terprize was the discovery of several valuable gold mines, at the same time that others which had been long neglected, on account of the defect of the necessary communications, were again worked. In a word, the efforts of this dignitary of the church, to remedy evils, to eradicate abuses, to promote public works, and to advance the sciences, are incredible. His discourse, at the opening[1] of the Economical Society of Quito, which has been already referred to, deserves to be given at length, on account of the soundness of policy it displays, and of the masterly eloquence in which it abounds. It is as follows:
“The extreme poverty experienced by this my beloved capital, and by the whole of my diocess, has notably afflicted me, as I have manifested in several of my edicts, and in reiterated communications made to the king, our sovereign lord. Amid this gloom and despondency, I had the particular satisfaction to read, a few days ago, I think, in the moral work entitled ‘the Education of Eusebius,’ that ‘not only those capitals and provinces are felicitous in which abundance abounds, but likewise those in which abound misery and scarcity.’ I
- ↑ This meeting took place, in the great hall of the new royal university of Quito, on the 30th of November 1791, and was attended by a numerous assemblage of distinguished personages. At the head of the principal females and matrons of Quito, was the lady of the president of the province, by whose order the chief artisans, or masters of all the corporate trades, were admitted. A subscription, by which a fund to defray the expences of the Society might be formed, was proposed by the bishop, in his quality of director; and, in setting the example, which was generally followed, he himself subscribed three hundred piastres. The annual subscription of the associates and honorary members, for the benefit of the Society, was likewise regulated on this occasion.
