The sentences of these courts are final in every litiga tion concerning property of less value than 6000 pesos ; but when the subject in dispute exceeds that sum, their decisions may be carried by appeal to the council of the Indies—a court which was instituted by Ferdinand in 1511, and brought into a better form by Charles V. in 1524. Its jurisdiction extends to every department of government in Spanish America, and all laws and regu lations respecting the colonies must be approved by two-thirds of the members. All the officers nominated by the king are conferred in this council ; and to its in spection every person employed in America, from the highest to the lowest, is held accountable. In this coun cil the king is always supposed to be present, and its meetings arc always held where he resides.
The leading object of the Spanish government has always been, to secure the productions of the colonies to the parent state, by an absolute prohibition of all inter course with foreign nations. All that the colonies yield must be conveyed to Spanish ports, and all that they consume must flow from the mother country. No fo reigner can enter the colonies without express permis sion ; no vessel of a foreign nation is admitted into their harbours ; and no inhabitant is permitted to trade with them upon the pain of death. More liberal measures have been gradually adopted ; but much still remains to be done, which will probably be delayed till the colo nies declare themselves independent, and consult for their own prosperity.
The ancient history and early institutions of Mexico are involved in almost impenetrable obscurity, and all that has yet been advanced on the subject, rests on no surer foundation than certain hieroglyphical paintings, which admit of the most various interpretations. The authenticity of these documents themselves is suffi ciently questionable; and it is impossible to ascertain that they are either original, or faithful copies of origi nals, and not the fabrications of the Spanish monks, who are known (upon the usual principle of Roman Catholic missionaries) to have commended the truths of Christianity to their Indian subjects, by tracing a resemblance between the new doctrines and the old superstitions of the natives. The knowledge of events among the ancient Mexicans, was preserved by means of those knots and threads of various colours. called by the Peruvians quififius, and said to have been found also among the Canadiat s and Chinese. These very imperfect and unintelligible records were superseded by the use of writing and hieroglyphics only about A. D. 648, from which period alone, therefore, any tangible documents can be dated. These symbolical
figures, however, though of a more permanent charac ter than the knotted threads, are still of little service without the principles of their interpretation, which are very doubtfully preserved. But supposing both the record and the exposition to be under telly established, there are only a few fragments in existence upol which the ingenuity of the antiquary can be exercised. These paintings being considered as monuments of idolatry deserving to be destroyed, were ordered by Zummaraga, the first bishop of Mexico, to be carefully collected, and committed to the flames. Whatever knowledge of remote events these rude monuments contained has thus been almost entirely lost; and the whole of our information must be derived from tradi tions, and the few remnants of those historical symbols which have escaped destruction. Collections of these fragmen:s have been deposited in the libraries of the Vatican, Veletri, Vienna, Dresden, Berlin, Paris, and (as sonic have conjectured) of Oxford; but the most authentic and valuable are said to be those which are printed in Purchas's pilgrims These paintings are done on skins, cotton cloth, a kind of pasteboard, or on the bark of trees. These manuscripts were neither composed of separate leaves nor rolls, hut generally folded in a zigzag manner like fans, with two tablets of light wood pasted at the ends. The manuscripts brought :o Europe bear a great resemblance to each other. and are chiefly remarkable for great strength of colouring. The figures arc mostly dwarfish in respect of the body, and remarkably incorrect in point of draw ing. The heads arc of an enormous size, the bodies extremely short, and the feet so long in the toes as to resemble the claws of a bird. The heads are always drawn in profile, while the eye is placed as if the figure presented a full view ; and the noses are of a most dis proportionate size. " Every figure," in short, (in the words of Dr. Robertson,) " of men, of quadrupeds, of birds, as well as every representation of unanimated nature, is extremely rude and awkward. The hardest Egyptian style. stiff and imperfect as it was, is more elegant. The scrawls of children delineate objects al most as accurately." Their uncouth lorms may be considered, indeed, with 1‘1. Humboldt, as equivalent to the bad hand-writing of our literati ; or as necessarily retained, as established symbols, in more civilized periods. But the confusion and obscurity of the whole system defy all explication; and leave no other source of information than those originally uncertain traditions in regard to the history of the nation.