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 1492 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

not being called forth; during which, an illiberal and destructive 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 régénérated government of the Peninsula, måke 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 hot 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 clain all its consequent benefits. Neither are the advances made in literature, in 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 situation 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 mother country. 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 mo ther country. "+

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

was

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, 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

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