could not always continue. The irresistible energies of commerce had found the means of supplying the various wants, in some degree at least, of the inhabitants of those vast regions, in spite of all the barriers which so much care had been employed to fortify, and so much labour to maintain. The policy of the Austrian monarchs was slowly, indeed, and cautiously, but finally abandoned by the new dynasty. The richness of the soil and the exuberance of its hidden treasures

advantages, which the folly of man, though it might for a time suspend, could not altogether annihilate-began to overcome the restraints of barbarous legislation.

coloured race. The child of a negro and Indian was termed chino. The mulattoes were the offspring of the white man and negro woman. The descendants of a negro and mulatto woman, or of a negro and a chino, were termed zambo. The quarteroons came from the white man and mulatto woman-the quinteroon from the quarteroon woman and a white-here the distinction ceases, the child of a white and quinteroon is white. Those unions by which children are produced more deeply coloured than their mother are called emphatically salta atras-leaps backward. By the law of the mother country the Indians were reduced to a condition of absolute pupilage. Not only were they excluded in common with the other natives of those regions from all political influence, but in the most ordinary transactions of life their competence to manage their own affairs was limited to the most insignificant objects. By the introduction of this system, to which no parallel can be found in history, thousands of human beings, possessed of civil rights, yet incapable of civil functions, nominally free, yet in reality dependent, were disabled from being parties to any contract (no pueden tratar y contratar) and reduced to a state of helpless bondage and imbecility.

Those immense possessions, surpassing in magnitude the empire of Russia or the British dominions in the East, stretching over 1900 leagues, from Cape St Sebastian to the Straits of Magellan, from the 37th degree of north to the 41st degree of south latitude, were governed almost exclusively by foreigners. The corruption of these authorities was seconded by the plague of a lazy, debauched, and superstitious priesthood-an immense part of the revenues of New Spain was in their hands, and their numbers amounted to a sixth part of the inhabitants of Spanish America. The courage, steadiness, and sagacity of the old Castilian race were exchanged for apathy and cowardice. The Creole inhabitants were steeped in habits still more ignominious and deplorable; and when the Bourbon dynasty ascended the throne of Spain, the American provinces had sunk into a state of abject sloth and almost hopeless degradation.

Such a state of things, however,

Charles the Third lowered the duties on merchandize, and abrogated some of the most irksome formalities to which the merchant was obliged to submit. He opened the commerce of Cuba, Porto Rico, Hispaniola, Louisiana, and Campeachy, to the ports of Seville, Carthagena, Alicant, Barcelona, Corunna, Santander, and Gijon. In 1778, improvements in Mexico, Guatimala, Venezuela, and La Plata, advanced with a continually accelerating pace; and had wiser councils been adopted in Spain, had the hostile feelings engendered by difference of rank and colour been allayed, had the official patronage of America been confided to purer and more adequate hands, and had not the soil of Spain herself been violated by an invading army, Mr Merivale thinks, that the flag, which the Spanish people upheld with such heroic energy in the old world, might still have floated over the scenes of its ancient splendour in the new.

Trojaque nunc stares! Priamique arx alta maneres!"

Be this, however, as it may, one thing at least is certain, that the history of Spain and her political children is pregnant with the most important and salutary lessons. The dominions acquired by such prodigious efforts of civil policy and military skill, established at such infinite hazards, and cemented by such torrents of blood, wasted away in the vain attempt to gratify the pride of princes, the luxury of priests, the innumerable vices of a long train of weak, corrupt, and rapacious ministers. By the records of the custom-house at Seville,

it appears that in the space of seventyfour years, the kings of Spain had drawn into that country, from America, a sum in gold amounting_to ninety-one millions sterling. The annual returns of America to Spain, (in the beginning of the 18th century,) rather exceeded than fell short of ten millions sterling. If Charles V., instead of laying the foundation of an universal monarchy, had attended to these dominions; if, instead of endeavouring to reduce the Netherlands -to conquer England-to overcome France to enslave Italy, to annex Portugal to his empire, Philip II. had aimed at developing the incredible resources which were legitimately within his reach, Spain might have eclipsed, in might and splendour, all the empires which ancient or modern story has described. But to disturb the peace of other countries, these monarchs hastened the ruin of their own -to obtain tribute they prevented traffic-to secure the treasures of the new world they discouraged industry in the old; while Spanish hostility raised England and Holland to grandeur and opulence, laying in one the foundation of that maritime superiority which she has ever since maintained, and enabling the other to acquire a factitious importance which has not yet altogether passed away.

