Townsend commented as follows on what he called the _national prejudice_ against trade. "Whilst the Jews were merchants, and the mechanic arts were left either to the Moors or to the vilest of the people, the grandees or knights were ambitious only of military fame. After the conquest of Granada, the Moors continued to be the principal manufacturers, and excelled in the cultivation of their lands. When these, with the Jews, were banished, a void was left which the high-spirited Spaniard was not inclined to fill. Trained for many centuries to the exercise of arms, and regarding such mean occupations with disdain, his aversion was increased by his hatred and contempt for those whom he had been accustomed to see engaged in these employments. He had been early taught to consider trade as dishonourable; and whether he frequented the theatre, or listened to the discourses of the pulpit orators, he could not fail to be confirmed in his ideas. Even in the present day, many, who boast their descent from noble ancestors, had rather starve than work, more especially at those trades by which, according to the laws, they would be degraded, and forfeit their nobility."--(_Journey through Spain in 1786 and 1787_, pp. 240, 241.) Laborde endorsed these assertions by uncharitably remarking that "the Spaniard had always fortitude enough to endure privations, but never courage enough to encounter work." In our time judgments of a still severer kind have been passed upon the Spaniards by various of their own countrymen--among others, Unamuno, Ganivet, and Pompeyo Gener. It is evident, too, that the cause of the relentless exclusion, by the Spanish guilds, of Moors, Moriscos, Jews, or converts--men who, owing to the unsubstantial taint of heresy, were hated and derided by the Spanish nation almost to a man--resided also in this morbid sensitiveness. Had not the Moorish prisoner been formerly considered as the merest chattel, legally equivalent to a beast of burden?[78] How, then, should he be ever equalled with the Christian Spaniard? These haughty and extravagant notions operated, in the seventeenth century, to bring about the general ruin of Spanish trades and manufactures. Bertaut de Rouen wrote at this time:--"L'acoûtumance qu'avoient les Espagnols de faire travailler les Morisques, qui estoient libres parmi eux, et les Mores esclaves, dont il y a encor quelques-uns qu'ils prennent sur leurs costes et sur celles d'Afrique, les a entretenus dans la faineantise et dans l'orgueil, qui fait qu'ils dédaignent tous de travailler. Ce qui achève de les y plonger, c'est le peu de soucy qu'ils prennent de l'avenir, et l'égalité du menu peuple et de tous les moindres marchands et artisans qu'ils nomment _officiales_, avec les gentilshommes, qui demeurent tous dans les petites villes."