extorting, ultimately, from the purchaser, the government was a gainer in charges, profits and duties; whilst the merchants of Cadiz and Seville, who enjoyed the monopoly of trade, were enabled to affix any valuation they pleased to their commodities. The ingenuity of the Spaniards in contriving methods to exact the utmost farthing from their submissive colonists, is not a little remarkable. "They took advantage of the wants of the settlers, and were, at one time, sparing in their supplies, so that the price might be enhanced, whilst, at another, they sent goods of poor quality, at a rate much above their value, because it was known they must be purchased. It was a standing practice to despatch European commodities in such small quantities as to quicken the competition of purchasers and command an exorbitant profit. In the most flourishing period of the trade of Seville, the whole amount of shipping employed was less than twenty-eight thousand tons, and many of the vessels made no more than annual voyages. The evident motive on the part of the crown for limiting the supply was, that the same amount of revenue could be more easily levied, and collected with more certainty as well as despatch, on a small than on a large amount of goods."[1]
Whilst the commerce of Spain was thus burdened by enormous impositions, the colonies were of course cramped in all their energies. There could be no independent action of trade, manufacture, or even agriculture, under such a system.
America,—under the tropics and in the temperate regions, abounding in a prolific soil,—was not allowed to cultivate the grape or the olive, whilst, even some kinds of provisions which could easily have been produced on this continent were imported from Spain.
Such were some of the selfish and unnatural means by which the Council of the Indies,—whose laws have been styled, by some writers, beneficent—sought to drain America of her wealth, whilst they created a market for Spain. This was the external code of oppression; but the internal system of this continent, which was justified and enacted by the same council, was not less odious. Taxation, without representation or self government, was the foundation of our revolt; yet, the patient colonies of Spain were forced to bear it from the beginning of their career, so that the idea of freedom, either of opinion or of impost, never entered the minds of an American Creole.
Duties, taxes, and tithes were the vexatious instruments of royal
- ↑ North American Review, vol. xix p. 117.
