you at present entertain. Accustomed to the blind habits of Spanish
monopoly, you then believed that Guayaquil would be robbed, were
not her commerce limited to her own merchants. All foreigners
were forbidden by restrictive laws from attending even to their own
business and interests: now you appreciate a true policy, and your
enlightened Government is ready to further public opinion in the
promotion of your riches, strength, and happiness, as well as to assist
these, by disseminating through the press the political opinions of
great and wise men--without fear of the Inquisition, the faggot, or
the stake.

It is very gratifying to me to observe the change which has taken
place in your ideas of political economy, and to see that you can
appreciate and despise the clamour of the few who would still interrupt
the public prosperity; though it is difficult to believe how any
citizen of Guayaquil can be capable of opposing his private interest
to the public good, as though his particular profit were superior to
that of the community, or as if commerce, agriculture, and manufactures
were to be paralysed for his especial behoof.

Guayaquilenos! Let your public press declare the consequences of
monopoly, and affix your names to the defence of your enlightened
system. Let it shew that, if your province contains 80,000 inhabitants,
and that if 80 of these are privileged merchants according to
the old system, 9,999 persons out of 10,000 must suffer because
their cotton, coffee, tobacco, timber, and other productions must
come into the hands of the monopolist, as the only purchaser of
what they have to sell, and the only seller of what they must
necessarily buy! the effect being that he will buy at the lowest
possible rate, and sell at the dearest, so that not only are the