CHAP. xvn. AND SILVER IN AMERICA.

40

the quantity was small when compared with theproduct of succeeding centuries, it formed a suf-ficient indication of what might be obtained by’ttore strenuous and persevering operations.

As soon as the Spaniards had gained full pos-session of the country, they employed the wretchednatives in the laborious work of procuring theprecious metals. The masters had little skill, thedepressed inhabitants but little industry, yet, inthe space of thirty or forty years from the sub-jugation, mines were at work at Tasco, at Zulte-peque, and Pacliuca, which, if they yielded littletreasure when compared with the more modernproducts of Valenciana and other rich districts,yet brought into activity sufficient to show whatgreat application might effect, and enough, com-bined with a similar process in Peru , to produce agreatinfluenee on the transactions of the ancient con-tinent as soon as it had reached the ports of Europe .

Twenty years after the conquest of Mexico hadbeen achieved by Cortez, Pizarro accomplished asimilar conquest in Peru . The inhabitants of thatcountry were of a milder character than those ofMexico ; they had practised more industry gene-rally, and had especially been more successful intheir operations for procuring mineral wealth. Theprocess by which the Peruvians had procured theirgold and silver before the arrival of the Europeans was, as may be expected from people in such a

VOL. II.

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