Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 1.djvu/147

Rh of the world, thus maintaining a strict monopoly of trade in her own hands. All imports and exports were conveyed in Spanish bottoms, nor was any vessel permitted to sail for Vera Cruz or Porto Bello, her only two authorized American ports, except from Seville, until the year 1720, when the trade was removed to Cadiz as a more convenient outlet. It was not until the War of the Succession that the trade of Peru was opened, and, even then, only to the French. By the peace of Utrecht, in 1713, Great Britain with the asiento, or contract for the supply of slaves, obtained a direct participation in the American trade, by virtue of a permission granted her to send a vessel of five hundred tons annually to the fair at Porto Bello. This privilege ceased with the partial hostilities in 1737, but Spain found herself compelled, on the restoration of peace in 1739, to make some provision for meeting the additional demand which the comparatively free communication with Europe had created. Licenses were granted, with this view, to vessels called register-ships, which were chartered during the intervals between the usual periods for the departure of the galleons. In 1764, a further improvement was made by the establishment of monthly packets to Havana, Porto Rico and Buenos Ayres, which were allowed to carry out half cargoes of goods. This was followed in 1774, by the removal of the interdict upon the intercourse of the colonies with each other; and, this again, in 1778, under what is termed a decree of free trade, by which seven of the principal ports of the peninsula were allowed to carry on a direct intercourse with Buenos Ayres and the South Sea. Up to the period when these civilized modifications of the original interdict were made, the colonists were forbidden to trade either with foreigners or with each other's states, under any pretext whatever. The penalty of disobedience and detection was death.

Having thus enacted that the sole vehicle of colonial commerce should be Spanish, the next effort of the paternal government was to make the things it conveyed Spanish also. As an adjunct in this system of imposition, the laws of the Indies prohibited the manufacture or cultivation in the colonies, of all those articles which could be manufactured or produced in Spain. Factories were therefore inhibited, and foreign articles were permitted to enter the viceroyalties, direct from Spain alone, where they were, of course, subjected to duty previous to re-exportation. But these foreign products were not allowed to be imported in unstinted quantities. Spain fixed both the amount and the price; so that by