consequences of their inordinate avarice are still more lamentable,
and the tacit permission to satisfy it, granted to them by the
government under the specious title of a licence to trade. Hence may
it be affirmed, that the first of the evils, and the one the native
immediately feels, is occasioned by the very person the law has
destined for his relief and protection. In a word, he experiences
injuries from the civil magistrates presiding over the provinces,
who, at the same time, are the natural enemies of the inhabitants,
and the real oppressors of their industry.

It is a known and melancholy fact that, far from promoting the
felicity of the provinces intrusted to their care, the magistrates
attend to nothing else but their own fortunes and personal interests;
nor do they hesitate as to the means by which their object is to
be attained. Scarcely are they seated in the place of authority,
when they become the chief consumers, purchasers, and exporters of
every thing produced and manufactured within the districts under
their command, thus converting their licence to trade into a positive
monopoly. In all lucrative speculations the magistrate seeks to have
the largest share; in all his enterprises he calls in the forced aid
of his subjects, and if he deigns to remunerate their labor, at most
it is only on the same terms as if they had been working on account
of the king. These unhappy people bring in their produce and crude
manufactures to the very person who, directly or indirectly, is to fix
upon them an arbitrary value. To offer such and such a price for the
articles is the same as to say, another bidding shall not be made. To
insinuate is to command--the native is not allowed to hesitate, he must
either please the magistrate, or submit to his persecutions. Being
besides free from all competition in the prosecution of his traffic,
since he is frequently the only Spaniard resident in the province,
the magistrate therein acts with unbounded sway, without dread,
and almost without risk of his tyranny ever being denounced to the
superior tribunals.

[Speculating in tributes.] In order, however, that a more correct
idea may be formed of the iniquitous conduct of many of these public
functionaries, it is necessary to lay open some part of their irregular
dealings in the collection of the Indian tributes. It is well known
that the government, anxious to conciliate the interests of the
tributary classes with those of th