Conversation having been thus substituted for gambling, I asked what they thought of the abolition of the Tithes and confiscation of Church property? They all shrugged their shoulders. I repeated my question, saying, that as a stranger I wanted to know if the nation had been benefited by the measures which its wisdom had devised for its own relief. This elicited a loud and general “No.” I then asked what had been the result of the experiment? The answer was, “The poor man pays more, and the rich less.” This, I said, was satisfactory, it having been laid down as the great object for Spain “to put her institutions in harmony with the spirit that rules those nations more advanced than herself.”[45] They at first thought I was in jest, but I explained to them something about the legislation of these advanced nations. The increased burthen on the poor was then explained--thus: the tithes are remitted, but a tax for _public worship_ has been imposed; it is less in amount than the tithe, but a new set of fiscal officers has been introduced to collect it: the other taxes since the abolition of tithes have been increased. Pasturage and cattle, which bore under the tithe system equal charges with the cultivated land, have been spared in the new burthens: the rich are thus doubly benefited, possessing the pasturage and not suffering in the same proportion as the poor from tax-gatherers. These grave politicians could not recover from their astonishment at perceiving that there existed a human being who could question the wisdom, far less the sanity, of their imitating England and France. I was called upon to declare my sentiments on the great question which I was told constituted the essential difference between England and France, viz., the principle of direct or indirect _election_; nor could they believe me in earnest when I assured them that I had never so much as heard the names of these “principles” in the countries referred to. “England and France,” said they, “are great and powerful; must we not imitate them and become so too?” I submitted, that imitation is not an easy matter; that it is more difficult than invention; that it requires a perfect knowledge of the thing imitated, in which case there could be no reason to copy; besides, it was impossible to copy institutions. “In what particular,” I asked, “would you copy us? Two things only have we to offer you as sanctioned by English consent--the Guelph Family and Johnson’s Dictionary. Will you have them in lieu of the Bourbons and the Castilian?”