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Travels in England, France, Spain, and the Barbary States
Travels in England France Spain and the Barbary States Author:Mordecai Manuel Noah Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: N t they, banished from their homes, were driven as outcast t Africa. In the eyes of Spaniards, nothing that the damned More coes and Infidels erected or esta... more »blished, could be just, mild, a rational. Fatal error, which for seven centuries, has buried thi Spanish people in ignorance and fanaticism ; and which has laid th| foundation, for that decay of national strength and character, whicj now is keenly felt. Instead of preserving the institutions of Uu Moors, instead of holding out the hand of toleration and confidenc cS these enterprising people, the Spaniards banished them, an trampled on their works. The sun of their prosperity, set o Spain for ever, as the last descendant of the Abencerrages passd out of the walls of Grenada. It required, however, some time ti destroy effectually, a country which for centuries had been pros perous. Spain reversed the order of things, and decayed gradually They became, however, a commercial people, and posses. themselves of Peru and Mexico, the wealth of which paralized in dustry ; and depending on the resources of foreign possessiooa they materially neglected to improve their natural advantages. The government in Spain was originally predicated upon a dan?e rous basis, they combined Church and State, and, in a very short lime the influence of Ecclesiastics, undermined the power of Civilians and the king and his cabinet, the army and nary, the nobility am merchants, the peasant and the slave, gradually fell under the lo minion of the Church, whose possessions were extravagantly in creased, and wantonly expended. The souls and consciences tl every person, were at the disposal of the Priest; crimes which ni tnre shudders at, were committed, and absolution purchased; abl ject submission was enforced by the terrors of the inquisition, lha enr...« less