city, ought to be left to follow up his pursuits tranquilly and without molestation. When, at the commencement of the eighteenth century, the impossibility to which Spain was reduced, of supplying her colonies, stimulated the merchants of St. Maloes to establish a trade with South America by Cape Horn, the universal emulation inspired by the prospect of gain, gave rise to a competition which rendered the merchandizes of little or no value. In some instances, indeed, where a miarket could not be found for them at any price, the super-cargoes were obliged to commit them to the flames. By this example, however, the commercial equilibrium was soon re-established.
If an exact comparison be made between the progress of commerce in the times anterior to the permission, and its present state and influence, it will be seen that Peru has constantly tended to preserve the same ratio between her imports and exports; and that their augmentation, by the means of the free trade, has distributed the advantages which were before confined to a few hands, among a greater number of individuals, to the sensible benefit, both of the nation at large, and of the public treasury.
It is unnecessary to compare the present system with the epoch of the armadas, or galleons, its advantages being too clear and obvious to need the slightest elucidation. The abolition of the latter must have been a constant source of anxiety to foreign nations, thus deprived of the benefits of supplying Peru, and of extracting, by a destructive importation, the greater part of her treasures.
The burthen of the galleons, and of the ships by which they were followed, was regulated, in the seventeenth century,
