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London, England, 1824-03-13 00:00:00

they were called fer by the irresistible course which the'
tide of events had taken in the New World, and were such
as a European Congress should have admitted and acknow-
ledged at once. It was the interest of Spain herself to
have long since recognised the independence of her eman-
cipated Colonies, and thus conciliate those feelings which
would have given her a commercial prefererce in the in-
tercourse
with South America, and put her on a more'
favoured footing in her relations with them than other
nations. Great as her possessions in the New World hail
been for centuries, they added little, after all, to her
wealth or power ; she hail few manufactures of her own
with which she could supply the demands of her subjects in
Mexico, Peru, or the Caraccas. Those countries and Brazil
gave more support to the industry of other nations than to
that of impoverished Spain and Portugal, notwithstanding
the jealous restraints by which all intercourse with them I
was long proscribed. It is only of late years that this coun-
try has opened any considerable commercial relations with
Southern America ; but France, Flanders, Holland, and
Germany, supplied the Spanish and Portuguese colonists
largely. Spain and Portugal contributed of native ma-
nufactures comparatively nothing. In the single ar-
ticle of linen, it was calculated that the annual demand'
amounted to between three and four millions sterling. The
capital which supplied the colonies to such an extent, was
distributed among, and furnished a revenue to other coun-
tries. The profits of the after-shipments only went into
the pockets of the inerchants of Cadiz and Lisbon, and en-
riched them at the expense of both countries generally.
Raynal, the eloquent author of the " Philosophical and
Political History of the Establishments of the Europeans
in both Indies," estimates the annual importation of re-
gistered gold and silver into Spairr, at an average of eleven
' years from 1751 to 1764 inclusive, to have amounted to
about 14 millions of piassres of ten reels each, aod, in-
cluding what may have been smuggled, the whole annual
importation he calculates may have amounted to 17 mil-
lions of piastres, which, at 4.. 6d. the piastre, would be
3,625,0001. sterling. The annual importation into Cadiz
did not of course comprise the whole produce of the mines
of Spanish America; some part was reserved by the spe-
culators, and a proportion annually sent by the Acapulco
ships to Manilla for the produce of the East. A part also
was employed in the contraband trade which the Spanish
colonies carried on with other European nations. The
quantity of gold during the same period imported into Lis-
bon from Brazil, estimated from the tax paid to the Crown
of one-fifth, Raynal calculates at about 20 millions of
crusadoes, or 2,2.50,0001. sterling: a very small propor-
tion of this wealth remained to enrich either country.
They possessed, as we have already said, few manufactures
of their own ; the gold and silver of America was therefore
circulated through the Continent ; it was paid for the
supply of the two countries, and of their colonies in the
New World. Thus Spain and Portugal, though possessed
of the mines of Mexico, Peru, and Brazil, remained for
centuries impoverished and uncnriched, while the neigh-
bouring countries derived all the bent fits of their posses-
sions, and became comparatively prosperous and wealthy,
from their superior industry. The monopoly of Spain in
the New World was long exclusive and supreme. The
western coast of America afforded the only known example
of a vast shore, near 2,000 leagues in length, inhabited
only by one European nation. The Spaniards had formed
distant establishments from Fort :Mullin in Chili, to the
isolated port of San Francis, in New California. The Spa-
nish Government, soon after 1788, began to testify great
jealousy at the appearance of the Russians on the north-
west coast of the new continent. Regarding every Euro-
pean nation as dangerous neighbours, they sent vessels to
examine the situationsand propene( the Russian factories.
The alarm subsided for a while, on finding that these dis-
tant factories did not extend eastward beyond Cook's Inlet.
When the frantic Emperor Paul, in 1799, declared war
against Spain, preparations were made at Mexico to des-
patch an expedition from the ports of San Blu and Mon-
terey, against the Russian colonies in America. The expe-
dition did not, however, proceed, and the Russians re-
mained unmolested. The Court of Madrid, in fact, had
no knowledge whatever of these settlements until after the
publication of the third voyage of our illustrious navi-
gator, Cook. They then sent two vessels, the frigate La
Princess and the sloop Saw Corks, commanded by Don
Estebon Martinez, and Don Gonzalo Lopez de Hero,
from the port of San Bias, in Mexico, for the purpose of
examining the position and state of the Russian esta-
blishments on the north-west coast of America. The Spa-
nish Court saw with alarm t)sat the growing fur-trade drew
numerous English, French, and American vessels towards a
coast which some short time before had been as little frequent.
ed by Europeans as the coast of Endracht, in New Holland-
Humboldt calculates that the distance from Petersburgh
to the most eastern Russian factory on the continent of
America, is about the same as from Madrid to the port of
San Francisco, in New California. Russia still retains her
dominion over this coast; but the power of Spain, and her
monopoly, is gone. In Old California—celebrated prin-
cipally for its pearls, the only attraction, since the six-
teenth century, to navigators for visiting that desert coast—
the power of Spain was principally established through
the persevering exertions of that extraordinary body of
men, the Jesuits. Though the celebrated Hernando Cortes
expended more than 200,000 ducats of his patrimony in
his California expedition, and formal possession, in the
name of the Crown of Spain, was taken of the country by
Sebastiau Viscaino, it was only about 1642 that the Jesuits
were able to form a solid establishment there. The in-
teresting account of the Jesuits, Salvatierra and Ugarte,
give us the first satisfactory acquaintance with that
country. The village of Loreto had been already founded
under the name of l'residio de San Dionisio, in 1697.
Under the reign of Philip V., especially after the year
1744, the Spanish establishments in California became
very considerable. The indefatigable Jesuits displayed ,
there that talent and commercial activity, to which they
were indebted for such general success, and which exposed
them to so many calumnies in both Indies. In the course
of a very few yesrs they built sixteen villages in the in-
terior of the penirsula, and extended their missions widely.
Since their memorable expulsion, in 1767, California was
confided to the Dominican monks of the City of Mexico ;
and its improre.nent has rapidly gone back. The Fran-
ciscans were more successful on the coasts of New Cali-
fornia. The pearls of California are of the finest water,
and large ; the shell which produces the pearl is parti-
cularly found in the Bay of Ceralvo, and round the isles
of Santa Cruz and San Jose. The most valuable pearls
in the possession of the Court of Spain were found in
1615 and 1665, in the expeditions of Juan Yturbi, and
Bernal de Pinadero. During the residence of the Visite-
dor Galvez in California, in 1766 and 1769, Iluanboldt
mentions that a private Spanish soldier in the presidio of
Loreto, grew rich in a very short time by pearl-fishing on
the coast of Ceralvo. Since that period the number of
pearls of California brought to the European market has
been almost nothing. The Indians and Negroes who fol-
lowed the dangerous occupation of divers were so oppressed