tentiaries of the inquiſition, &c. They muſt be natives and reſidents, worth a thouſand ducats, and muſt have no concern in commerce, manufactures, or trades; and, by a fundamental agreement among all the merindades, ail their deputies to the junta general, and all their regidores, ſindics, ſecretaries, and treaſurers, muſt be nobles, at leaſt knights, and ſuch as never exerciſed any mechanical trades themſelves or their fathers. Thus we ſee the people themſelves have eſtablished by law a contracted ariſtocracy, under the appearance of a liberal democracy. Americans, beware!
Although we ſee here in the general government, and in that of every city and merindad, the three branches of power, of the one, the few, and the many; yet, if it were as democratical as it has been thought by ſome, we could by no means infer, from this inſtance of a little flock upon a fe impracticable mountains, in a round form of ten leagues diameter, the utility or practicability of ſuch a government in any other country.
The diſpoſition to diviſion, ſo apparent in all democratical governments, however tempered with ariſtocratical and monarchical powers, has ſhewn itſelf, in breaking off from it Guipuſcoa and Allaba; and the only preſervative of it from other diviſions, has been the fear of their neighbours. They always knew, that as ſoon as they ſhould fall into factions, or attempt innovations, the court of Spain would interpoſe, and preſcribe them a government not ſo much to their taſte.
