the fact, that Cortez, when desirous to emancipate himself from the jurisdiction of Velasquez, from whom his original commission for the conquest of Mexico emanated, could devise no better method of effecting his purpose, than by forming a Cabildo, or Municipality, for the infant settlement of Veracruz, into whose hands he resigned the commission, which he held of the Governor of Cuba, and from whom he received, in return, authority to act as Generalissimo, ​until the Emperor's pleasure should be known. The Regidores and Alcaldes, who composed the Municipalities, (Ayuntamientos,) were originally elected by the inhabitants of each town; and though the institution was soon perverted, it was always looked up to with affection, and respect, by the people, who regarded the members of the Cabildo as their natural protectors: and such they almost invariably proved; for they were connected with them by a thousand ties, which the higher officers of state were forbidden to form; and by a community of interests, which could not exist between the Europeans, and any class of the Natives. At the commencement of the revolution, the Cabildos became, every where, the organs of the people, and the great advocates of their right to an Independent, Provisional government, during the absence of the King: indeed, it was the line which they took, in opposition to the Audiencias, which were devoted, of course, to the European interest, that first brought matters between the Creoles, and the Mother country to a crisis. It is remarkable that this spirit should have been so long preserved, amidst the changes of form to which the institutions had been subjected. In Mexico, until the establishment of the Constitution in Spain, in 1812, the privilege of election was merely nominal. The situations of Alcalde, and Regidor, were, in fact, put up to auction, and disposed of to the best bidder. In some parts of the country, they were even made use of as an inducement to engage people to ​enter into the militia: thus, Brigadier Calleja, (afterwards General, Viceroy, and Conde de Calderon,) who, in 1794, was entrusted with the organization of that body, in the Provincias Internas, introduced a regulation, by which, in every town and village, the Captain of the militia of the place (however ill-qualified for the situation in every other respect) became perpetual Alcalde; the first and second lieutenants, Regidores; and the first serjeant, Procurador (or legal adviser) to the corporation, thus singularly formed; with due provision for replacing them, when absent, by the next in rank, according to military gradation. By this absurd system, in these 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, in villages inhabited by fifty or sixty respectable proprietors, whose only remedy against the absurdities, into which his ignorance might betray him, was an appeal to the governor of the Province, or to the Audiencia of Chĭhūāhuă, which ​was always attended with the most vexatious uncertainty and expense.
The independence of the Ecclesiastical establishments throughout America, forms a very singular feature in the Spanish Colonial Policy. By the Bull of Alexander VI. dated 1502, Ferdinand II. was constituted, as effectually, the head of the American church, as Henry VIII. was of that of England: and whatever subserviency the Court of Madrid may have shown towards Rome, in other respects, its most bigoted monarchs have displayed great firmness in repelling the encroachments of the Holy See, wherever America was concerned. True to the principle of concentrating every branch of authority in the crown, they would allow no Spiritual jurisdiction to interfere with the Royal prerogative: Papal bulls were only admitted into the colonies on receiving a Regium Exequatur from the Council of the Indies; and the severest penalties were not only enacted, but enforced, against ecclesiastics, who attempted to infringe this wise regulation. The Pope could hold no intercourse what-ever with any part of America, except through the medium of Spain, by which means the Cruzada, or distribution of Bulls, became one of the branches of the Royal revenue. The King bought them up at a certain price at Rome, and retailed indulgences, and dispensations, of all kinds, to his American subjects, at an enormous profit. The speculation was managed with as much regularity as the ​monopoly of tobacco; and, although several squabbles arose between the Courts of Madrid and Rome, in the course of a traffic, which was as lucrative, as it was discreditable, to both, the Pope, after several ineffectual attempts to obtain a larger share of so advantageous a concern, was forced to leave his Royal partner in possession of nearly the whole of the profits. It was a question, in which not merely the avarice, but the whole policy of Spain was interested. The main-spring of her Colonial System was, to teach all classes to look to the King, and the King alone, for advancement. Spaniards have always been a nation of employés, and the surest hold upon them, was to concentrate all their hopes of preferment in one focus: the slightest interference, on the part of any other power, would have disturbed this unity of plan; and, consequently, the designs of the Court of Rome were watched with as much jealousy, and suspicion, as the attempt of the English, or French, to smuggle in their manufactures;—a crime, any participation in which, on the part of a native, was regarded as almost worse than treason itself.
