Left at liberty to regulate her own colonial trade, Spain now profited by experience in so far that she was induced to permit a considerable part of her commerce with America to be carried in register ships; which were fitted out during the intervals between the stated periods for the sailing of the galleons and the flota, by merchants at Seville and Cadiz, who obtained a license for this purpose. The advantage of thus regularly supplying the demand in the colonies was soon perceived to be so great that, in 1748, the galleons, which had been an institution during two centuries, were abolished; whilst the single vessels no longer proceeded to Porto-Bello; but, sailing round Cape Horn, conveyed directly the productions of Europe to the Chilian and Peruvian ports.
1764.
It may seem strange to a generation accustomed to read day by day the notice of events occurring in the most remote parts of the globe almost as soon as they happen, that a nation such as Spain, possessing as it did enormous foreign possessions, could have been contented with receiving news concerning their progress once only in the course of each year. Such, however, was nearly always the case, until about the year 1740, when register ships were permitted. Previously to that date the annual fleet of galleons was the sole means of postal communication between the mother country and her South American possessions. It is true that news of passing transatlantic events occasionally reached Spain through other nations, whose intercourse with her colonies it was her constant object to repress. It was not until the year 1764 that packet-boats were appointed to be despatched on the first day of each month from Coruña to Havana or Porto Rico; whence letters were conveyed in smaller vessels to Vera Cruz and Porto-Bello, to be forwarded from there to the north or to the south, as the case might be. A packet-boat sailed once in each two months for the river Plata, to supply the districts on the eastern side of the Andes. As these packet-boats were permitted to take out and to bring home a stated amount of produce, Coruña, from this time forward, shared with Cadiz the profits of the colonial trade.
1774.
The year 1774 marks a further advance in Spanish liberal colonial legislation, the Viceroyalty or provinces of New Spain, Guatemala, Peru, and New Granada, respectively, being permitted the privilege of free-trade with each other. This was followed, four years later, by the promulgation of an entirely new commercial code for the Indies, the consideration of which more naturally falls within the chapter relating to the Viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres. I may conclude this resumé of the Viceroyalty of Peru by a statement of the actual profit in specie, which the mother country is estimated to have derived from that possession.
The best Spanish authorities are agreed in considering that the Sovereign, owing to various causes, the chief being peculation and smuggling, was defrauded of about one half of the colonial revenue which legitimately belonged to him. But, notwithstanding corruption and illicit importation, the revenue derived by the Spanish monarch from his American possessions was still very considerable. It arose from taxes, which may be divided into three branches. The first includes what was paid to the King as Lord Superior of the New World, namely, the duty on the produce of the mines and the tribute exacted from the natives. The second branch comprehended the duties upon commerce. The third included such dues as came to the King in his capacity as temporal head of the colonial Church and as administrator of its funds. It is estimated that Peru yielded to the Crown a revenue of about a million sterling, one half of which may have been consumed in the expense of the provincial establishments. This amount, or whatever it may have been, it is to be remembered, accrued to the Spanish Crown from this important colony, in addition to the wealth derived from it by the parent state by means of its exclusive trade.
CHAPTER IX.
VICEROYALTY OF NEW GRANADA; CAPTAIN-GENERALSHIP OF VENEZUELA.
1535-1790.
For some time after the disastrous failure of the attempt of Las Casas to found a colony on the Pearl Coast of Cumaná, the northern portion of Spanish South America, from the Orinoco westwards, is almost lost to history. The powers working for good had signally failed, and the powers of evil seemed to have it almost all their own way. The regions discovered by the Spaniards were so vast, in proportion to the numbers of the discoverers, that many of them were long lost to view, and probably to memory. Such was the fate of the territory which borders the Orinoco, a great river flowing from the Cordilleras, and which throws itself and its many tributaries by forty outlets into the ocean.
It was in the year 1535 that the Spaniards first attempted to ascend this stream; but, not finding the mines they sought, they looked on it with indifference. Nevertheless, the few Europeans there sown applied themselves with such energy to the culture of tobacco that they were enabled to supply, yearly, some cargoes of this plant to the foreign vessels which came to purchase it. But this traffic was forbidden by the mother-country; whilst some enterprising corsairs twice pillaged this establishment, which could not defend itself. These disasters caused it to be forgotten.
Lying behind these extensive coasts to the westward in the interior, is the region to which the Spaniards gave the name of the kingdom of New Granada, the name being applied in consequence of a resemblance which was detected between the plain around Santa Fè de Bogotá and the royal Vega which adjoins the historical Moorish capital. New Granada was a most extensive region, comprising as it did the entire country from sea to sea in the north, lying between 60° and 78° longitude, and from 6° to 15° of latitude.