It is with this view, and not with any wish to place the conduct of the Spanish government in an unfavourable light, that I have introduced them into this sketch. The errors of Spain have brought with them their own punishment. Even during the days of her power, they were chiefly detrimental to her own interests; for, in attempting to exclude foreign trade entirely, she only reduced smuggling to a system, by which the revenue was defrauded, without the interest of the Creoles being materially advanced; since produce could not be exported, where no legal communication could be held.
With regard to the other parts of her Colonial Policy, it must always be recollected, that its spirit was originally mild; the evils which grew out of it, were, perhaps, the inevitable consequence of despotic institutions, transplanted to regions so distant, that there could be no check to the abuse of delegated power. There was no want of excellent laws in the folios in which the code of the Indies was contained; but the facility with which they were evaded, and the constant impunity of those by whom they were infringed, rendered them unavailing. What wonder then, that under such circumstances, a remedy should have been sought in a total change of institutions, or that a system should have been adopted the very opposite to that which had before prevailed?
