Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/494

466 466 FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. PART II. increase of empire. and oppressive monopolies f^ for establishing a uni- form currency and standard of weights and measures throughout the kingdom,^^ objects of unwearied solicitude through this whole reign ; for maintaining a police, which, from the most disorderly and dan- gerous, raised Spain, in the language of Martyr, to be the safest country in Christendom;®^ for such equal justice, as secured to every man the fruits of his own industry, inducing him to embark his capi- tal in useful enterprises ; and, finally, for enforcing fidelity to contracts,®^ of which the sovereigns gave such a glorious example in their own administra- tion, as effectually restored that public credit, which is the true basis of public prosperity. While these important reforms were going on in the interior of the monarchy, it experienced a greater change in its external condition by the im- mense augmentation of its territory. The most important of its foreign acquisitions were those nearest home, Granada and Navarre ; at least, they the nature and great variety of these improvements, as collected from the archives of the different cities of the kingdom. Mem. de la Acad, de Hist., tom. vi. Ilustracion II. — Col. de Cedulas, tom. iv. no. 9. 95 Pragmaticas del Reyno, fol. 63, 91, 93. — Recop. de las Leyes, lib. 5, tit. 11, ley 12. — Among the acts for restricting monopolies may be mentioned one, which prohibit- ed the nobility and great land- holders from preventing their ten- ants' opening inns and houses of en- tertainment without their especial license. (Pragmaticas del Reyno, 1492, fol. 96.)' The same abuse, however, is noticed by Mad. d'Aul- noy, in her " Voyage d'Espagne," as still existing, to the great preju- dice of travellers, in the seven- teenth century. Dunlop, Memoirs of Philip IV. and Charles II., vol. ii. chap. 11. 95 Pragmaticas del Reyno, fol. 93-112. — Recop. de las Leyes, lib. 5, tit. 21, 22. 9^ " Ut nulla unquam per se tuta regio, tutiorcm se fuisse jactare possit." Opus Epist., epist. 31. 98 For various laws tending to secure this, and pi^event frauds in trade, see Ordenancas Reales. lib. 3, tit. 8, ley 5. — Pragmaticas del Reyno, fol. 4.'), 06, 67, et alibi. — Col. de Cedulas, tom. i. no. 63.