In the eighteenth century, when better sense prevailed among the statesmen and economists of Spain, the greedy and corrupt administration of her guilds began to be awarded greater notice. Among the enlightened and progressive Spaniards who outspoke their minds upon this theme, were Florez Estrada and the Count of Campomanes. These, among others of less mark, saw and proclaimed that the harm inflicted by the _gremios_ in some directions was incalculable, while the good they were supposed to bring about in others was rather nominal than real.[80] Apart, however, from the judgment uttered by these two authorities, men of acknowledged probity and consequence who held the public ear, as well as by the patriotic Jovellanos in his spirited appeal in favour of the _libre ejercicio de las artes_, a number of causes, such as the propagation of the principles of individual liberty by the French Revolution, contributed to give the _gremios_ an archaic air, and finally to bring about their downfall. The views concerning them which gradually filled the popular mind, prior to their extinction as an act of government in the year 1834,[81] are well expressed by Townsend. "In all the trading companies or _gremios_," wrote this traveller, "religious fraternities are formed, some incorporated by royal authority and letters patent, others by connivance of the crown, but both in violation of the laws. [80] The object avowedly pursued by Campomanes was not, however, the absolute suppression of the Spanish trade-guilds, but merely their reconstruction upon a sounder basis. He still believed that admission to a guild should be preceded by a formal period of apprenticeship, as well as that the title and the privileges of the master of a trade should be hereditary. An instance of the grossly fraudulent methods employed by the _gremios_ in order to retain the privilege of manufacture in a certain family, is quoted by Larruga (_Memorias_, Vol. II., p. 201), who states that the silk-cord makers of Madrid conferred the title of _master-craftsman_ on a babe only twenty-two months old.