State of Lima in 1811....Constitution proclaimed....Some Effects of....Wishes of the Inhabitants of Lima....Manifest of Venezuela.

On my arrival in Lima I found the same spirit of revolutionary principles disseminated among all ranks of creoles, excepting some few individuals who possessed lucrative employments under the government. The Viceroy Abascal endeavoured to check the spirit of rebellion by the mildest measures possible, avoiding all acts of persecution; he established a regiment, called de la Concordia, of concord, from the respectable inhabitants of the city, constituted himself the colonel of it, and nominated the officers from among the more leading individuals, whether Spaniards or creoles: this for a short time lulled the spirit of insurrection. The victory of Guaqui, gained by General Goyoneche over the army of Buenos Ayres, was welcomed with feasts and rejoicings; but the scarcity of wheat, the ports of Chile being closed, began to be very apparent.

In 1812 the constitutional government was proclaimed, and copies of the constitution of the Spanish monarchy were the only books that were read, consulted, and studied by all classes. The formation of a constitutional corporation, cabildo, and the election of constitutional alcaldes, caused some uproar in the city; but the measures became alarming to the Spaniards when the election of deputies for the cortes took place. The Spaniards, accustomed to consider the natives as inferiors, and almost as intruders in their own country, had now to brook their contempt in return, to bear with their opposition, and sometimes with their reproaches. The poll was conducted in the patio, or principal cloister of the convent of La Merced; several collegians of San Carlos placed themselves on the hustings, and, according to the Ley de Partido, no native of Spain is permitted to reside in the colonies without a special license of the Casa de Contratacion of Seville, or in the employ of the government, and the latter were declared by the constitution, tit. 2, cap. IV. art. 24, to have no vote. Thus as no Spaniards in Lima could produce a license, or passport, they were not allowed to vote; and this excited in them the most frantic rage and chagrin. One Spaniard presented himself with his passport, and insultingly advanced towards the hustings to vote; but one of the collegians, looking over the paper, found that the voter was a native of the Canary Islands, which being African islands, and all Africans, or descendants of Africans, being declared by art. 22, tit. 2, cap. IV. of the constitution, as not having an elective vote, unless they had obtained a letter of denizenship from the cortes, he was obliged to retire amid the shouts of the creoles, and the curses against the cortes of the Spaniards.

Nothing could possibly be more favourable to the colonies than the publication of a constitutional form of government, and the liberty of the press, as it was sanctioned by the cortes. The restrictions were such as would have produced a clamour in England, but to a slave an hour of rest is an hour of perfect freedom, and to men whose pens had been chained by political trammels and inquisitorial anathemas, a relief from such restrictions was hailed as an absolute immunity. Those colonies that still remained faithful to the mother country had an opportunity of reading the periodical papers, a thing unknown at this time, unless we except the government gazette; and although such news as was unfavourable to the Spanish system did not appear in print, yet the barefaced falsehoods of the old ministerial paper were checked in their exaggerations, by the appearance of authentic intelligence in the new papers, and the public were informed of such facts as had taken place: they were apprised of the establishment of republican governments in Mexico, Colombia, Buenos Ayres, and Chile—facts that would have been disguised by the old established authorities, and the people would have been stigmatized by the name of banditti, of discontented indians, a gang of traitors, or a horde of highwaymen and freebooters.

The inhabitants of Lima wished for a change in their form of government as ardently perhaps as those of any other part of America; and for not having established one, they have been considered by many as a race of effeminate listless cowards, and have been reported as such—but most undeservedly. Although in a cause adverse to their own interest, for many years they sustained the brunt of the war against all the forces that could be brought to the field by those whom they were taught to consider as enemies. Soldiers are instructed by the precepts and the examples of their commanders, and rarely reflect on what is right or wrong; otherwise history would not present us with such numberless instances of armed forces acting in open hostility against their very homes, their friends, and their parents; wherever a city is garrisoned by a military force, the inhabitants as well as the soldiers must submit to the will of the commanders. Such was the state of Lima: many of the soldiers it is true were LimeÑos, but many were from different parts of Peru, and nearly the whole of the officers were Spaniards, and those who were not were under the suspicious eye of jealous masters.