Besides the great establishments which we have passed in review, there was another most important branch, the collection of the customs, and revenue, in which a host of officers were employed, under the direction of the Intendentes, each of whom presided over a district, in the extent, and number, of which the territorial divisions of each colony consisted. ​In the present order of things, the limits of the old Intendancies have often served to regulate the number of the States, of which the new Republics are composed. In all questions respecting the interests of the revenue, the Intendentes possessed very extensive powers, and, as their appointment emanated from the Council of the Indies, without the concurrence of the Viceroy, in their own province, they were almost independent.
The command of the troops was vested in the Viceroy in person, who regulated the military operations, and filled up all vacancies; it being understood, that promotions made by him would receive the King's sanction. He was assisted, in this part of his duties, by a Council of war, (Junta de guerra,) as he was, in all judicial questions, by a Fiscal, or legal adviser, to whom the law of the case was referred: all sentences of every kind bore his signature, nor was there any appeal from his decision.
To each, and all, of these great officers, (not excepting the viceregal dignity,) all the subjects of the crown were alike eligible, without any distinction between Americans and Europeans. Indeed, there is hardly any point upon which the laws of the Indies insist so frequently, or so strongly, as this equality, as may be seen by a reference to the Recopilaciones.
Such is the outline of that mighty fabric, by which the authority of Spain, in the New World, was ​so long supported. Its defects, in theory, are by no means so great as many have supposed; the evil consisted in the practice; and in the application of the whole political power of the crown to the maintenance of a system of revenue laws, by which the interest of the Colonies was entirely sacrificed to that of the Mother country. Upon both these points it will be necessary for me to enter into some details.
With regard to the first, (the difference between the theory and the practice of Spain, in her Colonial system,) the history of the last two centuries sufficiently proves, how entirely the conciliatory intentions of the first framers of the laws of the Indies were lost sight of, by the total exclusion of the Creoles from any participation in the government of their respective countries. Every situation in the gift of the crown, from the Viceroy to the lowest custom-house officer, was bestowed upon an European; nor is there an instance, for many years before the revolution, either in the church, the army, or the law, in which the door of preferment was opened to a native. It became the darling policy of Spain to disseminate, throughout her American dominions, a class of men, distinct from the natives in feelings, habits, and interests; taught to consider themselves ​as a privileged caste, and to regard their own existence as intimately connected with that of the system, of which they were the principal support. In return for their supposed devotion to the crown, all the offices of government were theirs; and, by a regular scale of promotion, they rose in dignity and rank, the opportunities of enriching themselves increasing at every step, until they were enabled, at last, to retire in affluence to the Peninsula. Nor was it to government officers alone that this preference was confined. The superior advantages enjoyed by Europeans, threw the whole trade of the country into their hands, for the good understanding which they were enabled to cultivate with their countrymen in the custom-houses on the coast, and the facility with which they obtained licenses from the Viceroy for the introduction of prohibited articles, rendered competition impossible.
It is difficult to conceive any thing more universal than the corruption which prevailed throughout the revenue department of the colonies: the Viceroys themselves gave a splendid example, for both in Peru and Mexico, with a nominal salary of only 60,000 dollars, they kept up all the pageant of a court, and, after distinguishing themselves, for some years, by their magnificence, as the Representatives of Royalty, they returned to their native country with a fortune of a million, or a million and a half of dollars, the whole of which, it was notorious that they must have derived from ​some unfair mode of turning the advantages of their situation to account.
The distribution of quicksilver, which was a Royal monopoly, was, in Mexico, one source of these illegal profits.
The sale of titles, and distinctions, which the King usually granted at their recommendation, was another; but the most lucrative of all, was the power of granting licenses for the introduction of any article of foreign produce, during a limited period, to which I have already alluded: for these, enormous sums were paid by the great commercial houses of Mexico, and Veracruz; or a share in the profits of the speculation was given to the Viceroy's agent, without any participation in the risk. This system of dilapidation, beginning with the chief, extended through every branch of the government; the inferior offices swarmed with hangers on, and candidates for preferment, all Europeans, and all expecting, by means best known to themselves, to make a rapid fortune. That these expectations were not disappointed, may be inferred from the fact, that, under the administration of the Prince of Peace, government situations, even without a salary, were in great request, and were found to be a sure road to affluence.
