The consequence of cramping, in such a manner, the intercourse between the mother country and the colonies, was an exorbitant enhancement of the articles exported, it being common to charge in America double, and some times treble, the European price. That intelligent tra veller, Ulloa, relates, that he has seen a pound of iron currently sold in Peru at four shillings and sixpence, and the pound of steel for six shillings and ninepcncc, ster ling. Such a state of things could not fail to lead to smuggling. Accordingly, all the exertion, the expen diture and the rigour shewn, age after age, by the Spanish government, were ineffectual in preventing the existence of a clandestine intercourse of great extent. One penal law was added to another, and even spiritual punishment, the most formidable of all punishments to a Spaniard, was threatened ; but the wants of the colo nists, and the vast extent of accessible coast, had the ef fect of counteracting all impediments. It was a singu lar circumstance, that the English contraband traders in Jamaica were supposed to enjoy as much of the Spa nish colonial trade as the mother country herself ; and the consequence was a progressive diminution of the re gular shipments from the latter, until at last they- threat ened to fall off altogether.
The mortifying evidence of experience led ultimately to a gradual modification of this absurd monopoly. In 1740, the Spanish government consented to the use of " register snips," which may be defined " separate equip ments, unconnected with the periodical fleets, and less limited in regard to freedom of intercourse with the co lonial seaports." This, however, produced hardly any other good effect than an increased frequency of expor tation, for a heavy tax was exacted by government on the register cargoes, as well in the shape of license as of duty. It was not till 1764 that regular packets were established between the colonies and the mother coun try. These packets sailed from Corunna, and were al lolved to carry both out and home limited investments of merchandise. Next year, a more important step was taken, the intercourse with the Spanish West India isl ands being laid open to the principal ports of Spain. A few years after, a similar permission was granted in re gard to Louisiana, Yucatan, and Campeachy. But it was withheld till 1778 from the richer colonies of Peru, Chili, Buenos Ayres, Santa Fe, and Guatirnala. Last of all came Mexico, which, partly from its superior import ance in respect of mines, partly perhaps from an ap prehension of internal dissatisfaction, was not opened to the principal ports of the mother country until 1783. The ports thus licensed to trade with America, were, Alical.t. and Carthagena for Valentia and Murcia, Corunna for Galicia, Gijon for the Asturias, St Ande•o for Castile, Barcelona for Catalonia and Arragon, Cadiz and Seville for Andalusia.
The limitation of the trade to these particular sea ports, arose from a view partly to facilitate the collection of duties, and partly to preserve a superintendence over the persons embarking for the western hemisphere. It deserves to he recorded as a memorable proof of narrow policy, that the permission to the Spanish American pro vinces to carry on a free trade with each other, was not granted till 1774. So discouraging to the first active
powers of the colonies, was this system of extreme mo nopoly, that the Spaniards, who are great consumers of cocoa, and who possessed in America the finest soil and climate for its growth in the world, were actually obli ged to make importations of it from other countries. The island of Cuba, the most fertile perhaps of any in the American Archipelago, did not, in 1765, employ twenty vessels, but within twelve years after the abrogation of the monopoly, it employed two hundred. Even the city of Cadiz, which clamoured most loudly against the opening of the trade, reaped most important advantages from the change. It continued the emporium of colo nial intercourse, and found its proportion advance in the same favourable ratio as the trade of the kingdom at large. Cadiz is to Spanish America what London is to the British settlements ; more than half of the colonial trade being conducted respectively in each of these ports.
No country in Europe was less fitted to derive advan tage from a large tract of colonial possessions than Spain. The indolence of her inhabitants, the bigotry and igno rance of her government, have had the effect of perpetu ally keeping her bare of capital, and so far from being able to spare funds for transatlantic cultivation, she was destitute of the stock requisite to do justice to her own provinces. Hence one great cause of the miserable pro gress of her colonies, though possessed of natural advan tages that excited the envy of the world. For such a government, and such a people, it was pei fectly natural to confine their exertions to the working of mines, and to overlook the incalculable treasures which would have rewarded the labour of the agriculturist. The progress of the Spanish settlements accordingly has been great in population only, the natural and direct consequence of an overflowing stock of provisions. It was, until late ly, a very prevalent notion, that Spain and Portugal had suffered, both in population and in capital, by their co lonies. Those who contrasted the extensive influence of Philip 11. in the affairs of Europe with the insignificant figure made by the subsequent possessors of his throne, did not hesitate to account for the difference by the ex haustion consequent on the transfer of subjects and of ca pital to the western hemisphere. It is now, however, as certained, that Spain was never so populous as at present, that in the course of the last century she has nearly dou bled her numbers; and that her fall in the scale of political power is to be ascribed, not to retrogradation on her part, but to a more rapid advance on that of her northern neighbours. These considerations are correctly, though we admit very diffusely, illustrated by M. Laborde in his voluminous account of that kingdom. A similar course of reasoning, as far at least as regards the colonies, fs followed, (Vol. I. p. 396. et seq ) by Mr Brougham in his Colonial Policy.