Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/424

370 confess that I was surprized at this thought, which at first sight appeared to me to be paradoxical; but on revolving it in my mind, and on considering this celebrated sentence: Omnia quippe docuit duris in rebus urgens egestas, I was convinced of the Eusebian truth delivered by the mentor Hardil.

“Yes, gentlemen, our great misery and poverty constitute our greatest felicity, now that harmony is established among us, and that we witness the formation of an industrious, active, and vigilant society. Not any force can resist the union of the learned, when their studies are directed to the investigation of the three kingdoms of Nature, namely, the vegetable, animal, and metallurgical. If in this my beloved capital and diocess, there were a mint in which eight or ten millions of piastres should be coined annually, all would unite in declaring Quito to be a powerful and abundant kingdom. And will it be possible for us, of ourselves, and by ourselves, to form this important machine, or mint? Will it be possible that in Quito, so poor and miserable, the great art of making money, which is the spirit and political soul of all cultivated nations, should, provided it be your wish, gentlemen, be established?

“The art of making money, is the art of collecting gold and silver. But what is this art? Let us divest ourselves of every idea of conquests, oracles, and superstitions. What then, I proceed to ask, is the true, solid, and permanent art of making or acquiring money with all security of conscience? The learned exclaim with one voice, that it consists in agriculture, in the arts, and in maritime commerce, without neglecting the working of the mines, when that is practicable, and with well-founded prospects. By agriculture, by the arts,