CHAP. XXIV. USE OF GOLD AND SILVER.

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requisition was so feebly heeded, that very littleaccrued to the royal treasury, scarcely a sum ex-ceeding ten thousand pounds.

A similar attempt in 1812 to obtain aid fromthe treasures of the religious establishments,though rigidly enforced, was scarcely more suc-cessful. The latter was at a time when the Cortes,who made the requisition, had been deprived ofpower over the greater part of the kingdom bythe French occupation, and it is not wonderfulthat it should have yielded no more than the smallsum of twelve thousand pounds.

But though at these periods there may havebeen but little of the precious metals extractableby fiscal operations, it by no means follows thatthere was a great paucity in the whole country.

The Spaniards, from the time of the Moorish occu-pation, had been accustomed to hide their goldand silver from the numerous depredators ; and as,after the destruction of the Mahometan power,no safe means of making interest was to be found,it is probable that a larger proportion of what didexist may have been hidden in Spain than in anyof the other countries of Europe .

It would lead to an extensive and almost end- Italy, Ger -less inquiry to examine into the progressive in- many ’ &c ‘crease of gold and silver ornaments and utensilsin many other parts of Europe, as in Italy , inGermany, in the eastern parts, as Bohemia, Hun-gary, Poland, and Russia , or in the northern