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this head, it is my intention to give some account of the mode in which the Internal government of the former Spanish Colonies was carried on, before the year 1810, and to add a short sketch of those prohibitory laws with regard to foreign trade, which formed so marked a feature in the policy of the Mother country. It is true, that these laws have ceased to exist, but an acquaintance with them, as well as a knowledge of the political institutions by which they were supported, are essential to a right understanding of the events that have since taken place; for it is in the complication of abuses, to which the Old System gave rise, that we must seek the causes of that Revolution, which has changed the face of the New World.

With the exception of Brazil, Dutch and French Guiana, and our present colonies of Demerara and Esequibo, the Spanish possessions occupied the whole of South America, the Isthmus of Panama, and a portion of the Northern continent, which extended to the confines of the United States.