The complaints of the Creoles, and the endeavours ​of some of the more enlightened amongst the Europeans themselves, to bring the most notorious offenders to justice, were equally fruitless. They were frustrated, partly by the rank and influence of the transgressors, and partly by that spirit of clanship, (I can find no other word to express what I mean,) by which the Europeans, of every description, were united amongst themselves. One must have been in America, to have any idea of the extent to which this feeling was carried. It became, at last, a passion, which induced them to prefer the ties of country to the ties of blood. The son, who had the misfortune to be born of a Creole mother, was considered as an inferior, in the house of his own father, to the European book-keeper, or clerk, for whom the daughter, if there were one, and a large share of the fortune, were reserved. "Eres Criollo, y basta:"—(you are a Creole, and that is enough!) was a common phrase amongst the Spaniards, when angry with their children; and was thought to express all the contempt that it is in the power of language to convey. It was a term of ignominy, a term of reproach, until time taught those, to whom it was applied, to use it rather as an honourable distinction, and to oppose it to that of Gachupin, as designating the party of those infatuated men, who imagined, that the circumstance of having been born in the arid plains of Castille, or La Mancha, gave them a moral, and intellectual superiority, over all the inhabitants of the New World. Not the least ​remarkable trait in the Revolution of America, is the sort of proscription which the name of Spaniard now entails upon those, who formerly found it the only passport to preferment: but the violence of the reaction, is, perhaps, the best proof of the excess of the evils by which it was occasioned.
There can be little doubt, that the Spanish Government fomented this mutual antipathy between the two most influential classes of its subjects, on the same principle that led it to encourage all the distinctions of caste, and colour, which I have mentioned in the second section of this book. This was not the case, however, with the other abuses which I have had occasion to enumerate: wherever her financial interests were at stake, the Mother country was remarkably vigilant, but then she, but too frequently, took a wrong mode of effecting what she had in view. Instead of attempting a reform, by introducing into the general system something like simplicity, and uniformity of plan, every succeeding year rendered the machinery still more complicated. Whenever abuses were discovered in any office, a new office was established, as the only means of correcting them; thus, wheel within wheel was added, and check upon check introduced, until the action of the whole was impeded, and the confusion became so great, that nothing could remedy it. Mexico, the most important of all the Colonies, only remitted six millions of dollars annually to the Peninsula: the remainder of a revenue of twenty ​millions of dollars, was swallowed up, either by the government charges, which (including dilapidations) amounted to eleven millions, or, by remittances to other Colonies, (the Havanna and the Phillippine Islands,) the revenues of which did not cover the expenditure.
Under such a system as that which I have described, it was not to be expected that much should be done for the improvement of the people, destined to be ruled by it. Spain felt that her power depended in a great measure upon their ignorance.—By disseminating the blessings of education amongst her subjects, she would, virtually, have undermined her own authority, and made them impatient of a yoke, which comparison would have rendered doubly galling. They were, therefore, taught to believe that the fate of all mankind was similar to their own: or rather, that they were pre-eminently fortunate, in belonging to a monarchy so much superior in power and dignity to the rest of the world. Spain was to them the queen of nations: hablar Christiano, (to speak a Christian language,) was the privilege of those by whom her dialect was used; while English and French, Germans and North Americans, were all involved in one indiscriminate condemnation, as Jews, heretics, and unbelievers, with whom no good Catholic could hold intercourse without contamination.
The Inquisition was constituted the guardian of this belief, and discharged the duty with a zeal, ​which proved how fully its importance was felt. The works of Luther were not more rigorously proscribed, than modern histories, or political writings; and, even as late as 1811, by a strange anomaly, the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people was denounced as a damnable heresy in Mexico, at the very time that, it was solemnly sanctioned by the Cortes in Spain. Some particular studies, however, were encouraged amidst this general tendency to stifle inquiry; especially scholastic divinity, which was considered a very harmless amusement, and the mathematics. Some attention too was paid to the arts of drawing and sculpture, and, in the mining districts to mineralogy, which, in Mexico particularly, was patronised with kingly munificence: but there can be no doubt that this was done, principally with a view to divert the attention of the Creoles from more dangerous pursuits: the spirit of the system was to exclude information, and to check the progress of the human mind.