At first, the several provinces that revolted, and which had established new governments, most solemnly declared, that it was not their intention to separate from the crown of Spain, but to govern themselves in such a manner as would secure to that crown the possession of America. The Regency of Spain, however, invested with the authority to govern the peninsula, insisted on the prerogative of governing the American colonies, forgetting that the famous grant of America made by Pope Alexander VI. annexed America to the crowns of Castile and Arragon, and not to the nation nor to any representative body belonging to that nation. Every individual that was apprehended during the first years of commotion was treated as a traitor. At Quito the words "constituted authorities" contained in the oath which was administered were converted into high treason, and there is no doubt but Arrechaga would have solicited the sentence of capital punishment on all those who had taken it, had not their number included many of his friends.

Declarations of independence, and manifestos containing the motives for at once separating from the mother country, now began to circulate among the natives of Peru; and although some of them contained exaggerations, and the government of Lima became possessed of copies of them, yet such was the apathy or the timidity of the chiefs, that no attempt at refutation was ever made. The following are translations of papers from Venezuela, which fully express all the grievances of which the Hispano-Americans complained. They were drawn up for the purpose of instilling into the minds of their countrymen a determination to shake off those grievances, and to convince the world at large that the insurrection of the Spanish colonies had become a matter of necessity and not of choice:

"Manifesto made to the world by the confederation of Venezuela in South America, of the reasons on which it founds its absolute independence of Spain, and of every other foreign power. Done by the general Congress of the United States, and ordered to be published.

"Spanish America, condemned for more than three centuries to exist only for the purpose of increasing the political preponderance of Spain, without the least influence in, or participation of her greatness, would, according to the order of events in which she had no other part than that of sufferance, have been the victim and the sacrifice of the disorder, corruption, and conquest, which have disorganized the nation her conqueror, if the instinct of self-preservation had not dictated to the Americans, that the moment of action had arrived, and that it was time to reap the fruits of three centuries of patience and forbearance.

"If the discovery of the new world was to the human race an occurrence highly interesting, the regeneration of this same world, degraded from that period by oppression and servitude, will not be less so. America, raising herself from the dust, and throwing off her chains without passing through the political gradations of other countries, will in her turn triumph over the world, without deluging it in blood, without enslaving it, without brutifying it. A revolution most useful to mankind will be that of America, when she shall constitute her own authorities and govern herself, opening her arms to receive those people of Europe who may be trampled on by policy, wish to fly from the evils of war, or escape the persecution and the fury of party. The inhabitants of one hemisphere will then cross the ocean to the other in search of peace and tranquillity; not with the lust nor perfidy of conquest, like the heroes of the sixteenth century—as friends, not as tyrants: as men willing to obey, not as lords to command—not to destroy, but to save—not as ravenous tigers, but as human beings, who, horror-struck at the account of our past misfortunes, were taught to estimate them by their own—who will not convert their reason into a spirit of blind persecution, nor wish to stain our annals with blood and misery. Then shall navigation, geography, astronomy, industry, and trade perfected by the discovery of America, though until now the source of her debasement, be converted into the means of accelerating, consolidating, and making more perfect the happiness of the two worlds.

"This is not a flattering dream, but the homage of reason to prudence, whose ineffable wisdom designed that one part of the human race should not groan under the tyranny of another; consequently, the great fiat of what should precede the dissolution of the world could not take place before one part of its inhabitants had enjoyed their inherent rights. Every thing has long been preparing for this epoch of felicity and consolation. In Europe the shock and the fermentation of opinions, the contempt and the inversion of the laws; the profanation of those bonds which ought to have held states together; the luxury of courts, the cessation of industry, the consequent unproductiveness of lands, the oppression of virtue, and the triumph of vice accelerated the progress of evil in one world, while the increase of population in America, of the wants of foreign countries dependent on her, the development of agriculture in a new and fertile soil, the germ of industry under a beneficent climate, the elements of science under a privileged organization, the means of a rich and prosperous trade, and the strength of a political adolescence, all, all contributed to accelerate the progress of good in the other.

"Such was the advantageous alternative that enslaved America presented to her mistress, Spain, on the other side of the ocean, when oppressed by the weight of every evil, and undermined by every principle destructive to society, America called upon her to ease her of her chains that she might fly to her succour. Fortunately prejudice triumphed, the genius of evil and disorder seized on the government, goaded pride usurped the seat of prudence; ambition triumphed over liberality, and substituting deceit and perfidy for generosity and integrity, those very arms were turned against us which we ourselves used when impelled by fidelity and good faith; we taught Spain herself the way to resist her enemies, under the banners of a presuming king, unfit to reign, and void of all title except the generous compassion of the people and his own misfortunes.

