country was made, exhibiting a complete view of the character of the
soil, its fertility, the nature of its products, both agricultural and mineral,-
-in short, of all that constituted the physical resources of the empire.26
Furnished with these statistical details, it was easy for the government,
after determining the amount of requisitions, to distribute the work
among the respective provinces best qualified to execute it. The task of
apportioning the labor was assigned to the local authorities, and great
care was taken that it should be done in such a manner, that, while the
most competent hands were selected, it should not fall disproportionately
heavy on any.27

The different provinces of the country furnished persons peculiarly
suited to different employments, which, as we shall see hereafter, usually
descended from father to son. Thus, one district supplied those most
skilled in working the mines, another the most curious workers in metals,
or in wood, and so on.28 The artisan was provided by government with
the materials; and no one was required to give more than a stipulated
portion of his time to the public service. He was then succeeded by
another for the like term; and it should be observed, that all who were
engaged in the employment of the government--and the remark applies
equally to agricultural labor--were maintained, for the time, at the public
expense.29 By this constant rotation of labor, it was intended that no
one should be overburdened, and that each man should have time to
provide for the demands of his own household. It was impossible--in the
judgment of a high Spanish authority--to improve on the system of
distribution, so carefully was it accommodated to the condition and
comfort of the artisan.30 The security of the working classes seems to
have been ever kept in view in the regulations of the government; and
these were so discreetly arranged, that the most wearing and
unwholesome labors, as those of the mines, occasioned no detriment to