into which this colonial policy had sunk, no other measure of government had been employed, to secure this union and to give it effect, than that of annexing and incorporating the new world to the Spanish crown, under the title of kingdoms, nor had long and abject submission, effaced the only title, by which the kings always addressed their distant provinces.

The heading of the royal decree, published in the year 1524, for the creation of the supreme council of the Indies, makes use of no other term. It is as follows. "And considering the great benefits and favours, which, from the Almighty we have received, and are daily receiving from the increase and extension of the kingdoms (reynos) and lordships of our Indies; and sensible of the great obligations and duties thereby imposed upon us; and anxious on our part to establish the proper means that the said kingdoms and lordships may be governed in due manner, &c. &c. we hereby order and decree, that a supreme council of the Indies be created," &c. &c.* Such is not only the general, but, also, the exclusive appellation given by the kings of Spain to their provinces on the other side of the Atlantic, nor is the term colonies to be met with in their laws, or in the royal orders successively transmitted to them.

§ The inhabitants thereof, are, consequently, in right, and in the eye of the law, no more colonial vassals, than are-those of the provinces of Spain conquered from the Moors,† nor were the authorities, had they only kept

* Rocop. de Leyes Ind, ley 1. tit. 2. lib. 2.

+ Seville, according to Mariana (Hist. Gener. de España. tit. 1. lib. 13. cap. 9.) was conquered from the Moorish King Axataje, by St. Ferdinand, who annexed it to the crown of Castile and peopled it, Nor was this long before the discovery of America, which, ac

within their original bounds, constituted in any other manner, than those which administered the duties of government in the Peninsula. So explicit was the ancient legislation of Spain, in this particular, that the whole of the rights and privileges of the Creoles, stand coeval with the mutual compacts made between the monarch and the first conquerors; and as before stated, the whole were consigned to the very code that was to govern them. The American provinces, consequently, were not manors conferred by the sovereign on the kingdoms of Spain; they were not given in fealty to any class of inhabitants in the Peninsula, nor to any individual or intermediate corporation between the crown and themselves; yet, tantamount would have become their political footing, if every thing pretended by the late government of Spain, and the monopolists of Cadiz, was carried into full effect. No, they are yet, and ever were, in point of right, justice, and reason, considered as incorporated, and consequently equal dominions, nor had they ever acknowledged any link of the feudal chain, now attempted to be imposed upon them. Their bond of union was the same, as that by which the successors of Ferdinand the Catholic, held the kingdoms of Aragon and Castile.

§ In another point of view, it would be unjust to consider the Spanish American provinces, as held in colonial dependence by Spain, under the pretext that Spaniards cordingly, was placed on, at least, an equally eligible footing, yet in the late revolution, Seville becomes the seat of government, and its Junta dictates laws to the whole of the Spanish monarchy. Granada, Murcia, and Jaen, were dependent on the crown of Castile, but independent of each other, so that their relative situation greatly resembled that of Spanish America.

and Spanish property, were employed in their conquest and settlement. The discoverers and conquerors were' all volunteers, their pay and reward were in the country to which they were bound; and instead of returning home, they remained and settled on the land they had gained by their enterprize and personal sacrifices; and the fruits of their labour, with all the prerogatives thereby acquired, have naturally descended to their rightful / succession. With regard to the funds laid out by the crown, and certainly Isabella pledged some of her jewels for the expedition of Columbus, so great was the poverty of the Peninsula prior to the conquest of America, Herrera, as before noticed, expressly asserts, that all these advances were refunded, and that the conquerors, alone, bore the expence. Robertson also observes, that "though the name of Ferdinand appeared, conjointly, with that of Isabella, in the compact signed with Columbus, as king of Arragon, he bore none of the expence."* Diego Velasquez, his friends, and Cortes, payed for the Cuba equipment, which gave to the Spanish crown the-empire of New Spain; and the outfits of Pizarro, for the conquest of Peru, were borne by himself, Diego Almagro, and Hernando Lugue, canon of Panamá, who all agreed to share the profits obtained, according to the substance of the original contract, found in Herrera, Dec. 3. lib. 6. cap. 13. Nay, it seems, that the commissions and authorities for the discoveries and conquests, were all the sovereigns contributed; and it would be hard if the grant of a Pope, had more force than the specific services and expended property of the first adventurers.

But even supposing that some of the crown funds had remained uncovered in the beginning, (a circum*Hist. Amer. vol. 1. book 2.

stance impossible, when we consider the slender outfits, and the quantity of funds successively remitted from Hispañola and the main, as soon as they were conquered) it cannot be denied, that they have long since been refunded with incalculable interest; since the Spanish American continent alone, by Humboldt, is calculated to have afforded to the world, and principally to Spain, the enormous sum of £1,223,231,434 sterl., or 5,706,700,000 dollars, in gold and silver,* besides rich productions; and this within a period of 311 years, viz. from 1192 to

1803.

§ Neither, therefore, can the plea of the conquest being performed by Spaniards, nor that of the primitive funds expended, belonging to the crown, even if this were the case, amount to any right or excuse for the King of Spain himself, much less the provisional governments which have, since his seizure, governed in his name, to hold the Spanish American provinces in absolute dependence and abject subjection; since force, and not the consent of the latter, had produced a departure from their original compacts. Neither are the inhabitants of the trans-atlantic states, to be blamed or punished for the abuses into which the Madrid government had gradually fallen, or for the decline, instead of the rise, which might have been expected from such valuable acquisitions. If Spain has squandered away the resources, the former has so long and so abundantly poured into her lap, she alone is answerable for her own mismanagement and profusion; but to be divested of the common feelings of gratitude to her American brethren, is a charge for which she is answerable to the whole world.

* Vide Humboldt Pol. Essai, &c. chap. 11.

If Spain has not profited by this great accession of wealth and strength, she owed to the enterprize of the great and immortal Columbus, it has been owing to the weakness of her past governments; and if she now treats the American provinces unjustly, it is only the second part of her ingratitude to their venerable discoverer. If she had arrived at the degraded state in which she stood, when her patriotic cause broke out, it was in consequence of the efforts of her government, and of its agents, to destroy every germ of industry, liberality, and useful knowledge on the other side of the Atlantic; by which means, the little she herself possessed, has been directly undermined, and she has thus gradually fallen into a worse state, than that she attempted to bring upon the American provinces.

Neglecting her own resources at home, Spain was inflated with the magnitude and splendour of treasures, which passed from her as soon as received, and which she afterwards was unable to find, but on her custom-house books of entry. She considered herself rich, without possessing more than the shadow; and powerful, without being sensible of her own weakness; till at last, debilitated on every side, she fell into a system of jealousy and distrust, which became the more sensible in the ultramarine provinces, from the distance of the fountain of power and redress. If, however, by the sacrifices one part of the monarchy has made for the other, the present rights of the Americans are to be measured, what has Spain to throw into the scale against 300 years of slavery, not only in its essence illegal, but in its form unnatural; during which period of time, the great resources of America, (with the exception of the mines, the only object which has absorbed the attention of Spain, to the incalculable sacrifice of Indian lives) have been rendered useless, by