darkness. If, however, by leaving tais contest to the more sober issue of moderate and healing councils, she approves of conciliation, many days of peace and prosperity yet await her. It is not by force alone, that Spain can preserve her altramarine provinces, in a just and profitable connection, unless as Burke said, fighting a people, be the best way of gaining them. She may subdue them, for the moment; and again enforce the trammels of dependence, but she cannot, in her own weak and divided state, retain a numerous, scattered and growing people, in a condition so contrary to the feelings of human nature, particularly, where they have so many advantages of climate in their favour. An armament such as Spain can fit out, is not a victory. After such confident hopes, as those under which Spain entered on her transatlantic war; after such wanton boasting, and such great exertions, when so little effective has been done, it is reasonable to conclude, the plan must be wrong. The desultory excursions of the Spaniards from the capital of Mexico, together with all their horrors, have had no material influence on the issue of the war, or produced any thing decisive. They have, rather, only tended to protract the attainment of a just and reasonable object, and more strongly to irritate the Creole mind, as will be seen by the public document I shall presently subjoin. In short, no universal effort, can be made to secure success, for when the insurgents are defeated in a cold climate, they fly to a hot one, where it is dangerous for the Spaniards to advance. The road to Vera Cruz, is still closed, and cannot be travelled but with an escort of 3000 men. The insurgents are in possession of Acapulco and the best mines and provinces; the Junta of Sultepec, only forty leagues

from Mexico, long stood its ground there, then removed to Zitaquaro, and lastly to Chiltapatzingo, where a general congress is forming; and, in short, to that pitch have things risen in New Spain, that 20,000 stand of arms, would decide the fate of the Mexican empire, and, for ever, sever the sceptre of the Spaniards, The situation of Caracas, has already been explained.

The forces, Spain is able to employ on the other side the Atlantic, may perhaps suffice for partial conquest, or for the tenure of some particular points and districts. They may produce great ravages and distress, but in a country so extended, so mountainous, and so resolved, it is impossible they can ever effect perfect subjection. In the invasion of Spain, we have seen the plains and fortresses in the hands of the enemy, but the mountains and roads, were possessed by the guerrillas. Does Spain, then, seek to organize those contending against her, into a regular banditti; yet this is one of the extremes to which they will fly, sooner than be unconditionally subdued. It is difficult, in New Spain, to make any correct estimate of the numbers of the insurgents; but it is a fact, that there, the Spaniards, when all the troops lately received from Spain, are mustered, cannot make up, more than 24,000 men. Their antagonists are indeed very numerous, but they are not organized, they fight under every disadvantage, many with bows and arrows, clubs, slings, lances, &c. and only few with muskets, and these principally taken from their enemies: but, yet they are resolved to gain their point. New Spain contains about 64,000 gachupines, or European Spaniards, and can it be expected, that notwithstanding their influence, the coneentration of their power, and the successful manner in

which they can wield the anathemas of heaven, and the brands of discord, that they can turn the opinions of nearly 7 millions of people, penetrated with the justice of their right? Or, viewing the subject on a larger scale, can it be supposed, that 17 millions of people, situated at a distance from the arm of power, and this in a weak and languishing state, with an intervening ocean of 2000 leagues, particularly after the inveteracy which has been excited, can be held prostrate at the feet of those very Cortes, who have disdained their claims and appeals; or that they will now tamely submit to have their fetters again rivetted? Conciliation, might, long ago, have restored tranquillity to the ultramarine provinces, if redress had preceded; a mild and temperate conduct, might, gradually, have allayed those irritated feelings, which injuries had provoked; but war, blockades, ravages, and massacres, can never produce so desirable an event. England, by an early and energetic display of her influence, and Spain by the exercise of moderation, might have prevented the many horrors which have been generated; and it would seem impossible, that the services of the first, and the injuries of Spanish America, should not have been able to rouse all parties to a sense of duty and humanity, and urge them to put an end to so criminal an enterprize.

Civil wars, which have had for object, a most just redress, have, indeed, sometimes ended in a worse despotism than that attempted to be removed; and such, decidedly, would be the state of subjection brought upon the Spanish Americans, if they did not now succeed. But independent of that dread, there is too great a fund of energy in the country, to submit to an alternative so

fatal. Treachery, bigotry, and inconsistent measures, did indeed restore Caracas to its old masters; but, the cruelty of the Spanish general, the approved violation of a ratified and solemn capitulation, and the sufferings of the deluded inhabitants, brought on the heads of the perpetrators of so many crimes, the punishments they deserved. This example, also, will serve as a beacon to the other sections, and teach them, how far, they are to rely on the plighted faith of the agents of a nation, which has already inundated their country with horrors. Were the partizans of the cause of redress and reform, less unanimous in their object, they might, perhaps, get tired of anarchy and distress; they might despond, and seek repose after so many scenes of turbulence and bloodshed, but in that case, they are sensible they must resign their rights as men, and even drag chains, more strongly rivetted, than their former ones. But so general is the persuasion, that their cause is just, that new armies rise up to replace those in the act of defeat; and new energies seem to be inspired by discomfiture. The ardour of the natives, is unabated, though for want of arms, the contest is unequal; and every region of New Spain, by the confession of Mexico prints, burns with the same ferment. General Rayon, in his letter to the bishop of La Puebla, says, "The Americans, now know their rights, and they will either die, or establish their own interiour government in the name of Ferdinand VII, to whom they have sworn allegiance, and in whose name the national Junta governs." But, in the mean time, torrents of blood are flowing, and destruction and deso lation, on every side, rear their ghastly heads.

§ In order that a more perfect idea, may be entertained, of the pretensions of the Spanish Americans, as well as of the sentiments excited by the cruel warfare waged against them, I have conceived it highly illustrative, to subjoin, in this place, a translation of the manifest addressed by the National Junta of Sultepec, in March, 1812, to the European inhabitants of the American continent. It is as follows;

"Brethren, friends, and fellow citizens,

"The holy religion which we profess, sound reason, humanity, affinity, friendship, as well as all the other respectable bonds, which strongly unite us, in every manner by which the inhabitants of one common country, who revere the same monarch, and live under the same laws, can be united; imperiously call upon you, to give an attentive ear to our just complaints and pretensions. War, that cruel scourge, that devastator of the most flourishing kingdoms, and perpetual spring of misfortunes, can produce us no good, let whatever party be the conqueror; to whom, when the conflict is over, nothing will remain, but the malign complacency of his victory. But he will have to lament, for many years, irreparable losses and evils, in which, perhaps, may be comprehended, the dreaded event, of some foreign power, out of the many ambitious of possessing this precious portion of the Spanish monarchy, instigated by ourselves, and availing itself of our disunion, coming to impose the law upon us, at a time when we may be unable to avoid it; and whilst we, at the same time, phrenzied by a blind fury, are butchering one another, refusing to hear or to examine our reciprocal rights, without know