several large vessels yearly, at one time sending over a great shipload of mahogany, and, at another, one of cedar logs, from his own forests, as a present to Philip II. of Spain. Besides these munificent gifts, he sent a princely invitation to the king, declaring that if His Majesty would do him the honor to come back in one of these vessels to Mexico his horse should walk from the shore to the capital on ingots of silver. Millions upon millions of gold and silver produced in the mines were sent abroad and helped to carry on the wars by which Europe was devastated. In the years 1773-74 twenty-six millions of dollars were sent to Spain each year. She had conquered the New World, and was using its enslaved population to help her to lay waste the Old World also. It would be remarkable that during the three hundred years of Spanish government of Mexico and Peru no one of the enemies of Spain despoiled her of those treasure-houses, did we not remember how much easier it was for the cruisers of England and France to capture the Spanish galleons on the high seas than to invade the country and dig the silver and gold from the mines for themselves. As years went on the Church joined the State in its oppressions of the people. The supremacy of the former became the highest aim of the dissolute and avaricious priesthood against which Cortez warned his king. With this one purpose in view, the monks fostered ignorance and compromised with vice, until, like foul and monstrous parasites, these growths well-nigh smothered every vestige of life in the nation.
While Spain was shaping her colonial policy, Rome was in a deadly struggle with the German Reformers. Leo X. was building St. Peter's church; to raise the vast sums of money required in this work, he decided on
