Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/520

494 494 SPANISH COLONIAL POLICY. PART necessities, and to gather strength in the habitual "' exercise of political functions, the Spanish colonies were from the very first checked and controlled by the over-legislation of the parent country. The original project of discovery had been entered into with indefinite expectations of gain. The verifica- tion of Columbus's theory of the existence of land in the west gave popular credit to his conjecture, that that land was the far-famed Indies. The specimens of gold and other precious commodities found there, served to maintain the delusion. The Spanish government regarded the expedition as its own private adventure, to whose benefits it had exclusive pretensions. Hence those jealous regu- lations for securing to itself a monopoly of the most obvious sources of profit, the dyewoods and the precious metals. These impolitic provisions were relieved by others better suited to the permanent interests of the colony. Such was the bounty offered in vari- ous ways on the occupation and culture of land ; the erection of municipalities ; the right of inter- colonial traffic, and of exporting and importing merchandise of every description free of duty.'* These and similar laws show, that the government, far from regarding the colonies merely as a foreign acquisition to be sacrificed to the interests of the mother country, as at a later period, was disposed 13 Munoz, Hist, del Nuevo- cap. 11, 12. — Navarrefe, Colec- Mundo, lib. 5, sec. 32, 33. — Her- cion de Viages, torn, ii., Doc. Dipl., rcra, Indias Occidcntales, lib. 4, no. 86.