millions of dollars, was swallowed up, either by the government charges, which (including dilapidations) amounted to eleven millions, or, by remittances to other Colonies, (the Havanna and the Phillippine Islands,) the revenues of which did not cover the expenditure.
Under such a system as that which I have described, it was not to be expected that much should be done for the improvement of the people, destined to be ruled by it. Spain felt that her power depended in a great measure upon their ignorance.—By disseminating the blessings of education amongst her subjects, she would, virtually, have undermined her own authority, and made them impatient of a yoke, which comparison would have rendered doubly galling. They were, therefore, taught to believe that the fate of all mankind was similar to their own: or rather, that they were pre-eminently fortunate, in belonging to a monarchy so much superior in power and dignity to the rest of the world. Spain was to them the queen of nations: hablar Christiano, (to speak a Christian language,) was the privilege of those by whom her dialect was used; while English and French, Germans and North Americans, were all involved in one indiscriminate condemnation, as Jews, heretics, and unbelievers, with whom no good Catholic could hold intercourse without contamination.
The Inquisition was constituted the guardian of this belief, and discharged the duty with a zeal,
