not being called forth; during which, an illiberal and de 'structive system of government has prevailed, the arts and -sciences have been precluded, and in short, religion itself has been degraded, in order to support despotism, by its influence. What adequate compensation, then, can the present regenerated government of the Peninsula, make to Spanish America, for all these privations and sacrifices, and for so long and flagrant an invasion of sacred rights, which the former governments had so solemnly guaranteed? And, yet, if Spanish America has been able, in some measure, to rise superior to all these clogs; if under such 'shackles, the minds of her inhabitants, as Humboldt himself observes, have been able to expand to an astonishing and unexpected degree: this is not to be attributed to the condescension of their oppressors, but to the nature and genius of the natives themselves, aided by the influence of climate, and in consequence of their ardour in searching after books, notwithstanding the prohibitions of government. If, they have been able to overcome obstacles laid in their way by the hand of despotism, from motives of jealousy and distrust, the merit is due to themselves alone, and they are entitled to claim all its consequent benefits. Neither are the advances made in literature, în civilization, and in social relations, in which the Americans,have proportionably surpassed their European brethren, now to be urged against them, as further motives for persecution, or, as a plea to bring them back to that state of abject degradation, which the arms of the Spanish despots, intend to entail upon them.

§ Every one, conversant with history, is aware of the great difference, between the relative and political situa tion of colonies, amongst the Greeks and Romans, contrasted with those of the modern mercantile nations of

Europe. Our own historian, Gibbon, observes,* that the colonies of Rome, in their "manners and internal policy, formed a perfect representation of their great parent, and they were soon endeared to the natives, by the ties of friendship and alliance; they effectually diffused a reverence for the Roman name, and a desire which was seldom disappointed, of sharing, in due time, its honours and advantages. The municipal cities, insensibly equalled the rank and splendour of the colonies; and in the reign of Hadrian, it was disputed, which was the preferable condition, of those societies which had insued from, or those which had been received into the bosom of Rome." Thus, the name of colonies, far from being dishonourable or disadvantageous, was a privilege, owing to their good system, which was sought even by allies; and far from excluding 'them from metropolitan rights, it even conferred them on the conquered, much more so, where previous compacts existed.

"The restless and suspicious policy of the nations of Europe," says Humboldt," and the legislation and colonial policy of the moderns, which bear very little resemblance to those of the Phenicians and Greeks, have thrown insurmountable obstacles in the way of such settlements, as might secure to those distant possessions a degree of prosperity, and an existence independent of the mothercountry. Such principles as prescribe the rooting up of the vine and olive (exactly those of Spain) are not calculated to favour manufactures. A colony has, for ages, been only considered as useful to the parent state, in so far as it supplied a great number of raw materials, and consumed a number of the commodities, carried there, by the ships of the mother country. "t

* Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap 2. Art. Colonies. Essai Polit. &c. liv. 5. hap. 12.

Our own Western colonies, were chiefly founded on these principles, and the basis of their political establishment, grew out of the commercial compact, formed be tween them and the government at home. They were planted at the instance of the latter, and their trade, was afterwards fostered by legislative acts. Their civil institutions, even originally, amounted to no more than a reciprocal monopoly, and an exclusive interchange; we consumed their sugar and tobacco, and they our manufactures; and this was not only founded on custom, but, also, sanctioned by law. At first, they were, however, only small in extent, established on desert and depopulated tracts; whereas the settlements of the Spaniards, were immense, and fixed in the centre of regions, in which had been discovered, formidable and civilized empires, whose population, besides having social rights, became partly blended with the settlers, or was left in its primitive and independent state. The ones, built new towns for themselves, but the others, settled in the ancient and magnificent cities of the Indians, as they stood at the time of their discovery. The one, was a governmental and commercial agreement, for certain individuals, to go out and cultivate productions, suited to the wants or luxu ries of the mother country, in order that she might not have to purchase them in a foreign market; and protection was conformably offered, on condition, that home products and manufactures, should exclusively be consumed in the colonies; who, in return, had the privileged supply of sugar and tobacco in the parent state; but the other, was a species of naval and military crusade. The object of British and French colonies, has been to promote agriculture; that of the Spaniards, if the parallel is applicable, to extend their empire and to dig the mines. The governments of the first, encou

D 3

raged their subjects to go out, ás peaceable tillers of the earth, but the latter embarked as conquerors, possessed of an insatiate lust for gain; and fired with the martial spirit of the age and of their country, bent rather on plunder, than disposed to follow the humble pursuits of the hoe and ploughshare. The ones, went out as special colonists, carrying with them all the liberality, and all the free rights of the civilized countries to which they belonged; and from the beginning, adequate systems of government were modelled for them, on the plan of those to which they had been accustomed; whence they became miniatures, of the parent states, from which they derived their origin. The others, entered on their daring enterprize, in order to establish themselves by force; and as well from the earliness of the period, as the despotic state in which Spain at that time stood, were unprepared to establish a governing system, suited to the more enlightened state of the present times. The ones, went to insulated points, whereas the others, settled on an extended and varied continent, which at the time of its discovery, contained, and yet contains, double the population of the country that still pretends, to hold them in colonial dependence.* The ones, in short, emigrated with the rights only of colonists, the others went out, free and unschackled military despots, who would have shrunk from the idea of being included in the calculations of trade and economical expediency.*

*In consequence of the ravages on the present population of Spain, it cannot now be esteemed at more than eight millions. and a half. That of Spanish America, from accurate data, rises as high as seventeen, which added to that of the Philipine Islands, viz. three ditto, makes the ultramarine population of Spain, twenty millions.

f + Till within the last forty years, the profession of a merchant was held as degrading, particularly by the nobles, but even grandees, had no objection, now and then, to handle a little contraband.

The colonial policy of the one, was to bind the affections of their distant fellow citizens, to the country from whence they issued, by equitable and useful laws, by habits, manners, and by an enlightened equipoise of interests; that of the other, to insure control and dependence, by force, and by means of an undue sacrifice, in favour of metropolitan ambition and gain. The ones, in surrendering up certain rights, gained others as equivalents; whereas the others, to use a Creole simily, where as a cow, they themselves had to feed, but which the Spaniards milked, for their own exclusive use.

§ I have been, thus far, diffuse in explaining the nature of the first discoveries and settlements, made by the Spaniards on the continent of America, as well as in examining the primitive charters and prerogatives, on which the political and social rights of its inhabitants, were founded; from a conviction of the necessity of establishing, in the fullest manner possible, this material point, on which chiefly hinges, the great question now at issue. It has been the object of all the late governments of Spain, to hold the transatlantic provinces in colonial dependence; and from the conduct of that of Great Britain, it would almost appear, that her ministers, also, have not dared to consider them in any other light. Nay, both seemed resolved to prolong a slavery, unjust in the eye of the law, unnatural in its essence, and particularly unreasonable, when it was not only attempted to save European Spain from the yoke of a foreign enemy, but, also, to regenerate her inhabitants. It is, now, high time to delineate the late policy of Spain, established in her distant provinces; which from its degraded nature, had acquired the term of colonial; an elucidation, essentially necessary, to form a just idea of the grounds of complaint on the part of the Creoles, such as