1820 Dec 26

Rid Yourselves

'. 1. Creoles willing

As in this case it is manifest to all eyes that while Ultramarians in

general are subject to /suffer from/ the burthen, Spaniards in general do not enjoy

the benefit, the consequence is that in so far as restraint in any such unproductive

shape as this is imposed on Ultramrians, it is for the purpose of conferring the

corespondent benefit - not on Spaniards /the Spanish people/ at large, but in a

particular part only of the Spanish people, and that a comparatively very small one:

namely that part which it is supposed while be received in the shape of profit of

trade by the producers or vendors of such goods.

But in this case the proportion of the benefit to the burthen is as nothing,

compared with what it is in the case of a burthen to the same amount imposed by a

tax. Suppose for example the price of those commodities exactly doubled in both cases

to the consumers in Ultramaria: in the case of the tax, the whole value of the goods,

of the deduction of the expence of collection goes into the pocket of government in

Spain, saving to the people in Spain taxes to that same amount in the case of the

prohibition, not a maravedi goes into the pocket of government from this source. The

pockets - the only pockets into which the whole or any part of it is so much as

expected to do are those of the Spanish producers or those of the Spanish vendors, of

such goods.