It is good to eat, and yields about five-andtwenty pounds of oil. Befide the flesh and oil, the fkin alone was ufually fold for twenty reals, whilst the ports were open; but now that the exportation is prohibited, the price is funk to eight reals, and the fishery is thereby confiderably injured.

In this province, the privilege of fishing. is confined to the enrolled feamen, who are about fixteen thousand.

With fuch a nursery for failors in the Mediterranean, and with one fimilar to it in the bay of Biscay, where peculiar privileges are granted for that purpose, Spain will foon be formidable as a naval power. The Catalans already fupply Alicant with pilchards, taken on the coaft of Galicia; whereas formerly this city imported annually from England about fifty cargoes.

The municipal government of this city is in eight regidors, of which, four are noble, and four commoners; these are all confidered as poffeffing a freehold, defcending by inheritance to their children, yet not entailed upon them and therefore faleable. They have four affeffors, chofen by the commons, who continue in office two years, but two are annu

ally

ally changed. To thefe are added two fyndics, of which one, the personero, is to reprefent the grievances of the commons; but neither of thefe have votes. The ufual prefident of this court is the governor, or, in his abfence, the alcalde mayor, who refembles our recorders. In the corporation are included three physicians and two furgeons, who have falaries.

The attendants of the court are, proctors, advocates, efcrivanos, and alguazils.

To keep good order in the various quarters of the city, they have alcaldes de barrio. Thefe formerly purchased their office, and contrived to repay themselves with intereft; but the present governor makes a new election every year, with this exception, that he continues thofe who are distinguished for fidelity.

The efcrivanos reales are merely notaries; but the efcrivanos del numero, to the number of twenty-three, may be called pettyfoggers; against these the governor declares a never-ceafing war; but the contest is unequal. He attempted to reftrain their influence by the introduction of viva voce evidence; but this attack they effectually refift

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ed.

ed. Having detected fiye of them in fome. malepractices, he fent them to prison, and at the fame time gave notice, that the next offender fhould vifit Africa. He complained to me one day in the moft feeling manner, of the diftrefs he felt in being daily witness to abuses which he was not able to correct, because these wretches can never be convicted, unless upon evidence taken by an efcrivano. He lamented that, even when he knew the evidence produced was false, he was bound to give judgment agreeable to it, and could contrive no redress. Yet one point he carried, in not suffering them, as ufual, to make a long and expenfive process of a trifling matter.

In their turn they do all they can to harafs and perplex him. The corporation having made their agreement with one contractor to fupply the citizens with meat, this man caufed his cattle to be driven through the city in the middle of the day, The governor remonftrated in vain, Hearing, however, repeated complaints of mifchief, and feeing the people, diftracted in their attention, following in crowds, as ufual, wherever any thing like a bull, their favourite

2

favourite animal, appeared, he interpofed his authority, and abfolutely forbad the admittance of oxen after a certain hour in the morning. The contractor, on this restraint, refused to supply the city, and, urged forwards by the Efcrivanos, appealed to the intendant of the province. In confequence of this appeal the governor could find no refuge, but in the direct interference of the minifter; and had his friends been lefs powerful at court, he must have given

way.

Previous to the appointment of Don Francifco Pacheco to the government of Alicant, the city fwarmed all day with beggars, and all night with proftitutes and thieves. These were fed by the religious houses, by the ecclefiaftics, and by the alms of well-difpofed yet mistaken citizens. The governor faw in a proper light both the cause and the confequences of this abundance of unprofitable fubjects, and therefore determined to confine them; yet he knew that prejudice would run strong against him. For this reafon he engaged the most popular preachers, during Lent, to expatiate on the merit of giving to the poor,

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poor, and afterwards to explain the propriety of making a diftinction in the diftribution of their alms, fo as not to offer a premium to laziness, prodigality, and vice.

When he had thus prepared his way, he affembled the citizens, laid his plans before them, and formed a fociety, confifting of two hundred and fifty of the first people in the diocefe, with the bishop, canons, and principal nobility at their head, under the denomination of "Brethren of the Poor." From these were elected governors and guardians for the House of Mercy, and for the twelve quarters into which the city is divided, for the purpose of taking an exact account of all the inhabitants, with their age and occupation. Every guardian, in his feveral quarter, has three affistants to examine with him the condition of the poor, and to distribute the relief appointed by the governors the preceding week, whether in money, in raw materials, in medicine, or in aliments, agreeable to the re-. port which has been made to them.

In the House of Mercy, children, instructed in the most common and therefore the moft ufeful manufactures, are trained to industry,