Nothing can illustrate this more strongly, than a Royal decree, of 1785, addressed to the Viceroy of Peru, by the enlightened Galvez, (as Humboldt deservedly calls him, on account of the many practical reforms which he introduced into the administration of the Colonies,) 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 amongst 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 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 Bŏgŏtā, the study of chemistry was prohibited, though permitted in Mexico: and in New Grĕnādă, 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, and that only to ​the three Viceroyalties, Mexico, Buenos Ayres, and Peru; to Caracas, and many other considerable towns, it was denied altogether.
To guard against the importation of books, was, as I before observed, the special province of the Inquisition; and the whole ingenuity of this odious tribunal was exerted, in order to check it: not only were vessels subjected to a vigorous examination upon their arrival in port, but the captains were rendered, personally, responsible for the correctness of the list of the books on board, which they were compelled to give in. In the interior, domiciliary visits were resorted to, and denunciations encouraged amongst members of the same family; with what success, may be inferred from the fact, that, as late as 1807, a Mexican, called 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 was fortunate enough to effect his escape, but died, in 1811, at New Orleans. These instances of extreme severity, however, were rare, and were less felt, because, in theory at least, the jurisdiction of the Inquisition was as extensive in the Mother country as in the Colonies. In practice, its prohibitions were disregarded in both, by the higher classes, who were, in general, acquainted ​with all the most violent publications of the earlier days of the French revolution, to the study of which, the very anxiety that was shown to exclude them, gave an additional zest.
The first proclamations of all the new Juntas bear evidence of the extent to which this passion was carried; they are mostly mere transcripts, of the rights of man, with as little real tendency to improve mankind as the original; for they invariably led to the adoption of some impracticable theory, and pointed out the overthrow of all existing institutions, as the first step towards amendment.
It is curious to observe how little progress was made by any of the New States, after the first declaration of their independence, until experience had taught them a sounder doctrine, and led them to model their institutions upon those of the United States; which, with some slight variations, will, in all probability be adopted, ultimately, by the whole of Spanish America.
It now only remains for me to terminate this sketch of the Colonial Policy of Spain, by an account of the commercial restrictions which she imposed upon her American subjects, and which I consider as the great cause of the Revolution. It is in the endless grievances, vexations, and abuses, to which these restrictions gave rise, that we must seek the seeds of that discontent, by which the minds of all classes were indisposed towards the Mother country.
​The political preference given to Europeans, might rankle in the breasts of those Creoles, who, from their birth or fortune, conceived themselves to be entitled to a share of that authority which the old Spaniards engrossed; but it was a matter of indifference to the great mass of the people. The commercial monopoly of Cadiz, on the contrary, came home to all; and, from the enormous price to which every article of European produce was raised by it, it bore hardest upon those least able to support it. Like the insolent air of superiority affected by the Europeans, it created a degree of irritation, which nothing but prudence, lenient measures, and timely concessions, on the part of the Mother country, could have calmed; and these (unfortunately) were words, which the vocabulary of Spain did not acknowledge.
"Des principes d'après lesquels on arrache la vigne, et l'olivier, ne sont guerre propres à favoriser le commerce on les manufactures":—such is the manner in which Humboldt commences his account of the trade of New Spain, and nothing, certainly, can be more appropriate than such an introduction, to such a subject. If a system of absolute prohibition could ever prove a good one in the end, or ever be made to answer, by the greatest strictness in enforcing it, the policy of Spain might be held out, as an object of admiration to all future ages. From the first, she reserved to herself the exclusive right of supplying all the wants of her Colonies. No ​foreigner was permitted to trade with them, or foreign vessel to enter their ports;—no American could own a ship. 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 ordered to sail, and to which it was compelled to return. Death was the penalty denounced against any infringement of these stern laws; and a formidable establishment of Guarda Costas was maintained, for the express purpose of enforcing them.
