depended on the amount of goods stolen; but it is just to add, that only fifty of them could be taken by the same person in a year."5
These disgusting details might suffice to show the student how greatly America was oppressed and corrupted by the Spanish government; yet we regret that there are other important matters of misrule which we are not authorised to pass by unnoticed. Thus far we have considered the direct administration and taxing power of the king and Council of the Indies; we must now turn to the despotism exercised over the mind as well as the body of the creoles.
The holy church held all its appointments directly from the king, though the pope enjoyed the privilege of nomination; consequently the actual influence and power of the Hispano-American church, rested in the sovereign. The Recopilacion de las leyes expressly prohibits the erection of cathedrals, parish churches, monasteries, hospitals, native chapels, or other pious or religious edifices, without the express license of the monarch.6 As all the ecclesiastical revenues went to him, his power and patronage were immense. The religious jurisdiction of the church tribunals extended to monasteries, priests, donations, or legacies for sacred purposes, tithes, marriages, and all spiritual concerns. The fueros of the clergy have been already alluded to. "Instead of any restraint on the claims of the ecclesiastics," says Dr. Robertson, "the inconsistent zeal of the Spanish legislators admitted them into America to their full extent, and, at once imposed on the Spanish colonies a burden which is in no slight degree oppressive to society in its most improved state. As early as 1501 the payment of tithes as it was called, in the colonies was enjoined, and the mode of it regulated by law. Every article of primary necessity towards which the attention of settlers must naturally be turned was submitted to that grievous exaction. Nor were the demands of the clergy confined