MEXICO. 77 the laws of the Indies insist so frrequently, or so strongly, as this equality, as may be seen by a reference to the Recopila- ciones. Such is the outline of that mighty fabric, by which the authority of Spain, in the New World, was so long sup- ported. Its defects, in theory, are by no means so great as many have supposed ; the evil consisted in the practice ; and in the application of the whole political power of the crown to the maintenance of a system of revenue laws, by which the interest of the Colonies was entirely sacrificed to that of the Mother country. Upon both these points it will be necessary for me to enter into some details. With regard to the first, (the difference between the theory and the practice of Spain, in her Colonial system,) the histo- ry of the last two centuries sufficiently proves, how entirely the conciliatory intentions of the first framers of the laws of the Indies were lost sight of, by the total exclusion of the Creoles from any participation in the government of their respective countries. Every situation in the gift of the crown, from the Viceroy to the lowest custom-house officer, was bestowed upon an European ; nor is there an instance, for many years before the revolution, either in the church, the army, or the law, in which the door of preferment was opened to a native.* It became the darling policy of Spain to disseminate, throughout her American dominions, a class of men distinct from the natives in feelings, habits, and in- terests ; taught to consider themselves as a privileged caste^ and to regard their own existence as intimately connected with that of the system, of which they were the principal support. In return for their supposed devotion to the crown, all the offices of government were theirs ; and, by a regular scale of promotion, they rose in dignity and rank, the
- The promotion of Don Antonio Perez, now Bishop of Puebla, to
that See, took place after the King's return in 1814, when the necessity of conciliating the natives began to be admitted.