In order to increase the wants of the Colonies, they were forbidden to manufacture any article that the Mother country could supply; and were even compelled to forego the advantages, which they might have derived from the superior fertility of their own soil, and to draw from Spain necessaries, with which Nature furnished them almost at their own doors. The cultivation of the vine and the olive, for both of which the climate of America is admirably adapted, was prohibited; and even the growth of the more precious articles, of what we term colonial produce, (as cacao, coffee, and indigo,) was only tolerated, under certain limitations, and in such quantities as the Mother country might wish annually to export. Nothing could exceed the distress, to which those parts of the Spanish dominions, which were not enriched by veins of gold or silver, were reduced by these regulations. The whole coast of Venezuela was sunk in poverty, in the midst of ​its natural riches; and in Buenos Ayres, wheat was actually used to fill up the holes in the streets, and marshes in the vicinity of the town. The inhabitants, whose only wealth consisted in their agricultural produce, were condemned to vegetate in hopeless indigence, debarred from all the advantages of civilization, and reduced to a state but little superior to that of the Indians, at the time of the conquest. I know of few more touching appeals to the feelings, and good sense of a government, than that addressed to the Viceroy of the provinces of the Rio de la Plata, in 1809, by the Apoderado (Agent) of the Landed Proprietors of Buenos Ayres. It contains an admirable exposé of the system, by which the interests, both of the Colonies and of the Royal Treasury, were sacrificed to those of a few overbearing European merchants; as well as of the fruitlessness of any endeavours to obtain redress, even in cases where the advantage of the government (if rightly understood) was perfectly in harmony with that of the colonist. I subjoin a few extracts, which will be found in the Appendix.
The reforms which had been gradually introduced into the Colonial System in Mexico, the Havanna, and Peru, did not extend, in the same degree, to these ill-fated countries. The precious metals were so exclusively the object of the attention of Spain, that but little attention was paid to ​any of her possessions that did not produce them. She had no idea of creating a balance of trade, by encouraging the natural resources of the colonies; nor of becoming herself the carrier between them and other nations, with whose manufactures she was, indeed, obliged to keep them supplied, but to whom she furnished in return but few of those productions, with which her American possessions abounded. The fact was, that, perhaps with a view of rendering it less difficult to keep the whole of the importations and exportations in her own hands, she never aimed at increasing the number of consumers, but rather contrived to enhance her profits, by limiting the supply. The luxuries of life were only to be obtained by the wealthy: the lower and middling classes could not aspire to a share of them; and it would be curious to be able to point out, in an authentic shape, the very limited number of those, amongst whom the importations of each Colony were distributed. To render the management of this extraordinary system less embarrassing, the channels of communication with the Mother country were reduced as much as possible. Until the year 1700, the whole of the supplies destined for America were introduced through the ports of Portobello, and Veracruz; from the first of which, remittances were made through Pănămā, (on the opposite side of the Isthmus,) to the whole line of coast on the Pacific, comprising Gūāyăquīl, Qūitŏ, Chilĕ, and Pĕrū. 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 present 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, in virtue of the permission, which was granted her, to send a vessel of five hundred tons annually to the fair of Portobello. 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 registered ships, and which were chartered during the intervals between the usual periods for the departure of the galleons. In 1764, a farther improvement was made, by the establishment of monthly packets, to the Havana, Portorico, and Buenos Ayres, which were allowed to carry out a half 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.
​It cannot be denied that these ameliorations were attended with the happiest effect; but still, they were insufficient. The growing importance of the Colonies required more than the Mother country was able to supply; while the concessions which had been made, only rendered the restraints still imposed more insupportable. To receive all their supplies through the medium of the Peninsula would not have been a hardship, had she taken, in return, those products, in which the colonies abounded, and upon which the whole wealth of some of them depended. But this she would only do to a very limited extent. Payments in specie were the great object of the Spanish merchant, and to this every other commercial advantage was sacrificed.
The exclusion of foreigners from concurrence, in a market thus organized, was essential to the very existence of the system pursued. Their willingness to receive produce in lieu of silver, in exchange for their manufactures, and to be contented with a moderate rate of profit upon those manufactures, provided they could dispose of them in sufficient quantities, would have rendered competition, on the part of Spain, impossible; at the same time that it must have increased the difficulty of keeping the Colonies in subjection, by augmenting their resources too ​rapidly. The whole attention of Spain was therefore directed to this point. For a long time, she claimed a right to an exclusive dominion over the vast oceans, which surrounded her American possessions; and this right she asserted, to the utmost extent, wherever she was enabled to do so by a superiority of maritime force.
Few are, I believe, aware of the length, to which these pretensions were carried. I shall therefore subjoin, in order to illustrate them, some extracts from a correspondence which took place, as late as 1790, between Don Teodoro de Croix, then Viceroy of Peru, and the Governor of the Island of Juan Fernandez, who was disgraced, and narrowly escaped a severer punishment, for having, in that year, allowed a vessel from the United States, which had lost her rudder, and been otherwise damaged by a storm, to put into the harbour for a few days to refit.
