EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA, TO WIT: BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the twenty-sixth day of July, (L. S.) in the forty-fifth year of the Independence of the United States of America, A. D. 1820, WILLIAM DAVIS ROBINSON, of the said DisOffice the Title of a Book, the right whereof he following, to wit: trict, hath deposited in the "Memoirs of the Man Revolution: including a Narrative of the Ex"pedition of General Xavier Mina. With some observations on the practi"cability of opening a commerce between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, "through the Mexican Isthmus in the province of Oaxaca, and at the Lake "of Nicaragua; and on the future importance of such commerce to the ci"vilized world, and more especially to the United States. By William Davis "Robinson." In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, intituled, "An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned." And also to the Act, entitled, "An Act suppleentary to an Act, entitled, 'An Act for the encouragement of learning, by ecuring the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and propricors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned,' and extending the enefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical nd other prints." D. CALDWELL, Clerk of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania measures had not been adopted, no mercy nor regard would have been extended to any foreigner who might unfortunately have fallen into the hands of the Spanish government, because not only by the "Leyes de las Indias" was it a capital crime for a foreigner to enter the Spanish dominions without a special authority from his Catholic majesty, but during the present revolutions in America, the Spanish government have issued various decrees, expressly declaring that all strangers aiding the insurgents, or found residing among them, were to be punished as insurgents, by death. If these decrees have not been executed by the Spanish government, it was by no means for lack of disposition, but from the apprehension of the resentment of those governments whose subjects and citizens held intercourse with the insurgents. The writer has been thus particular in stating these facts, because they show that any individual, not engaged in the military or naval service of the insurgents of Spanish America, is under the protection of the laws of nations in favour of all non-combatants; and that any attempt on the part of Spain to infringe this security is a violation of the usages of civilized nations, and a direct outrage against that nation whose subjects may have been thus wantonly punished. It is not only on these principles that the writer feels justified in complaining of the barbarous treatment he has received from the Spanish government, during an imprisonment of two years and a half, but because there are some peculiar circumstances attending the affair, which, if he is not much mistaken, will excite the indignation and surprise of every unprejudiced reader. The recital of this case has become the more necessary, because, during his imprisonment in the dungeons of Mexico, he was honoured with the sympathy of his fellow citizens, and the interference of his government in his behalf. He therefore deems it incumbent upon him to prove that he was not undeserving of such sympathy and protection. In addition to this, he is anxious to remove all doubts with regard to his conduct, that may have arisen from the misrepresentations made in the public newspapers respecting him; for in some of these he has been called Doctor Robinson, and in |