THE FAIR OF PORTO BEllo, etc.

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to Europe, was found to have one fifth of alloy. The Spanish merchants, with their usual integrity, sustained the whole loss, and indemnified the foreigners by whom they were employed. The fraud was detected, and the author of it, who was no other than the treasurer of the mint at Lima, publicly burnt for his villany. The reputation, therefore, of the Peruvian merchants suf fered no stain.

The fair of Porto Bello was limited to forty days, on account of the insalubrity of the place. After this, the galeons returned to Spain by the way of Cuba, often with twenty millions of dollars in money and goods. The two towns of Porto Bello and Panama, which were the main channels of communication between Spain and her most valuable colonies, were reduced almost to nothing after the galeons were abolished.

The quantity of gold and silver entered at the Spanish ports from America, exceeded twenty millions of dollars per annum, besides what was smuggled. It might naturally be supposed that such a torrent of treasure must have rendered Spain the richest country in the universe. But the event proved otherwise. All the greedy rapacity and oppression of the Spanish conquerors have been unable to prevent Spain from sinking into one of the poorest and feeblest powers in Europe. When the American mines were first opened, and the intercourse between the mother country and her colonies became active, the industry and manufactures of Spain were so thriving that she was able to answer the growing demands of the American settlements. The manufactures in wool, and flax, and silk, were so considerable, as to furnish not only sufficient for her own consumption, but afforded a surplus for exportation. And when a new market for them was opened, to which she alone had access, this new employment must have augmented her industry. But a sudden and enormous influx of wealth must ever bring pernicious consequences in its train, by overturning all sober plans of industry, and breeding a taste for whatever is wild, extravagant and daring in business and action. The treasures of Spain were accordingly squandered by Charles V. in attempts to overturn the liberties of Germany, and by the imbecile and arrogant Philip II., who imagined his feeble intellect equal to the task of subjugating all Europe. Spain was thus drained of men and money. The calamities of the country were increased by the bigot, Philip III., who wantonly expelled from his dominions a million of industrious Morescoes, who constituted the life of the Spanish manufactures.

The demands of the colonies continued to increase in proportion

as the parent state declined in population and industry. The Spaniards, finding industry discouraged at home, repaired with eagerness to the New World; and another drain of her population was opened in Spain by the flow of emigrants to the west. Thinned of people and void of industry, she was unable to supply the increasing demands of her colonies, and had recourse to her neighbors. The manufactures of the Low Countries, of England, France and Italy, which her wants called into existence, or animated with new vigor, furnished in abundance whatever she required. In vain did the fundamental law of Ferdinand and Isabella, excluding foreigners from the trade of America, oppose this innovation. Necessity, more powerful than written statutes, defeated its operations, and forced the Spaniards themselves to concur in eluding it. Relying on the fidelity and honor of the Spanish merchants, who lent their names to cover the transaction, the English, the French and the Dutch sent out their manufactures to the Spanish colonies, and reaped the enormous profits created by the misgovernment of the court of Madrid. probity, which is the pride and distinction of the Castilians, was the security of foreigners in this traffic. Neither the dread of danger, nor the allurements of profit ever induced a Spanish agent to betray the trust confided in him.

That

Before the middle of the seventeenth century, not more than a twentieth part of the commodities exported to Spanish America was the growth or fabric of the parent state. All the rest was the property of foreign merchants, though entered in the name of Spaniards. The treasures of the New World may be said from this time to have belonged not to Spain, but to foreigners. The court of Madrid were astonished and distressed to behold their American wealth vanish almost as soon as it appeared. In their desperation and perplexity they had recourse to many wild and ineffectual schemes. The exportation of gold and silver was made a capital crime; but this law, like the former, was eluded, and Philip IV., unable to supply what was requisite in circulation, attempted to raise copper coin to the value nearly of silver. The lord of the mines of Mexico and Peru was driven to the necessity of uttering base money!

Under the feeble monarchs with whom the reign of the Austrian line in Spain terminated, no remedy was applied to the evils under which the national trade and industry languished. These evils continued to increase, and Spain, with dominions more extensive and opulent than any other European state, possessed neither money, vigor, nor industry. At length the violence of a great national convulsion aroused the slumbering genius of the land in

the war of the succession, at the beginning of the last century. This war rekindled, in some degree, the ancient spirit and energy of the nation; while the various powers who favored the pretensions of the Austrian or Bourbon candidate for the throne, France, England and Holland, sent formidable fleets and armies to their support, and remitted immense sums of money to Spain, which were spent there. Part of the American treasure, of which the kingdom had been drained, flowed back; and as soon as the Bourbons obtained quiet possession of the throne, they discerned this change in the spirit of the people, and took advantage of it. Accordingly the first object of Philip V. was to suppress an innovation which had taken place during the war, and which overturned the whole system of the Spanish commerce with America.