The utter ruin of Spanish prosperity was bequeathed by Philip II. as a duty to his successors; and in spite of experience, in spite of reason, in spite of suffering, it was executed with fond, persevering, and desperate fidelity. Such were the kings of Spain -the scourges of their friends the stewards of their enemies-without flects, though in their dominions the sun never set-without commerce, though their colonies were the most magnificent the world had seen-impotent, though their power was absolute and beggars, though riches that mock calculation were at their command.

Inaccessible, indeed, and indocile, must be the mind of him to whom these events have afforded no instruction.

Cuba, and Porto Rico, and the Philippine Islands, in Asia, are now the sole colonial remains of that once mighty empire. The Philippines, as Mr Merivale observes, hardly fall within the definition of a colony. But Cuba, since its commerce was enfran

chised in 1809, and Porto Rico, which in 1830 contained 45,000 free labourers, possessing no land of their own, bid fair, from the exuberant fertility of a virgin soil, as well as from other causes, to obtain a pre-eminence in West Indian traffic, which no mercantile precautions will long be able to

counteract.

The Portuguese settlements in America were less brilliant than those of the Spaniards, though prodigious if the proportion between them and the mother country be considered-Brazil,if we include the whole district once claimed by the Portuguese, being 300 times as large as Portugal. They were the fruits of that spirit of trade and discovery which displayed itself in Portugal during the 15th century, when every enterprize was carried on with vigour, and every expedition was rewarded with success. Thus Portugal, hitherto so inconsiderable among the nations of Europe, began to take the lead among them all; and from creeping along the shores of Africa with a few vessels, her fleets began to stretch to the East Indies, and to grasp that trade which was the object of Alexander's ambition. Immense riches, vast armies, numerous fleets, prodigious commerce, beyond any thing that had ever, since the fall of the Roman Empire, fallen to the lot of any European power, were the return for those splendid and magnanimous exertions. But when, owing to the fatal expedition of Sebastian, Portugal became a Spanish province, all virtue, generosity, or concern for the public good, were extinguished among its inhabitants. A few private families acquired an infamous opulence by the ruin of their country; while the Dutch stripped the Portuguese of their empire in the East Indies, and a considerable portion of their dominions in Brazil. And though, when Portugal recovered her independence, she regained possession of Brazil, the taint of Spanish policy still continued to infect her councils, the tide of her commerce was turned into the bosom of a few monopolists, the desire of extending the regal power predominated in her councils, and the spirit was quenched for ever which ́had made the Portuguese a great people, and their dominions a mighty empire. In 1807 freedom of trade was, by the interference of the English government, established in Brazil; and not

withstanding a great falling off in the produce of her mines, the progress of that country, during the last thirty years, has been rapid and astonishing.

"But," says MrMerivale, "her prospects, in a more comprehensive sense, are sufficiently gloomy. The rapid increase of wealth has unfortunately silenced the voice of policy and humanity, which, in the last century, were no where more willingly listened to than in Portugal, and the extension of the slave trade has more than kept pace with the progress of wealth. Hence cruelty and licentiousness, and the other vices of slavery, once confined to the great seaports, seem to be corrupting the Brazilian character, even in the remotest districts. The slaves are every where out

numbering the free cultivators; the coloured freemen increasing more rapidly than the whites; and this latter class of mixed population-no less, it is said, than 600,000 in number, out of five or six millions in all-endowed with physical strength and mental energy far more abundantly than the degenerate Creole race, seems to threaten the present frame of society with more immediate danger than awaits it from the slaves themselves."

The colonies of the Dutch are now of little importance. The FrenchAmerican colonies, important and extensive as they then were, now consist of Cayenne, and three not very important islands, notwithstanding the burdens to which the French Government once submitted for their support, amounting to two millions annually—a sum which, as the French were without any maritime power sufficient for their protection, must be considered as altogether flung away. Perhaps the time is not far distant when the blood and treasure which France is now lavishing amid the sands of Africa, may furnish her citizens with equal cause for mortification and regret. Thus it is, that national vanity assumes the airs of wisdom; and while tossing its cup and ball with infantine folly, terms the destructive pastime patriotism, and summons the universe to look on and admire. We quote a striking passage from Mr Burke's European settlements, in which the character of the nations we have mentioned and its effect upon those Colonies, is portrayed with uncommon vigour and fidelity.

"There seems to be a remarkable providence in casting the parts, if I may use

that expression, of the several European nations who act upon the stage of America. The Spaniard, proud, lazy, and magnificent, has an ample walk in which to expatiate ; a soft climate to indulge his love of ease, and a profusion of gold and silver to procure him all those luxuries his pride demands, but which his laziness would refuse him.

