fanaticism of the Spanish people to an extraordinary degree. At the conclusion of the Moorish contest the country was filled with bold, energetic, fiery spirits, inured to hardship and privation, and an irrepressible desire for war took possession of all classes. There was an universal wish to break through the mountain barriers that had hitherto separated them from the rest of Europe. It was not long before the national ambition found an impersonation in the Emperor Charles V., who made Spain the most powerful monarchy in Europe, and entered upon a career of conquest such as had not been projected since the days of Charlemagne. The objects of Spanish ambition were territorial aggrandisement and Catholic unity. The fanaticism of the Moorish people seemed to have been transfused into the Spanish race, and they were as eager to impose their creed on other nations as the most enthusiastic disciples of Mahomet had been to convert and subjugate the world. The military profession came to be held in the highest repute. Every one aspired to serve under a sovereign who was as great in war as in council, and to contribute to the glory of Spain. Even men of peace, hitherto devoted to literature and art, became soldiers; and if they could not be officers, they were content to be privates. Cervantes and Lope de Vega served in the ranks. As there must necessarily be a limit to the largest army, those who could not be admitted into it, disdaining labour, became vagabonds and freebooters. The serious derangement of life and industry which pervaded Spain during this period is noted and deplored by all contemporary

historians.

The mode in which the Transatlantic dominions of Spain were acquired was as marvellous as any of the wonders they contained. The colonial empire was founded by men who carried with them from the Old World no commission or authority beyond a general permission to make settlements, and to plant the standard of their country and the Cross. Successful adventurers returned, with unheard-of productions and fabulous wealth, having, with a mere handful of men, conquered kingdoms as remarkable for their ancient civilization as for the boundless treasures which they contained. Half frenzied with excitement, multitudes quitted their native land for the marvellous regions beyond the seas. The decline of Spain has been sometimes attributed to the loss of population which this event entailed, and doubtless of the many thousands who left their native shores a large proportion never returned, but sank under the influence of new and pestilential climates; but colonization does not permanently impair the energy of any country that contains within itself the elements of a healthy reproduction.

England

England has suffered no exhaustion in the process of peopling her colonies.

It never entered into the thoughts of the rulers of Spain, after they had taken possession of nearly one-half of America, that it could not be always retained as a dependency. Of what use, they doubtless said, were distant possessions unless they could be turned to profitable account, and governed for the benefit of the mother country? That regions embracing nearly a quarter of the known globe could not for ever be held in subjection to an European state, and made subservient to its commercial interests, was certainly the last idea that would have occurred to the statesmen in the sixteenth century. Their only object was to obtain from colonies as much as they could extort, and give them as little as possible in return. It passed into a political maxim that colonies should buy everything they wanted very dear, and sell everything they possessed very cheap. But the most singular effect of the colonial system of Spain was to give an impulse to the industry of all other countries rather than her own. It had long been a principle of Spanish economy to base the prosperity of the kingdom on the wealth of towns rather than on agriculture. Barcelona, in 1491, was considered equal to Naples in splendour, to Florence in elegance, and to Venice in wealth. In the fifteenth century, at Toledo, Segovia, and in the district of La Mancha, the number of hands employed in the manufacture of woollens and silks was 127,823; in the city of Seville alone they numbered 30,000; and Granada and Valencia were rivals in their varied productions. Manufactures were not produced for home consumption alone, but formed the basis of an export trade almost co-extensive with the world. Commerce was held in the highest repute; the merchants of Barcelona were the honourable of the earth, and its chief magistrates ranked as grandees of the kingdom.*

Notwithstanding this manufacturing development, the trade with America fell into the hands of foreigners. In 1542 the Cortes of Valladolid complained that strangers possessed so alarming a monopoly that they had the supreme control over the public wealth. The immense importations of the precious metals necessarily had an immediate effect on the value of money, which fell below that of other countries, and not

The first effect of the American trade was to give a great impetus to the manufactures of Spain. In the year 1545, while Spain contrived to depend upon its own industry for the supply of the colonies, so much work was bespoken that it was supposed it would hardly be furnished in less than six years; yet in a short time not above a twentieth part of the commodities exported to America was of Spanish growth or fabric.-Robertson's History of America,' book viii.

only

only raised the price of food and labour, but enabled many foreign goods to be imported cheaper than similar articles could be manufactured in Spain. The fiscal system of the Government, moreover, loaded with the heaviest duties all native productions, but allowed foreign produce and manufactures to be imported almost free. Thus foreign silk was admitted at a duty of five per cent., while native silk was taxed a hundred per cent.; and other products were treated much in the same manner. Manufacturing production must have soon altogether ceased in Spain, for a writer of the sixteenth century states that in his day one-half of his countrymen wore no shirts because they had no money to buy them; and those of the other half were made of fabrics imported from abroad.* The commodities for carrying on the American trade were chiefly supplied from abroad; and the greater part of the treasure which flowed into Spain from the Indies was consigned to aliens, and found its way ultimately into German, Dutch, and Italian banks. Agriculture was unfairly treated. If there was a scarcity, corn was admitted at a low duty; but if there was an abundant harvest, the farmer could reap no benefit, for exportation was subject to an enormous duty. Districts that had once teemed with abundance were consequently thrown out of cultivation; and the scarcity of grain was sometimes so great that in remote provinces many died of starvation. Such was the deficiency of labour that it was long customary for large numbers of the French peasantry to enter Spain to gather in the harvests. The precious metals flowed in an apparently exhaustless stream into Spain; but the true sources of prosperity and revenue had dried up; and while the treasure-ships of the Indies were discharging their golden freights on the quays of Cadiz and Seville, the Government was in absolute want of money to pay the troops, and to meet the current expenses of the royal household. The public treasury was empty, but the vaults of the foreign merchants who traded to the Indies were filled with gold. The Emperor Charles V., impatient at the contrast between the wealth of these alien traders and the poverty of his own beggarly exchequer, devised a notable expedient for obtaining the command of a portion of this American gold. He ordered that all the bullion imported from the Indies should be deposited in the Casa de Contractation, or Board of Trade, and there registered in the names of its owners; and he claimed a right, in virtue of his prerogative, to help him

