had overrun their country to respect their rights, and rule them with equity, from the continual apprehension that if they did not pay this just price of dominion, they would lose their possessions entirely thus extorting from their fears what their affections could never be expected to yield.

The whole of South America, while Colonies of Spain, was in the first condition; and New South Wales and the Cape may be considered in the same state, as dependencies of England. The United States of America originally were, and the South American Republics, and perhaps Canada and the West Indies, now are, in the second state, having more to apprehend from legislative and armed interference from the Mother Countries than from any other danger. And India seems especially in the last condition,— that of a captive and a slave, whose chief aim it should be to persuade or compel its masters to make its fetters as little galling as possible, from the fear of otherwise losing entirely all the benefits of its possession. Let us pursue a little farther the inquiry and comparison, as applied to the countries named:

The discoveries and settlements of the Spaniards and Portuguese in the immense continent of South America, from Mexico to Patagonia, opened to the world more splendid visions of future wealth and greatness than had been yet presented by any event whatever. These possessions contained within themselves the seeds of every production, and the materials of every power by which nations are enriched, or the events of human life are influenced and directed. Exhaustless mines of gold, silver, and precious stones, sufficient to furnish the whole world with all that could be required of each for use or ornament; rich savannahs, a teeming soil, and the most genial climate for all agricultural productions; extensive forests, majestic rivers, capacious ports, and an endless diversity of inland country for production, intersected by the largest rivers for conveyance, fringed by the most admirably-adapted coast for commerce with the rest of the world: thus embracing all the advantages that the imagination of man could paint, or the heart of man desire. Directed by even ordinary wisdom, such possessions would have given to the people who inhabited them the utmost degree of abundance and happiness of which any country is capable, and to the nations who held them as dependencies, the most complete sway over all other states and kingdoms of the earth. To effect this, however, the greatest encouragement should have been given to agricultural improvement; the arts of Europe should have been introduced and encouraged in the dependent country; free scope and exercise should have been granted to the intellect of the natives, as well as of the settlers from home, so that mutual and reciprocal information and instruction might have flowed from active mental intercourse; and the commerce of the world should have been open to them, so that they might vend their own productions to the rea

diest purchaser, and procure their own supplies from the countries which could furnish them at the least cost.

If it be said that Mother Countries only settle and retain Colonies for some pecuniary advantage which they hope to derive from the exclusive monopoly of receiving the colonial productions at a lower rate, or compelling them to take their home-manufactures at higher rate than is paid for each by other nations; even then, the encouragement and freedom given would benefit the Mother Country more than any exclusive monopoly of either the foreign or the home supply and supposing pecuniary gain to be the only object, though there are many other powerful considerations which often equal, and sometimes surpass this in importance, even this would be more readily obtained by permitting the Colony to grow rich from the full development of its resources in an unfettered commerce, thus enabling it to pay a tribute for protection, which, being rich, would be lightly felt by all, but which, when exacted by monopolies from nations already poor, are felt as intolerable burthens.

What was the course pursued with respect to South America? The Spaniards, ignorantly conceiving that all wealth consisted in gold and silver, at however great expense of labour and materials they might be raised from the bowels of the earth, first applied all their power to the production of these metals, to the neglect of agriculture, which, if pursued in those colonies, might have made them the source of supply for raw materials to all the world; and to the neglect of manufactures, which, if pursued at home, might have made Spain equal in wealth and power to the most favoured country under heaven. Next to the folly of directing exclusive attention to the creation of what is only the sign instead of the substance of wealth, was the preposterous notion that keeping all the gold and silver thus raised, within the Spanish dominions, was the way to make themselves rich: and that preventing other nations from interchanging the products of their industry, for this gold and silver, was the way to keep them poor! Both these causes were, however, so insufficient to produce the desired effect, that instead of the national resourses being increased, they diminished with every succeeding year, and compelled the mother country to resort to a worse expedient than even the two preceding, namely, attempting a monopoly of particular branches of trade by prohibiting all but the King from buying or selling the royally privileged articles, and laying such disproportionately heavy duties on every other branch of trade, as to amount to an actual suspension of all commerce except through contraband channels. The King was the only man in his dominions who could legally trade in the colonial produce of tobacco and snuff; yet notwithstanding the immoderate use of these two articles by every individual in his dominions above the age of ten, and the extensive consumption thus given to an article of regal traffic, in a country where all trading is looked down upon by

the aristrocracy of the land with more contempt than in any other country of Europe-all would not do. Notwithstanding the enormous duties imposed on the manufactures of every nation that attempted to supply the colonies of Spain with goods—amounting to one-third of the whole cargo imported, or 33 per cent. on the value, which was exacted from every ship casting anchor in a colonial port, and whether the cargo were offered for sale or notindependently of enormous port charges and other exactions-the revenue continually declined; and the whole country was transformed into one vast multitude of smugglers and revenue officers, cruizers by sea and banditti by land, by whom alternate seizures and rescues of contraband goods, from store-houses guarded by the King's own troops, were constantly occurring, in defiance of authority, and in the open day.

