Note 22 — Introduction

Isabella foresaw the advantages of free trade at a time when all Europe groaned under the yoke of the most severe prohibitions. Not only did she abolish all those which the fiscal legislation of Spain prior to her times had sanctioned, but she had the merit of being the founder of the first tribunal of commerce, and of expressly ordering that in all matters of mercantile contract, shipwrecks, &c., submitted to her judgment, barristers should take no part, so that the course of justice might not be obscured with pedantic arguments and formal technicalities.