of the term for collecting this tax, which is certainly not a great one in a country so fertile as Terra Firma, that some of those upon whom it is to be levied take flight and seek an asylum amongst the wild Indians.

One of the most advantageous privileges of the Indians is that of being considered as minors in all their civil transactions. It is left to their discretion to execute or not to execute whatever contracts they make with the Spaniards without the interposition of the Judges. They can insist on cancelling them in every stage of any business. Their fixed property cannot be legally purchased but at a judiciary auction or sheriff's sales. If the article to be sold is of little value, the permission of the judge is sufficient; but that is not granted, till it appears by the most satisfactory vouchers, that the bargain is advantageous to the Indian.

It was doubtless impossible for the law to carry its impartiality further. Before we examine the results, we must see what the church has done, on her part, in order to rank the Indians amongst the number of the faithful.

Distinguished favours which the church grants them.

The inquisition which possesses an absolute right over the consciences of all Spaniards, possesses none over those of the Indians. Their crimes of heresy and apostacy are amenable to the episcopal tribunals; and their sorceries to the secular tribunals; but these VOL. I.

Excessive lenity of the laws in their favour.

Few foreign writers have rendered to the Spanish government the justice which is due to it, with respect to its treatment of the Indians. The Abbe Raynal, an ardent and profound author, too enthusiastic to be impartial, too vehement to be correct, presents, with respect to the present state of the Indians, an idea which is not applicable to any of the Spanish possessions, still less to the captain-generalship of Caraccas. Robertson, likewise a philosopher, but more respectable as an historian, has made a nearer approach to truth, without being sufficiently explicit in the declaration of it; for the Spanish laws are still more favourable to the Indians than he represents.

The Spanish legislator has studied to give that class of men all the advantages which was deemed compatible with their dependence on the mother country.

It may even be said, that their disposition to favour them has rendered them as useless to society, as society itself appears useless to them.

If laws ought to be adapted to the manners of the people for whom they are intended; if they are good only in proportion as as they tend to repress vice, correct errors and create virtues; the code which regulates the Indians is very far from fulfilling its object. One of the primary obligations which ought to have been imposed on beings whose distinguishing character is idleness, was that of industry. The

magistrate ought to have been satisfied at first with pointing out the nature of that industry, and to have allowed the result to turn out entirely in favour of the Indian. By that mode of proceeding, society would have speedily acquired an industrious citizen, and the king an useful vassal. But they thought, or pretended to think, that to lay any restraint upon the inclination of the Indian, was to aim a blow at his liberty. The manner of employing his time they left to his own discretion, and he preferred leading an idle life, immersed in those vices with which such a life is commonly attended. This subject shall be resumed in another place.

Measures to keep them in dependence.

With the exception of some trifling precautions that Spain has taken to frustrate the efforts which it was unreasonably supposed the Indians might make to recover their ancient independence, an object beyond their faculty of thinking, they were left without controul to indulge all their propensities, inclinations and vices.

The principal dispositions of the mother-country, in order to insure her sovereignty in America were to prohibit the Indians to carry any kind of arms offensive or defensive; to debar them from the use of horses; to prevent any Indian from learning the trade of armorer, or dwelling in the house of any person where he might acquire any notion of the manufacturing, repairing, or handling of arms; to oblige the conquered Indians to live together in villages, instead

of being scattered over the country; to forbid every Indian to pass from one village to another, much less to transfer his residence, under the penalty of twenty lashes to be inflicted upon the delinquent, and four milled dollars to be levied upon the cacique who should permit it; to debar Spaniards, mulattoes, and those of a mixed breed, from inhabiting Indian villages, for fear of diffusing ideas injurious to public tranquillity.

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All these measures, perfectly useless in the provinces of Caraccas, are long ago consigned amongst the number of those regulations devised by speculative geniuses, who think themselves inspired with wisdom when they are only under the influence of imaginary fears. The disposition relative to the separation of Spaniards from Indians is the only one which is yet in force, less because experience has demonstrated its utility, than for motives which shall be explained in chapter VI. under the article of missionaries.

Their privileges.

Whilst we view what Spain has done in favour of the Indians, let impartiality decide, if there ever has been, in any state, a class of men loaded with more important privileges.

A conquered people never could pretend to enjoy any other political benefits, than those resulting from the laws of the power that conquered them; most commonly, indeed, they are excluded from enjoying any, or otherwise subjected to so many exceptions calculated to retain them in a state of dependence, that their code becomes entirely different from that of the conqueror.

Thus Spain would have appeared to the eyes of the world as acting generously, by giving her own laws to the Indians. What title, then, has she acquired to the admiration of mankind, for the care she has taken to modify her laws, with the intention of rendering her new vassals happier than her own subjects! Had such a blessing redounded to a people, who knew how to appreciate and improve it to advantage, the conquest of America would have proved to the natives a truly happy revolution, excepting, however, the first age of the effusion of Indian blood, the recollection of which continually embitters the advantages which result from civil and religious institutions in a country formerly overrun with barbarians who had nothing but their figure to identify their species.

The first act of generosity of the Spanish government towards the Indians was, their allowing them magistrates of their own class and choice. All the Indian villages, under the Spanish dominion, have a cacique, descended from ancestors who held that distinction before the conquest, if any such exist; if not, he is nominated by the king. One of the qualifications indispensable in order to be invested with this dignity, is to be an Indian without any mixture of European or African blood.

The legislator, presuming that the caciques would exercise their authority only to promote the happiness of their fellow-men, has not been at first particularly exact in defining or circumscribing its nature and extent, but as soon as it was observed that they shamefully abused the trust reposed in them, no time was lost in securing the Indians from