"Venezuela was the first in the new world to pledge to Spain that generous aid which she considered as a necessary homage; Venezuela was the first to pour the consoling balm of friendship and fraternity into her wounds when afflicted; Venezuela was the first that knew the disorders which threatened the destruction of Spain; she was the first to provide for her own safety, without severing the bonds that linked her to the mother country; the first to feel the effects of her ambitious ingratitude; she was the first on whom war was declared by her brethren; and she is now the first to recover and declare her independence and civil dignity in the new world. In order to justify this measure of necessity and of justice, she considers it an incumbent duty to present to the universe the reasons which have urged her to the same, that her honour and principles may not be doubted, nor endangered when she comes to fill the high rank which Providence restores her to.

"All those persons who are aware of our determinations know what was our fate previous to the late inversion of things, which alone dissolved our engagements with Spain, even granting that these were legal and equitable. It would be superfluous to present again to impartial Europe the misfortunes and vexations she has so often had cause to lament, at a time when we were not allowed to do so; neither is it necessary to assert the injustice of our dependence and degradation, when every nation has viewed as an insult to political equity, that Spain unpeopled, corrupted, and plunged into a state of sloth and indolence by the measures of a despotic government, should have exclusively usurped from the industry and activity of the rest of the continent, the precious and incalculable resources of a world constituted in the fief and monopoly of a small portion of the other.

"The interest of Europe cannot oppose the liberty of one quarter of the globe, which now discovers itself to the interest of the other three; yet a mere peninsula is found to oppose the interests of its government to those of its nation, in order to raise the old hemisphere against the new one, since the impossibility of oppressing it alone for any longer period is now visible. In opposition to these endeavours, more fatal to our tranquillity than to our prosperity, we will disclose to the world the causes which operated on our conduct on the fifteenth of July, 1808, and the acts that have wrested from us the resolutions of the nineteenth of April, 1810, and of the fifth of July, 1811. These three epochs will form the first period of the glories of regenerated Venezuela, when the impartial pen of history shall record the first lines of the political existence of South America.

"Our manifests and public papers testified almost all the reasons that influenced our resolutions, as well as our designs, and all the just and decorous means that were employed to realize them; it might be supposed that an exact and impartial comparison of our conduct with that of the late governments of Spain would of itself suffice to justify not only our moderation, not only our measures of security, not only our independence, but also even the declaration of an irreconcilable enmity to those who directly or indirectly have contributed to the unnatural system now adopted against us. Nothing in truth should we have to do if good faith had been the spring of action, used by the partisans of oppression against liberty; but, as the last analysis of our misfortunes, we cannot extricate ourselves from the condition of slaves without being branded with the disgraceful epithets of ungrateful rebels. Let those therefore listen and judge us who have no part in our misfortunes, and who are now desirous of having none in our disputes, in order not to augment the prejudices of our enemies, and let them not lose sight of the solemn act of our just, necessary, and modest emancipation.

"Caracas was apprised of the scandalous scenes which took place at the Escurial and Aranjues at a time when she was already convinced of what were her rights, and the state in which they were placed by those extraordinary occurrences; but the habit of obedience on the one hand, the apathy that despotism had produced on the other, and in fine our fidelity and good faith, were at that moment paramount to every other feeling. After the communication of Murat, the kingly substitute of Joseph Bonaparte, had reached the capital of the monarchy, the authorities did not even hesitate respecting the reception of it, the people only thought of being faithful, consistent, and generous, without premeditating on the evils to which this noble and gallant conduct would expose them. Without any other view than that of honour, Venezuela refused to follow the opinions of the leading characters in Madrid, some of whom, in support of the orders of the French Regent of the kingdom, exacted of us the oath of allegiance to the new king; others declared and published that Spain had received a new existence since her old authorities abandoned her, since the cession made by the Bourbons and the entrance of the new dynasty; that they had recovered their absolute independence and liberty, and that they offered the same alluring terms to the Americans, who by the same means might procure the same rights. But the first step we took for our own security convinced the junta central that there was something in us besides habits and prejudices, and they began to change their tune respecting liberality and sincerity; they perfidiously adopted the talisman Ferdinand at first practised in good faith; they suppressed, but with cunning and suavity, the plain and legal project of Caracas in 1808 to form a junta, and to imitate the representative system of the governments of Spain; and they began to set up a new species of despotism under the factitious name of a king, acknowledged only from a principle of generosity, and destined to oppress and tyrannise us by those who had usurped the sovereignty.

