In their towns the Indians are always the magistrates, and they are allowed to enter into holy orders: but no Spaniard or white is permitted by the law to intermarry with them or to settle in their towns, the Indians always residing in a distinct quarter from the Europeans, and other castes. The Indians and their descendants are the only people in this part of the world who can endure the unwholesomeness and fatigues attendant on the mining operations, as the Spaniards and Negroes sink under the toil in a short time; but the number of Indians has decreased since the conquest to an alarming extent from the ravages of the small-pox, and from the fatal effects of intoxicating liquors, though according to the statements of late travellers this branch of the population is again on the increase, probably owing to the general introduction of vaccination, and to the gradual abolition of the _mita_ in most of the governments. The total population of Spanish America is reckoned at about 15,000,000, of which three millions are Creoles, or the descendants of European whites, 200,000 are Spaniards, and the rest are Indians, negroes, and the mixed descendants of these and the whites, the Indians bearing the greatest proportion, as Peru alone contains 600,000; but the negroes are not very numerous, and exist principally in the provinces of Caraccas and New Granada. Till the end of the last century the ports of Spanish America were shut against the whole world, the commerce of the country being carried on exclusively by two or three large ships called galleons from Manilla, and by an annual fleet to Spain; but these vessels falling continually into the hands of enemies, and generally containing all the treasure on which the Spanish court relied, they were at last abolished, and special licences were granted by some of the governors to carry on a trade with the Antilles, and in 1797 the court of Madrid was obliged to open some of the ports. Urged by extreme necessity Cisneros the Viceroy of La Plata in 1809, declared the port of Buenos Ayres free to all nations in alliance with Spain. The power of Spain was maintained for a long while in her trans-Atlantic colonies, by a very small number of Spanish troops, who acted with the national militia on any unforeseen disturbances; the most profound tranquillity reigned in these happy regions till the year 1797, with the exception of the revolt of Tupac Amaru in 1780, and some other trifling occurrences. Three prisoners of state, who had been banished from Spain for revolutionary crimes, arrived at La Guayra, the port of Caraccas, in the first mentioned year; by dint of argument these men gained over the soldiers by whom they were guarded, and they were permitted to hold forth the doctrines at that time so dangerously afloat in Europe, to the people who came from all parts to hear them, and finding many admirers among the creoles and mestizoes, formed at last the daring plan of revolutionizing the country.