The Viceroy expresses, in very strong terms, his displeasure at the negligence of the Governor, in allowing the vessel to leave the Island, "without having even attempted to seize her; and his surprise at the Governor of any of the King's Islands being so ignorant, as not to know, that any foreign vessel sailing in the South Sea, without a Spanish license, was to be treated as an enemy's vessel, although the country, to which she belonged, might be at peace and amity with Spain."
This doctrine met with the entire approbation of ​the Audiencia of Peru; and a circular was immediately addressed to all governors of islands, and commandants of forts, or towns, situated upon the coast of the Pacific, instructing them, "in the event of any foreign vessel entering their harbours, to endeavour, to the best of their abilities, to detain her, until a favourable opportunity should present itself for seizing her, with her crew, and to transmit to the capital the earliest possible intelligence of the result."
This correspondence was found in the archives of the Viceroyalty at Lima, and published by the Independent party, when it obtained possession of the capital, together with the decree respecting the college for noble Indians, which I have already quoted.
Like the letter of the Viceroy Calleja, and the representation of the Mexican Audiencia to the Cortes, to which I shall have occasion to allude in the next book, I see no reason to question their authenticity; and, where this is the case, nothing tends to throw so strong a light upon the causes of a revolution, as such documents. They are better than a thousand theories, the result merely of private opinions, more or less warmly expressed; for, without pretending to establish any system, they enable every one to form his own upon a basis, the stability of which there is no reason to doubt. ​It is with this view, and not with any wish to place the conduct of the Spanish government in an unfavourable light, that I have introduced them into this sketch. The errors of Spain have brought with them their own punishment. Even during the days of her power, they were chiefly detrimental to her own interests; for, in attempting to exclude foreign trade entirely, she only reduced smuggling to a system, by which the revenue was defrauded, without the interest of the Creoles being materially advanced; since produce could not be exported, where no legal communication could be held.
With regard to the other parts of her Colonial Policy, it must always be recollected, that its spirit was originally mild; the evils which grew out of it, were, perhaps, the inevitable consequence of despotic institutions, transplanted to regions so distant, that there could be no check to the abuse of delegated power. There was no want of excellent laws in the folios in which the code of the Indies was contained; but the facility with which they were evaded, and the constant impunity of those by whom they were infringed, rendered them unavailing. What wonder then, that under such circumstances, a remedy should have been sought in a total change of institutions, or that a system should have been adopted the very opposite to that which had before prevailed?
* ↑ Originally, there were only two Viceroyalties, (those of Mexico and Peru,) on which all the other colonial establishments depended. The abuses to which this system gave rise, led to the establishment of a separate government in New Granada in 1718; in Venezuela in 1731; in Chile in 1734; and in Buenos Ayres in 1778.
* ↑ In this case, an appeal lay to the Council of the Indies.
* ↑ As in Mexico, where three Audiencias were established, at Valladolid, Guadajalara, and Chihuahua.
* ↑ Vide the Memorial presented to the Cortes of Cadiz, in 1811, by Mr. Ramos Arizpe, deputy for the province of Cohahuila.
* ↑ One can hardly credit the possibility of so singular an instance of oppression, and that affecting not an individual, but four whole Provinces, (Cohahuila, New Leon, Santander, and Texas;) but I have had opportunities of ascertaining the correctness of the statements given by Mr. Ramos Arizpe on the subject, and know that they may be depended upon.
* ↑ The promotion of Don Antonio Perez, now Bishop of Puebla, to that See, took place after the King's return in 1814, when the necessity of conciliating the natives began to be admitted.
* ↑ The supply seldom being equal to the demand, the miners paid large sums for the privilege of being allowed to purchase, in preference to others.
* ↑ Vide Brackenbridge, Voyage to South America, by Order of the Government of the United States.
* ↑ Vide Brackenbridge, who lived in the same house with him, and was in the possession of his papers after his death.
* ↑ Vide Representation of Landholders to Viceroy. Appendix, Letter A.
* ↑ A return of the importations and exportations from the colonies, would prove how very small was the amount of colonial produce exported from each, (with the exception of the Havanna,) and how constant the drain of specie.
* ↑ Literally, "with suitable discrimination; art, and prudence—con la sagacidad arte, y prudencia, convenientes."