The English and Dutch, by their superiority in naval power, having acquired such command of the sea as to cut off all communication between Spain and her colonies, the court of Madrid, in order to furnish the settlements with those necessaries of life, without which they could not subsist, opened the trade of Peru to the French. The privilege of this trade was granted by Louis XIV. to the merchants of St. Malo, who entered into it with vigor and prosecuted it upon principles very different from those of the Spaniards. They supplied Peru with European commodities at a moderate price and in large quantities. Such an abundance of goods flowed into every province of Spanish America, as had never before been seen; and if this intercourse had been continued, the commerce with Spain must have ceased and the dependence of the colonies on the mother country speedily come to an end. Peremptory orders were therefore issued, prohibiting the admission of foreign vessels into any part of Peru or Chili, and a Spanish squadron was sent into the South Sea to enforce the new system.

But though Spain by this means repelled one encroachment on her commerce, she became exposed to another, hardly less fatal. At the peace of Utrecht, Philip V. transferred to Great Britain the Asiento, or privilege of supplying the Spanish colonies with slaves, and added to this grant the more extraordinary favor of allowing the English to send annually to the fair of Porto Bello, a ship of five hundred tons, laden with European commodities. By virtue of this contract, which was vested exclusively in the South Sea Company, British factories were established at Carthagena, Panama, Vera Cruz, Buenos Ayres, and other Spanish settlements; and the company was farther permitted to freight, in the ports of the South Sea, vessels of four hundred tons, to convey negroes to all the ports of Peru, and to bring back the produce of their sales in gold and silver, free of duty.

Thus the veil with which Spain had hitherto covered the affairs of her colonies was removed. The agents of a rival nation residing in the towns of most extensive trade and of chief resort, had the best opportunities of becoming acquainted with the interior condition of the provinces. The merchants of Jamaica, and other English colonies that traded to the Spanish main, were accordingly enabled to carry on the contraband trade with a facility and success never before equalled. This, however, was not the most fatal effect of the Asiento upon the commerce of Spain. The agents of the British South Sea Company, under cover of the importation which they were authorized to make by the ship sent annually to Porto Bello, poured in their goods without measure or restraint. Instead of a ship of five hundred tons, as stipulated by the treaty, they employed one of more than double that size. She was accompanied by three or four smaller vessels, which, mooring in some neighboring creek, supplied her clandestinely with fresh bales of goods as fast as the first were sold. The inspectors of the fair and the officers of the revenue, corrupted by exorbitant presents, connived at the fraud.

In this manner, almost the whole trade of Spanish America fell into the hands of foreigners. The immense commerce of the galeons, formerly the pride of Spain and the envy of other nations, was ruined by this competition, and the squadron itself, reduced from fifteen thousand to two thousand tons, served hardly any other purpose than to bring home the royal revenue arising from the fifth on silver.

The attempts of the Spanish government to check this contraband trade, by the establishment of guarda costas on the coast of the Spanish main, precipitated her into a war with Great Britain, in consequence of which the latter obtained a release from the Asiento, and was left at full liberty, by the treaty of Aix la Chapelle, to regulate the trade with her colonies without being restrained by any foreign engagements. Subsequently to this, the Spanish government permitted a considerable part of the American trade to be carried on by register ships, which were despatched by merchants in Seville and Cadiz in the intervals between the voyages of the galeons and the flota. The advantages of this new arrangement were soon felt; the contraband trade was checked, the number of register ships increased, and in 1748, the galeons were finally abolished, after having been employed above two centuries. All the register ships for the Pacific Ocean were obliged to take their departure from Cadiz and return thither, so that the American commerce remained still under the restraint of a species of monopoly.

BRAZIL.

CHAPTER XIII.

Discovery of Brazil.-Voyage of Amerigo Vespucci.-Attempt of the French, under Villegagnon, to establish a settlement at Rio Janeiro.-Expulsion of the French.Convicts transported to Brazil.-De Souza appointed governor.-Hostility of the natives.-Introduction of the Jesuits.-They pacify the natives.-Contrast of the Spanish and Portuguese policies in the conquest of America.-The Cariges.Anecdote of Farnahaca, a Brazilian chief.-Slaves brought into Brazil.-New attempts of the French.-The Brazilian philosopher.

BRAZIL was first discovered by Vincent Yanez Pinzon, one of the companions of Columbus in his first voyage. Seven years after this, Pinzon and his nephew Arias obtained a commission to make further discoveries. They sailed from Palos, with four caravels, in 1499, and came in sight of Cape St. Augustine, January 26, 1500. They gave this headland the name of Cape Consolation, landed, cut inscriptions on the trees, and took possession of the country for the crown of Castile. They had some hostile dealings with the natives, and coasted south as far as the mouth of the Amazon. From this point they sailed northwardly as far as the Orinoco, and returned to Spain with specimens of cinnamon,