"New governors and judges initiated in the new system projected by Spain against America, decided in the support of it at our expense, and provided with instructions for even the last political change which might occur in the other hemisphere, were the consequences resulting from the surprize that our unparalleled and unexpected generosity caused to the central junta. Ambiguity, artifice, and disorder were the springs employed to keep in motion this short-lived administration: as they saw their empire exposed and tottering, they wished to gain in one day what had enriched their ancestors for many years; and as their authority was backed by that of their parasites, all their endeavours were directed to the support of each other under the shadow of our illusion and good faith. No statute or law against these plans was effective; and every measure that favoured the new system of political freemasonry was to have the force of law, however opposed it might be to the principle of equity and justice. After the declaration of the Captain-general Emparan made to the audiencia, that in Caracas there was no other law nor will but his own, and this fully demonstrated in several arbitrary acts and excesses, such as placing on the bench of the judge the King's accuser-general; intercepting and opening the papers sent by Don Pedro Gonsales Ortega to the central junta; expulsing from the provinces this same public functionary, as well as the captain, Don Francisco Rodrigues, and the assessor of the consulate, Don Miguel Jose Sanz, who were all embarked for Cadiz or Porto Rico, as well as sentencing to labour in the public works without any previous form of trial a considerable number of men, who were dragged from their homes under the epithet of vagrants; revoking and suspending the resolutions of the royal audience, when they were according to his caprice and absolute will, after naming a recorder without the consent of the corporation; creating and causing the assessor to be received without either title or authority for the same, after he had supported his pride and his ignorance in every excess; after many scandalous disputes between the audience and the corporation, and after all the law characters had been reconciled to the plan of these despots, in order that these might be more inexpugnable to us, it was agreed to organize and carry into effect the project of espionage and duplicity.

"Of all this there remains authentic testimony in our archives, notwithstanding the vigilance with which these were examined by the friends of the late authorities: there exists in Cuenca an order of the Spanish government to excite discord among the nobles and among the different branches of American families. There are besides many written and well-known documents of corruption, gambling, and libertinism promoted by Guevara, for the purpose of demoralizing the country; and no one can ever forget the collusions and subornings publicly used by the judges, and proved in the act of their residencia.

"Under these auspices the defeats and misfortunes of the Spanish armies were concealed. Pompous and imaginary triumphs over the French on the peninsula were forged and announced; the streets were ordered to be illuminated, gunpowder was wasted in salutes, the bells announced the rejoicings, and religion was prostituted by the chanting Te Deums and other public acts, as if to insult Providence, and invoke a perpetuity of the evils we groaned under. In order to allow us no time to analyze our own fate, or discover the snares laid for us, conspiracies were invented, parties and factions were forged in the imagination of our oppressors, every one was calumniated who did not consent to be initiated in the mysteries of perfidy; fleets and emissaries from France were figured as being on our seas, and residing among us; our correspondence with the neighbouring colonies was circumscribed and restricted; our trade received new fetters, and the whole was for the purpose of keeping us in a state of continual agitation, that we might not fix our attention on our own situation and interests.

"When our forbearance was once alarmed, and our vigilance awakened, we began to lose all confidence in the governments of Spain and their agents; through the veil of their intrigues and machinations we perceived the horrid futurity that awaited us; the genius of truth, elevated above the dense atmosphere of oppression and calumny, pointed out to us with the finger of impartiality the true fate of Spain, the disorders of her governments, the unavailing energy of her inhabitants, the formidable power of her enemies, and the groundless hopes of her salvation. Shut up in our own houses, surrounded by spies, threatened with infamy and banishment, scarcely daring to bewail our own situation, or even secretly to complain against our vigilant and cunning enemies; the consonance of our blinded sighs exhaled in the moments of the most galling oppression, at length gave uniformity to our sentiments and united our opinions. Shut up within the walls of our own houses, and debarred from all communication with our fellow-citizens, there was scarcely an individual in Caracas who did not think that the moment of being for ever free, or of sanctioning irrevocably a new and horrid slavery, had arrived.

