The advice was
instantly adopted, without a thought of the consequences of
reinforcing the malignant ambition of the colony with such
elements. Persons capitally convicted were to serve two years without
wages; all others were to serve on the same terms for one year; and
they went about with the ingenious clog of a threat of arrest for the
old crimes in case they returned to Europe.
The Government improved upon the hint of Columbus by decreeing that
all the courts in Spain should condemn to the mines a portion of the
criminals who would in the course of nature have gone to the
galleys.[23] Thus a new country, which invited the benign organization
of law and religion, and held out to pure spirits an opportunity
richer than all its crops and mines, was poisoned in its cradle. What
wonder that its vigor became the aimless gestures of madness, that a
bloated habit simulated health, and that decrepitude suddenly fell
upon the uneasy life?
At the same time it was expressly forbidden to all commanders of
caravels to receive on board any person who was not a born subject of
the crown of Castile. This was conceived in the exclusive colonial
policy of the time. It was a grotesque idea to preserve nationality by
insisting that even criminals must respect the Spanish birthright.
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