MEXICO. 85 foreigner was permitted to trade with them, or foreign vessel to enter their ports ; — no American could own a ship. In Spain itself, the trade was confined, from upwards of a century, to the single port of Seville, from which every vessel chartered for America was ordered to sail, and to which it was com- pelled to return. Death was the penalty denounced against any infringement of these stern laws ; and a formidable esta- blishment of Guarda Costas was maintained, for the express purpose of enforcing them. In order to increase the wants of the Colonies, they were forbidden to manufacture any article that the Mother coun- try could supply ; and were even compelled to forego the advantages which they, might have derived from the superior fertility of their own soil, and to draw from Spain necessa- ries, with which Nature furnished them almost at their own doors. The cultivation of the vine and the olive, for both of which the [climate of America is admirably adapted, was prohibited ; and even the growth of the more precious arti- cles of what we term colonial produce, (as cacao, coffee, and indigo,) was only tolerated, under certain limitations, and in such quantities as the Mother country might wish annually to export. Nothing could exceed the distress to which such parts of the Spanish dominions as were not enriched by veins of gold or silver, were reduced by these regula- tions. The whole coast of V enezuela was sunk in poverty, in the midst of its natural riches ; and in Buenos Ayres, wheat was actually used to fill up the holes in the streets and marshes in the vicinity of the town.* The inhabitants, whose only wealth consisted in their agricultural produce, were condemned to vegetate in hopeless indigence, debarred from most of the advantages of civilization, and reduced to a state but little superior to that of the Indians, at the time of the conquest. I know of few more touching appeals to the feelings,^ and good sense of a government, than that addressed
- Vide Representation of Landholders to Viceroy.
