Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/369

ADMINISTRATION OF CASTILE. 225 of the mercantile marine may be inferred from that chapter of the military, which enabled the sovereigns to fit '■ — out an armament of seventy sail in 1482, from the ports of Biscay and Andalusia, for the defence of Naples against the Turks. Some of their regu- lations, indeed, as those prohibiting the exporta- tion of the precious metals, savour too strongly of the ignorance of the true principles of commercial legislation, which has distinguished the Spaniards to the present day. But others, again, as that for relieving the importation of foreign books from all duties, "because," says the statute, "they bring both honor and profit to the kingdom, by the facil- ities which they afford for making men learned," are not only in advance of that age, but may sus- tain an advantageous comparison with provisions on corresponding subjects in Spain at the present time. Public credit was reestablished by the punctuality with which the government redeemed the debt con- tracted during the Portuguese war ; and, notwith- standing the repeal of various arbitrary imposts, which enriched the exchequer under Henry the Fourth, such was the advance of the country un- der the wise economy of the present reign, that the revenue was augmented nearly six fold between the years 1477 and 1482. ""■ Thus released from the heavy burdens imposed prosperitv on it, the spring oi enterprise recovered its former ^oai 51 Pragmaticas del Reyno, fol. ley 13. — See also other whole- 64. — Ordenancas Reales, lib. 4, some laws for the encouragement tit. 4, ley 22 ; lib. 5, tit. 8, ley 2 ; of commerce and general security lib. 6, tit. 9, ley 49 ; lib. 6, tit. 10, of property, as that respecting VOL. I. 29