"The Portuguese, naturally indigent at home, and enterprising rather than industrious abroad, has gold and diamonds as the Spaniard has, wants them as he does, but possesses them in a more useful though a less ostentatious manner.

"The English, of a reasoning disposition, thoughtful and cool, and men of business rather than of great industry,

impatient of much fruitless labour, abhorrent of restraint, and lovers of a country life, have a lot which indeed produces neither gold nor silver; but they have a large tract of a fine continent, a noble field for the exercise of agriculture, and sufficient to furnish their trade without laying them under great difficulties. Intolerant as they are of the most useful restraints, their commerce flourishes from the freedom every man has of pursuing it according to his own ideas, and directing his life after his own fashion.

courses.

"The French, active, lively, enterprising, pliable, and politic, and though changing their pursuits, always pursuing the present object with eagerness, are notwithstanding tractable and obedient to rules and laws, which bridle their dispositions, and wind and turn them to proper This people have a country where more is to be effected by managing the people than by cultivating the ground; where a peddling commerce, that requires constant motion, flourishes more than agriculture or a regular traffic; where they have difficulties which keep them alert by struggling with them; and where their obedience to a wise government serves them for personal wisdom. In the islands the whole is the work of their

policy, and a right turn their government

has taken.

"The Dutch have got a rock or two on which to display the miracles of frugality and diligence, (which are their vir. tues,) and on which they have exerted these virtues, and shown these miracles."

In his examination of the history of British colonies, the almost boundless scope and variety of his subject have compelled Mr Merivale to pursue a different course from that which he has adopted in treating of the colonies of other countries. His object has been "to indicate chiefly those

facts which will be of value as examples, which may serve as tests of doctrines hereafter to be considered as indications of a policy to be recom mended or to be avoided;" and his work expands into a scientific discussion of propositions which comprehend under, them a vast variety of phenomena. Mr Merivale justly considers that Great Britain, the first manufacturing country, and that which engrosses the greatest share of the carrying trade of the globe, can gain but little from her colonies in return for the prodigious sacrifices she makes in their behalf.

"We might draw many articles of raw produce cheaper and better from other countries than from our colonies; therefore, so long as their produce is protected, we are taxed for their benefit. But it may be questioned, whether any of the commodities they require from Europe, except some few articles which we do not and cannot produce, could be obtained by them cheaper or better from any other source than from ourselves. Consequently they are no longer taxed for ours, except in one or two unimportant particulars.

When the navigation laws, as far as regards the colonies, were greatly modified in 1824, no great change or disturbance of the colony trade ensued. Things had

found, of themselves, that level which those laws were intended to maintain artificially. It is impossible to conceive a more direct

contrast than that which exists between

the British colonial policy of late years

and that of our ancestors. They cared for the most part little or nothing about the internal government of their colonies, and kept them in subjection, in order to derive certain supposed commercial advantages from them. We give them commercial advantages and tax ourselves for their benefit, in order to give them an interest in remaining under our supremacy, that we may have the pleasure of governing them."

After pointing out the effect produced, first, by the abolition of the slave trade, and recently, by slave labour in the colonies, the diminished produce of our West Indian islands and the increased difficulty of production, which, owing to the comparative exhaustion of the soil, prevails among them, Mr Merivale bids us pause for a moment to reflect on the remarkable uniformity with which events have succeeded each other in the eco

66

Thus

nomical history of the West Indies in general. At each epoch in that history, we see the same causes producing almost identical effects. The opening of a fresh soil, with freedom of trade, gives a sudden stimulus to settlement and industry; the soil is covered with free proprietors, and a general but rude prosperity prevails. Then follows a period of more careful cultivation, during which estates are consolidated, gangs of slaves succeed to communities of freedom, the rough commonwealth is formed into a most productive factory. But fertility diminishes; the cost of production augments; slave labour, always dear, becomes dearer by the increased diffi culty of supporting it: new settlements are occupied, new sources of production opened: the older colonies, unable to maintain a ruinous competition, even with the aid of prohibitions, after a period of suffering and difficulty, fall back into a secondary state, in which capital, economy, and increased skill, make up, to a certain extent only, for the invaluable advantages which they have lost. we have seen the Windward Islands maintaining, at one period, a numerous white population; afterwards importing numerous slaves, and supplying almost all the then limited consumption of Europe. We have seen Jamaica rise on their decay, and go through precisely the same stages of existence. We have seen how St Domingo, in its turn, greatly eclipsed Jamaica; but St Domingo was cut off by a sudden tempest, and never attained to the period of decline. Lastly, we have seen the Spanish colonies of Cuba and Porto Rico, after so many centuries of comparative neglect and rude productiveness, start all at once into the first rank among exporting countries, and flourish like the exuberant crops of their own virgin soil; while our islands, still rich in capital, but for the most part exhausted in fertility and deficient in labour, were struggling by the aid of their accumulating wealth against the encroaching principle of decay. The life of artificial and anti-social communities may be brilliant for a time; but it is necessarily a brief one, and terminates either by rapid decline, or still more rapid revolution, when the laboriously

