Page images
PDF
EPUB

tensive and liberal system. Yet, one government succeeded the other, and no reform was thought of; nor were any of those effective concessions granted, which Lord Wellesley indicated, as the only means of producing permanent good. One of the first acts of the Cadiz Regency, was to annul its own decree of free trade, under aggravations, which must have roused the injured feelings of the most weak and submissive. Fresh powers were sent over to the colonial chiefs, for the purposes of rendering their administration more severe, and conse quently more oppressive. A most tyrannical plan of espionage was set on foot; victims of resentment, every where, abounded; and in order to cloak and support all these vexations, the course of public justice, was, actually, declared suspended. An order was sent out, to impede the circulation of all newspapers, except the gazette of the Cadiz Regency; and this was only tolerated, when officially transmitted by the government to its agents. The situation of Spanish America, was, in fact, rendered worse, by the new changes in the Peninsula; for fresh and galling insults, were added to the increased acts of injustice on the part of the governmental agents; and on the degradation of old systems, renewed terrors were ingrafted. This systematic terror, rose to such a height, that in Lima, the editor of a public paper, for telling the inhabitants of Spanish America, that they had a country (patria) was arrested and sent home a prisoner; and in other sections, many other despotic acts might be enumerated. Yet by Spain, the ultramarine provinces are told to endure all these hardships, without repining; and England, by her indifference, tells them, they are to expect no redress, as long as she is linked to the parent state.

The rancour of the Cadiz governments, as before demonstrated, became analagous to the interests by which it was first roused; and it was afterwards kept alive, by every base artifice and design. But, that this blindness, and this infatuation, should, in like manner, have pervaded the acts of the British government, and the conduct of its agents, is the most unaccountable of all political solecisms; and if it proves no more, it at least evinces, that the extent and importance of this subject, did not receive due and timely consideration; and that it was treated, rather as an every day incident, than as one of the great occurrences, which the page of history, will, at a future period, have to record. In fact, the whole of the changes, which have taken place in Spanish America, within the last four years, have excited less interest and sensation in England, than would have been caused, by any alteration in one of the petty States of Germany, or by a change in the governmental forms, of the citizens of the Alps. Thus, has it happened, that every thing was thrown on the chances of a war, not of common hostility, to establish a right, to fix a boundary, or to dislodge an intrusive enemy; but one, accompanied by bloody persecution, and sharpened by peculiar feelings of revenge. It was the boast of modern times, that civilization had stripped warfare, of nearly all its ancient ferocity; but, in Spanish America, we see it, not only brought back to the horrors of the dark ages, but, if possible, rendered more brutal, savage, and deformed. The British officers who have cooperated in the Peninsula, have had an opportunity of judging of the nature of Spanish troops, and we have seen how dangerous it was, even to let them loose, on the French natives of the

[ocr errors]

Pyrenees. To the feelings of such officers, do I now appeal, when I ask the question; what fatal consequences, must not be produced, by such troops, being let loose, on the often defenseless natives of Spanish America, situated, at a distance, from the arm of power, and as it were, answerable to no one for their excesses? Thence, have the military reports of the European chiefs, commanding in that ill-fated country, presented little . else, than details of individual murder, and general massacre; as will, purposely, be shewn, from official sources, in a detached section of this exposé. Boundless robbery, indiscriminate seizure, vengeance, horrid impiety, and atrocious murders, are the evidences, that attest the conduct of the officers, who have had to subject the insurgents; and a mode of warfare has been established, which has been made a plea, for the greatest excesses, and a continual source of rapine and bloodshed, throughout the ravaged provinces. The feeling mind revolts at such scenes, but what must be the reflections of the impartial Briton, who sees the name of his own nation, materially implicated in these horrors; who sees the instruments of these butcheries, sent over cloathed and armed with those resources, England had generously lavished, for the defence of Spain?

However urgent the dictates of policy, and loud the calls of humanity, nothing on the part of either Spain or England, has yet sufficed, to wind up this long drama of horrors and disasters; and when a wide and extended civil war, with all its attendant scourges, has deformed and harrowed up the bosom of Spanish America, for more than four years, and in which, many hundred thousand souls have been sacrificed, not an effective measure

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

of pacification, has been organized; but, rather, the issue -of all, has been left to a system, founded on mutual ruin, cemented by blood, and generating vice and misery in endless succession. As the governments of Spain, have taken a more regular form, we shall hereafter see, that the deputies representing the American provinces in the Cortes, have often complained of these horrors, and have lamented the unfortunate causes which gave rise to them. They have fully and repeatedly manifested their basis; by urging, unfair monopolies, inequality of representation, the vices of the colonial regimen, and the hardships under which the Spanish Americans laboured, as the grounds of all these disasters; and till such time as it is proved, that the councils of Spain, have reformed all these points; that the claims of the inhabitants of the ultramarine provinces, have received a fair and impartial discussion, and that they have been restored to their long invaded rights, the government of Spain, alone, is answerable for all the crimes and horrors, committing in the injured provinces of Spanish America; as is England, for that waste of lives and treasure, which might have been useful in Europe; for that destruction, which ensues; and for those dangers, to which the Spanish Americans are exposed. She is answerable, by giving a pledge of national faith, to at least, an obscure and dangerous condition, open to abuse and misrepresentation-by not stipulating for a trade, in favour of her own subjects, which alone, would have prevented these evils that have followed-by suffering the Cadiz Regency, to declare an unjust and impolitic war-by not putting a timely remedy to calamities which make humanity shudder-and by suffering those resources sent to Spain,

for a prosecution of a just war against the French, to be employed on the other side of the Atlantic, in the furtherance of views, founded on injustice, illiberality, and the most flagrant of all invasions of right. England, has also been to blame, for giving to the monopolists of Cadiz, frequent causes of triumph in the realization of their views; and particularly, after all her indifference, in herself celebrating one of the greatest horrors that the most dreadful visitations of nature, or the fell revenge of unprincipled power, could bring amongst a detached portion of the human race, as will be hereafter shewn.

Accustomed as England has been, to balance her own substantial interests, as well as the future destines of empires, her pusillanimous silence respecting the horrors committing in Spanish America, whilst actually her ally, and when she had so much at stake, appears a problem, both singular and unaccountable. That the contagion of Cadiz'party and war faction, should, equally, have extended to England and her agents, is one of the greatest sacrifices of policy and discrimination, that ever warped the measures of a potent ally, from the path of rectitude and justice. Yet what other conclusions can be drawn, when we behold one half of the resources of Spain, rendered useless and abortive; when we see an unnatural and cruel war prolonged; when England disregards the continuation of horrors, only found in the annals of a Nero or a Tiberius; when no medium of approximation and friendly intercourse, under stipulations advantageous to all parties, and founded on liberality, reason, and gratitude, is carried into effect; and when, under the greatest sacrifices of the British public, an annual trade of twenty millions sterling, as will

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »