always consistent, because the
claims of the colonists could not always be resisted, but on the whole
he gave earnest support to the missionaries, who upheld the cause of the
natives against the military, and sometimes the civil and ecclesiastical
elements. His humane care for his native subjects may well be studied in
the instructions sent to Philip from Germany in 1548, when Charles was
at the summit of his power. If Charles had had his will, he would have
opened the colonial trade to the whole of his wide possessions. The
Castilians, however, jealously confined it to the city of Seville,
artificially fostering the indolence of the colonists to maintain the
agricultural and manufacturing monopoly of Castile, and by extreme
protective measures forcing them to live on smuggled goods from other
countries. Charles did actually attempt to cure the exclusive interest
of the colonists in mineral wealth by the establishment of peasant and
artisan colonies. If in many respects he failed, yet the organization of
Spanish America and the survival of the native races were perhaps the
most permanent results of his reign. It is a proof of the complexity of
his interests that the march of the Turk upon Vienna and of the French
on Naples delayed until the following reign the foundation of Spain's
eastern empire. Charles carefully organized the expedition of Magellan,
which sailed for the Moluccas and discovered the Philippines.
Unfortunately, his straits for money in 1529 compelled him to mortgage
to Portugal his disputed claim to the Moluccas, and the Philippines
consequently dropped out of sight.

If in the administration of Spain Charles did little more than mark
time, in the Netherlands advance was rapid. Of the seven northern
provinces he added five, containing more than half the area of the later
United Provinces. In the south he freed Flanders and Artois from French
suzerainty, annexed Tournai and Cambrai, and closed the natural line of
French advance through the great bishopric of Liege by a line of
fortresses across its western frontier. Much was done to convert the
aggregate of jarring provinces into a harmonious unity by means of
common principles of law and finance, and by the creation of a national
army. While every province had its own assembly, there were at Charles's
accession only the rudiments of estates general for the Netherlands at
large. At the close of the reign the common parliamentary system was in
full swing