CHAPTER X THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY At the opening of the eighteenth century, political despotism and religious intolerance had prostrated the energies of Spain, whose cavaliers were once so chiv- alrous and daring. The American colonies had come to serve the purposes of the kings principally in en- abling them to sustain destructive religious wars against the English, the Germans and the Hollanders. Con- sidering herself rich in the exhaustless mineral wealth of her American colonies, Spain discarded peaceful and useful labor and in the end encountered poverty, for her gold went to enrich the more industrious stranger.* Charles II. was the last of the kings of the Austrian dynasty: he died in 1700, leaving no lawful successor. An archduke of Austria and a prince of France dis- puting the Spanish throne, the war which followed, devastating and pitiless, resulted at length in placing the grandson of the powerful Louis XIV. of France upon the throne of Spain, with the title of Philip V. The first kings of this new Bourbon dynasty brought to the administration of the affairs of the kingdom, ideas more liberal and tolerant than those held by
- "Sus fSbricas fueron desapareciendo, i su oro paso & enriquecer la industria
eslraujera que lossurtio de mercaderiSs." — Gasfar Toro. log