"Every day discovered more and more the nullity of the acts of Bayonne, the invalidity of the rights of Ferdinand, and of all the Bourbons who were privy to the arrangements; the ignominy with which they delivered up as slaves those who had placed them on the throne in opposition to the house of Austria; the connivance of the head functionaries in Spain to the plans of the new dynasty; the fate that these same plans prepared for America, and the necessity of forming some resolution that might shield the new world from the calamities which from its relations with the old were about to visit it. All saw their treasures buried in the unfathomable disorders of the peninsula; they wept for the blood of Americans spilt in defence of the enemies of America, in order to support the slavery of their own country. Notwithstanding the vigilance of the tyrants, all saw the very interior of Spain, where they beheld nothing but disorder, corruption, factions, misfortunes, defeats, treacheries, dispersed armies, whole provinces in the hands of the enemy and their disciplined troops, and at the head of all a weak and tumultuary government formed out of such rare elements.

"Dismay was the general and uniform impression observed in the countenances of the people of Venezuela by the agents of oppression sent from Spain to support at any hazard the infamous cause of their constituents; a word might cause proscription, or a discourse banishment to the author; and every attempt to do in America what was done in Spain, if it did not shed the blood of the Americans, it was at least sufficient to occasion the ruin, infamy, and desolation of many families, as may be seen by the act of proscription of several officers and citizens of rank and probity, decreed on the twentieth of March, 1810, by Emparan.[1] Such a miscalculation could not fail to produce or multiply the convulsions, to augment the popular reaction, to prepare the combustible, and dispose it in such a manner that the least spark would kindle it, and create a blaze that would consume, and even efface every vestige of so hard and melancholy a condition. Spain needy and almost desolate, her fate dependent on the generosity of America, and almost in the act of being blotted out from the list of nations, appeared as if transported back to the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries, she again began to conquer America with arms more destructive than iron or lead; every day gave birth to some new proof of the fate that awaited us, a fate that would place us in the sad alternative of being sold to a foreign power, or obliged to groan for ever under a fresh and irrevocable bondage, whilst we alone were expectant on the happy moment that might bring our opinions into action, and join us in such a manner that we could express them, and support them.

"Amidst the sighs and imprecations of general despair, the entrance of the French in Andalusia, the dissolution of the central junta brought about by the effects of public execration, and the abortive institution of another protean government, under the name of regency, reached our ears. This was announced under ideas more liberal, and on perceiving the efforts of the Americans to avail themselves of the opportunity which the vices and nullities of so strange a government presented to them, they endeavoured to strengthen the illusion by brilliant promises, by theories barren of reform, and by announcing to us that our fate was no longer in the hands of viceroys, ministers, or governors; at the same time that all their agents received the strictest orders to watch over our conduct, and even over our opinions, and not to suffer these to exceed the limits traced by the eloquence that gilded the chains forged in the captious and cunning promise of emancipation.

"At any other period this would have sufficed to deceive the Americans, but the junta of Seville, as well as the central junta, had already gone too far in order to remove the bandage from our eyes, and what was then combined, meditated, and polished to subject us again with phrases and hyperboles, only served to redouble our vigilance, to collect our opinions, and to establish a firm and unshaken resolution to perish rather than remain any longer the victims of cabal and perfidy. The eve of that day on which our religion celebrates the most august mystery of the redemption of the human race, was that designated by Providence to be the commencement of the political redemption of America. On Holy Thursday, April nineteenth, 1810, the colossus of despotism was thrown down in Venezuela, the empire of law proclaimed, and the tyrants expelled with all the suavity, moderation, and tranquillity that they themselves have confessed, so much so in fact, as to have filled with admiration of, and friendship for us the rest of the impartial world.

