Page:A Study of Mexico.djvu/73

Rh were, first, to collect and pay into the royal treasury the largest possible amount of annual revenue; second, to extend and magnify the authority and work of the established Church; third, to protect home (i. e., Spanish) industries.

Starting with the assumption that the country, with all its people and resources, was the absolute property of the crown in virtue of conquest, the accomplishment of the first result was sought through the practical enslavement of the whole native population, and the appropriation of the largest amount of all production that was compatible with the continued existence of productive industries. With the civil power at the command of the Church, the attainment of the second result was from the outset most successful; for, with a profession of belief and the acceptance of baptism, on the one hand, and the vigilance of the Inquisition and a menace of the fires of the auto-da-fe on the other, the number of those who wanted to exemplify in themselves the supremacy of conscience or the freedom of the will was very soon reduced to a minimum. And, finally, the correctness or expediency of the principle of protection to home (Spanish) industry having been once accepted, it was practically carried out, with such a logical exactness and absence of all subterfuge, as to be worthy of admiration, and without parallel in all