constructed props of their wealth give way, as they sometimes do, in sudden ruin.

According to an article in M'Culloch's Commercial Dictionary, the consumption of sugar by European nations in 1833, (the last year of slavery in the British islands,) amounted to 560,000 tons of which the English West India colonies furnished 190,000, the Mauritius 30,000, the East Indies 60,000, Cuba and Porto Rico 110,000, Brazil 75,000, other European colonies 95,000.

"The amount of that expenditure which Great Britain is annually called on to incur in behalf of her colonies, over and above their own revenues, although it has been much exaggerated by opposers of the colonial system, is still very great. By a Parliamentary paper of the session of 1835, it appears that the total charge on our revenue, on account of their military, naval, and civil establishments, amounted to £2,360,000. To this must be added, in fairness, the annual loss to this country occasioned, as before explained, by the colonial monopolies, chiefly those of sugar and timber, which is estimated by Sir H. Parnell, in his work on Financial Reform, apparently on reasonable grounds, at two millions more, and the charge which we have recently incurred for the liberation of our colonial slaves is not less than £600,000 or £700,000 per annum. we were to add to these sums the cost of the wars of which our colonies have furnished the direct cause, the account against us would be enormous indeed."-P. 236.

If

"But this is a digression from my present subject, though it can hardly be considered an inapposite one, when it is remembered how large a portion of our wars of the last century were undertaken chiefly with the view of protecting and strengthening that very trade with our colonies which, I have endeavoured to show you, we were crippling and injuring all the while by the manifold restraints of our prohibitive system. And the true ground on which that system is still defended by many of its supporters is, that the favour thus afforded to the colonies (for the effect of the system, as I have endeavoured to point out, is now almost confined to the affording favour to them) tends to keep them in connexion with the mother coun. try; a notion which I do not believe to be well founded, but which, if it be, affords indeed a political justification for maintaining the system, but not an economical one. The misfortune is, that its supporters will not be satisfied with putting its vindication

They cannot

on its own real ground. be content without maintaining that the country gains by it in the immediate course of commercial transactions, as well as in respect of the maintenance of the national defence and supremacy. And those whose reason could not be persuaded of the reality of the commercial gain, have

long had to submit to the imputation of entertaining novel theories and un-English

sentiments; as if the economical defence of the system were necessarily involved in the political, and the principles of Malthus and Ricardo were inseparably connected with those of Franklin and Bentham. You, I am sure, will learn to despise this foolish and vulgar outcry. There is no novelty in the plain and simple arguments which show the mischief of restrictions on trade; but if they were novel, they would not be the less cogent. There is nothing unEnglish in pointing out the fact, that England suffers a certain loss by the maintenance of a particular system; but if it were otherwise, loss of country is a poor substitute in enquiry for loss of truth.

"But these are considerations which need but little concern us now. The rapid tide of sublunary events is carrying us inevitably past that point at which the maintenance of colonial systems and navigation laws was practicable, whether it were desirable or no. We are borne helplessly along with the current; we may struggle and protest, and marvel why the barriers which ancient forethought had raised against the stream, now bend like reeds before its violence; but we cannot change our destiny. The monopoly of the West India islands cannot stand; and its fall will be followed by the crash of those minor monopolies which subsided along with it; for the branches of the colonial system were nearly connected with each other. And when these are gone, the same curious result will follow which has attended the overthrow of so many other institutions and systems, political and intellectual, which have held for their respective periods a powerful sway over the minds of men. All the theories which have been founded on it by induction, or raised on baseless assumptions, in order to support it, all the volumes of statistical facts, tortured into argumentsall the records of the eloquence or the reasoning by which it has been defended, which once were in vogue with the million, which swayed senates and silenced captious objectors, and governed and delighted the public mind-will pass with it into nothingness, or speak to us as it were in a dead language. Let us look back a few years, and ask where are the monu