Moncada, quoted by Baumgarten, 'Geschichte Spaniens,' p. 8. + Burke's Works, vol. vii. p. 95.

self

self to so much of it as his necessities required, giving bonds to the consignees for its repayment. The great traders of Seville, to whom this arrangement was, of course, highly unsatisfactory, ventured, on the accession of Philip II., to transfer their bullion from the public vaults to their own counting-houses. Philip had recourse to his father for advice. The Emperor, who was generally supposed to have discarded all thoughts of mundane affairs, and to be wholly occupied with religious exercises, was thereupon moved to such an excess of wrath, that he recommended that the culprits should be immediately arrested, loaded with irons, imprisoned in the fortress of Simancas, and there put to the torture, and their property confiscated; and such,' wrote his secretary, 'is His Majesty's indignation, and such the bloodthirsty expressions he commands me to use, that you will pardon me if my language is not so temperate as it might be.' Such an arbitrary appropriation by the Sovereign of the property of his subjects was alone sufficient to ruin trade and to drive merchants out of the country.†

The circuitous trade which Spain compelled her colonies to submit to, not only grievously injured them, but affected in the most mischievous manner all her own industrial interests. Not a single article of European produce or manufacture could reach America unless it came direct from the ports of Spain, while on the other hand the gold and silver and all the other costly and coveted productions of the New World were shipped direct to the mother-country. The wines of Italy, the corn of Sicily, the fine fabrics of the Netherlands, the woollens and hardware of England, the silks and velvets of France, and all the rare and precious productions of the tropics filled to repletion the warehouses of Seville and Cadiz. But, in point of fact, these goods were merely intended for transshipment; the Spanish merchants only lent their names to cover the trade of foreigners, who reaped all the benefit of it; while the vineyards of Spain were thrown out of cultivation, arable lands converted into sheep-walks, manu

* See Appendix to Prescott's' History of Charles V.'

It is instructive to observe how rapidly the ruinous policy pursued both by the Emperor and his son Philip II. told upon the finances of Spain. Weighed down by care, the latter had recourse to Garnica, a man of great political experience, and addressed to him the most singular letter that ever was written by a sovereign in distress. 'See,' he says, 'what I suffer, finding myself at the age of forty-eight with a prince three years old, and leaving him an exchequer so much out of condition. And besides this, what will be the wants of old age, for they appear already commencing, if I live much longer without seeing on one day how I am to live the next? Debts and exchanges consume everything, even life itself, and weigh so heavily upon me, that I do not know how I am able to breathe.'-De Castro's 'Spanish Protestants.' The letter is quoted in Davila, p. 255.

factories

factories closed, and mines abandoned. It seemed as if both worlds had become tributary to Spain and were pouring their riches into the lap of the most favoured people on the earth, while a gangrene was slowly consuming the life of the nation. Great numbers of the peasantry and artisans were thrown out of employment, and became either beggars, or robbers, or monks. The productive classes of the community diminished year by year, and native capitalists almost disappeared.*

The decline of Spain now proceeded with an accelerated pace. The monarchy was soon brought to the verge of ruin. All classes were steeped in a common poverty. The monarchs of the house of Hapsburg had reigned over Spain for two hundred years, and when Charles II. died the national prostration was complete. The proudest and most ambitious power on the earth had become indifferent to disgrace and sank into the apathy of despair. The whole head was sick, and the whole heart faint. The population, which in the first half of the sixteenth century was ten millions, had fallen to less than six millions, and a revenue which had amounted to 280,000,000 reals had dwindled to 30,000,000. The minister, to prevent a total dissolution of government, was obliged to address begging letters to the nobility, and even to appropriate money and plate which had been placed in the churches for safe custody. So completely changed was the spirit of the nation that even the passion for war became extinct. The army was almost wholly composed of Germans, Walloons, and Italians; the few Spaniards that could be induced to enlist were recruited from the beggars that had multiplied like the vermin of the land. The people cursed the foreign possessions that were continually calling for reinforcements. In the Neapolitan territories there were not six companies of infantry fit for duty. Sicily was defended by 500 men. There were scarcely 200 in the island of Sardinia; fewer still in Minorca, and none at all in America. The only sea-going ships were the traders to the Indies. Six old men-of-war lay rotting at their moorings before Carthagena. The fisheries were abandoned to interlopers, and the remains of a once magnificent commerce were helplessly yielded up a prey to pirates. In the great Transatlantic colonies. serious disturbances were reported, and corsairs from all parts of the globe spread terror along their shores. The punishment of Spain for her savage bigotry and tyranny had come in a form the most damaging to her honour and self-respect. The United

* In Seville the number of rich manufacturers is said to have fallen to onetwentieth, and the population to less than one-half, at the close of the reign of Charles II.

Provinces,