'The extent to which this existed, and the manner in which all classes of society were engaged in carrying it on, must have been seen to be conceived. We will mention only two particular features of it which fell under our own personal notice, and to which we can therefore speak with accuracy and confidence. During the frequent intercourse of the King's packets from Falmouth with Corunna, Lisbon, Cadiz, and Oporto, though it is the especial and exclusive duty of these ships to carry only letters and passengers, and although trading or conveying cargo of any description is strictly prohibited by the Post Office authorities under the severest penalties, yet not a vessel of this description ever left England without being literally laden with British manufactures for the known purpose of being smuggled into the ports of Spain and Portugal; and the object, as well as the mode in which it was pursued, was as well known to all the revenue officers of the kingdom as to the smugglers under his Britannic Majesty's flag themselves. The system of misgovernment in Spain had however so entirely corrupted all classes, that from the lowest to the highest individual in the country no one was above the temptation of a bribe; and the King's officers being thus purchased, were the most frequent and most powerful abettors of the illicit trade, which it was the only purpose of their appointment to put down. On the arrival of the British packet at any of the ports named, as at Lisbon for instance, she was met outside the bar of entrance to the harbour by an armed revenue cruizer, sent down on purpose to escort the packet up, and prevent her smuggling on shore contraband goods. It constantly happened, however, that a large Spanish or Portuguese merchant ship bound to La Plata or the Brazils was found waiting for the packet outside the harbour: and there, not merely in sight, but actually under the protection of the revenue cruizer, half the cargo of the packet would be taken out and carried on board the large trader, who either paid for the goods wholly in dollars, or partly in coin, and partly in contraband colonial produce retained on board the ship from her former voyage, and thus smuggled into the

mother country under a foreign king's flag. With her goods obtained from the packet she proceeded on her voyage to the colonies, where they were again smuggled on shore by the aid of the revenue officers: both the mother country and the colony being thus defrauded of all that portion of revenue which a more moderate duty might have secured to each, and that too by those whose duty and whose interest it would have been, under a more just system, to obey the laws which they were now continually tempted to violate. The remaining portion of the packet's freight was taken into the port of her destination, where the following farce almost invariably ensued. On her anchoring near the town, the cruizer that accompanied her in from the entrance anchored within pistol-shot on one side and for still further security, a second armed cruizer was sent to anchor at the same distance on the other side, so as to render it impossible for any thing to be sent out of the ship without its being perceived. Within an hour after the vessels had taken their stations, a professed visit of ceremony took place between the two revenue captains, and the officers of the packet. At this interview the plan for getting on shore the smuggled goods was arranged, and the amount of the bribes to be given to each of the parties who required to be bought, was settled. Towards sunset, boats of a peculiar construction, fitted for great capacity of burthen and tolerable speed, dropped silently alongside the packet, when they were as silently loaded by the crew of the ship, each having his little adventure to smuggle as well as his commander, and all being deeply interested in success. Before midnight, the boats being loaded, would drop from the ship's side in the direction of the tide, with the men all crouched on the packages, so as to resemble a boat adrift, and floating heedlessly with the stream. When they had got a sufficient distance from the vessel to justify their stirring, the men flew to their oars and commenced rowing. This (which was all preconcerted) apparently roused the attention of the revenue officers on board the cruizers, each of which from that moment became a scene of the greatest noise and bustle. Boats were manned, armed, and pushed off in pursuit of the smugglers, each apparently eager to be first alongside the enemy of which they were in chase. The speed of the pursuers, was, however, always so measured, that they constantly appeared to be overtaking yet never really overtook the pursued, while, to continue the delusion, pistols and muskets with blank cartridges were discharged in quick succession cutlasses were flourished and clashed against each other in the same boat, and all the noise, smoke, and confusion of a real battle were sustained for hours, so that the crews of all the ships in the river and the inhabitants of all the houses on shore were led to admire the zealous and dauntless spirit of the revenue officers in the performance of their duty. The Gazette of the following day contained compliments to their bravery, and sometimes rewards were even bestowed on the parties for the successful deception of

the higher authorities, and the plunder of the King's treasury, which rewards were added to the bribes received from the English smugglers, and divided, as prize-money, amongst all the parties instrumental to the enterprize.

While these scenes were occurring in the ports of Spain and Portugal, the following was the mode in which commerce was conducted in the Colonies of these respective countries: We will take the Gulf of Mexico as an example, having been a witness of the trade there as well as in the Mother Country. English vessels from London, Liverpool, and Lancaster, came to the Bahama Islands, laden with every variety of British manufacture, but more especially with cotton goods. These were landed at Nassau in New Providence, and retained in the warehouses of traders established there, to be exported from thence as occasion served. At frequent short intervals, there came up to the Bahamas, from Porto Bello, Vera Cruz, and other ports of the American continent, large boats, bringing with them a sufficient quantity of gold and silver, in doubloons and dollars, to purchase a full lading of British manufactures for their return. For this, they paid ready money on the spot; and sailed off again for their homes. On arriving near the coast, their operations were similar to those of smugglers elsewhere, acting on a preconcerted plan of signals; with this difference, however, that there was less need of caution on their parts than is required from smugglers generally, as all the revenue-officers were bribed by a participation in the gains of the adventure, and were all, therefore, parties aiding and abetting the success of the transaction. There scarcely occurred an instance of seizure within the year; the country was filled with goods at comparatively moderate prices, and the adventurers were enriched by their sale; but the whole commerce of the country was illicit or contraband, and accordingly the revenue from foreign trade was absolutely nothing.

A state of things so unusual as this must have required a powerful agency to maintain it; but the facility of this will be better understood, when it is stated, that the priesthood were the chief supporters of this system of fraud and deception. Neither in Lisbon nor Cadiz, in Oporto nor Corunna, was there ever any great smuggling transaction in which there was not a priest as one of the chief agents. And in the Colonies, every vessel engaged in the smuggling trade had one or more priests on board, while others remained on shore to prepare for their return by absolving the revenue-officers from their sins, and soothing the consciences of all who might be necessary to be brought over to their purposes.

It was in this manner that the gold and silver of America found its way out of that country, and the manufactures of England found their way in, without benefiting either the Parent State or the Colonial Government by the exchange, but, on the contrary, impoverishing both, while both might have been enriched and the morals of the