84 MEXICO. all probability, be adopted, ultimately, by the whole of Spa- nish America. It now only remains for me to terminate this sketch of the Colonial Policy of Spain, by an account of the commercial restrictions imposed by her upon her American subjects, and which I consider as the great cause of the Revolution. It is in the endless grievances, vexations, and abuses, to which these restrictions gave rise, that we must seek the seeds of that discontent, by which the minds of all classes were indis- posed towards the Mother country. The political preference given to Europeans, might rankle in the breasts of those Creoles, who, from their birth or fortune, conceived them- selves to be entitled to a share of that authority which the old Spaniards engrossed ; but it was a matter of indifference to the great mass of the people. The commercial monopoly of Cadiz, on the contrary, came home to all ; and, from the enormous price to which every article of European produce was raised by it, it bore hardest upon those least able to support it. Like the insolent air of superiority affected by the Europeans, it created a degree of irritation, which nothing but prudence, lenient measures, and timely concessions, on the part of the Mother country, could have calmed ; and these (unfortunately) were words, which the vocabulary of Spain did not acknowledge. " Des principes d'aprts lesquels on arrache la vigne, et Poliviei', ne sont gueres propres d favoriser le commerce ou les manufactures r — such is the manner in which Humboldt com- mences his account of the trade of New Spain, and nothing, certainly, can be more appropriate than such an introduction, to such a subject. If a system of absolute prohibition could ever prove a good one in the end, or ever be made to an- swer by the greatest strictness in enforcing it, the policy of Spain might be held out, as an object of admiration to all future ages. From the first, she reserved to herself the ex- clusive right of supplying the wants of her Colonies. No
