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64 economic history. For, in the first instance, with a view of laying the axe directly at the root of the tree of commercial freedom, all foreign trade or commercial intercourse with any country other than Spain was prohibited under pain of death; and this ordinance is believed to have been kept in force until within the present century. No schools or educational institutions save those of an ecclesiastical nature were allowed, and in these, instruction in almost every branch of useful learning was prohibited. Certain portions of Mexico were admirably adapted, as they yet are, to the cultivation of the vine, the olive, the mulberry, and of fiber-yielding plants, and also for the keeping and breeding of sheep; but, as a colonial supply of wine, oil, silk, hemp, and wool might interfere with the interests of home producers, the production of any or all of these articles was strictly