"All sensible persons would have supposed that a nation recovering its rights, and freeing itself from its oppressors, would in its blind fury have broken down every barrier that might place it directly or indirectly within the reach of the influence of those very governments that had hitherto caused its misfortunes, and its oppression. Venezuela, faithful to her promises, did no more than ensure her own security in order to comply with them, and if with one strong and generous hand she deposed the authors of her misery and her slavery, with the other she placed the name of Ferdinand VII. at the head of her new government, swore to maintain his rights, promised to acknowledge the unity and integrity of the Spanish nation, opened her arms to her European brethren, offered them an asylum in their misfortunes and calamities, equally hated the enemies of the Spanish name, solicited the generous alliance of England, and prepared to take her share of the success or misfortunes of the nation from whom she could and ought to be separated.

"But it was not this that the regency exacted of us, when it declared us free in its theories, it subjected us in practice to a small and insignificant representation, believing that those to whom it considered nothing was due, would be content to receive whatever was granted to them by their masters. Under so liberal a calculation the regency was desirous of keeping up the illusion, to pay us with words, promises, and inscriptions for our long slavery, and for the blood and treasure we had expended in Spain. We were fully aware how little we had to expect from the policy and intrusive agents of Ferdinand, we were not ignorant that if we were not to be dependent on viceroys, ministers, and governors, with greater reason we could not be subject to a king, a captive and without the rights of authority; nor to a government null and illegitimate, nor to a nation incapable of holding sway over another, nor to a peninsular corner of Europe, almost wholly occupied by a foreign force. Nevertheless, desirous of effecting our own freedom by the means of generosity, moderation, and civic virtues, we acknowledged the imaginary rights of the son of Maria Louisa, we respected the misfortunes of the nation, and officially announced to the regency that we disowned, that we promised not to separate from Spain so long as she maintained a legal government, established according to the will of the nation, and in which America had that part given to her, required by justice, necessity, and the political importance of her territory.

"If three hundred years of former servitude do not suffice to authorize our emancipation, there has been sufficient cause in the conduct of the governments which arrogated to themselves the sovereignty of a conquered nation, which never could have any property in America declared an integral part of the same, whilst they attempted to involve it in conquest. If the governors of Spain had been paid by her enemies, they could not have done more against the felicity of the nation, bound in its close union and correspondence with America. With the greatest contempt of our importance, and of the justice of our claims when they could not deny us the appearance of a representation, they subjected it to the despotic influence of their agents, over our municipalities, to whom the election was committed; and whilst Spain allowed even for the provinces in possession of the French, the Canaries and Balearic islands, one representative for each 50,000 souls, freely elected by these, in America a 1,000,000 scarcely sufficed to have the right of one representative, named by the Viceroy or captain-general, under the signature of the municipality.

"At the same time that we, strong in the right of our own justice and the moderation of our proceedings, hoped that if the reasons we alleged to the regency to convince them of the necessity of our resolution did not triumph, at least that the generous disposition with which we promised not to become the enemy of our oppressed and unfortunate brethren would be successful, dispositions which the new government of Caracas was desirous should not be limited to barren promises; and the unprejudiced and impartial world will know, that Venezuela has passed the time which intervened between April 19th, 1810, to July 5th, 1811, in a bitter and painful alternative of acts of ingratitude, insults, and hostilities on the part of Spain; and of generosity, modesty, and forbearance on ours. This period is the most interesting of the history of our revolution, so much so, that its events present a contrast so favourable to our cause, that it cannot have failed to gain over for us the impartial decision of those nations that have no interest in disparaging our efforts.

"Previous to the result of our political transformation, we received daily new motives sufficiently strong for each to have caused us to do what we have now done, after three centuries of misery and degradation. In every vessel that arrived from Spain new agents with fresh instructions came to strengthen those who supported the cause of ambition and perfidy. For the very same ends, those Europeans who wished to return to Spain, and assist in the war against the French, received a refusal to their request. On the tenth of April, 1810, the schools were ordered to be closed, to the end, that under the pretence of attending solely to the war, both Spain and America might be sunk deeper into a state of ignorance. It was also ordained, that rights and rewards should be forgotten, and that we should do nothing but send to Spain our money, our men, provisions, productions, submissions, and obedience.

"The public press teemed with nothing but triumphs and victories, with donations and acknowledgments wrested from the people, as yet uninformed of our resolution; and under the most severe threats of punishment, a political inquisition with all its horrors was established against those who should read, possess, or receive papers, not only foreign but even Spanish that were not issued at the manufactory of the regency. Contrary to the very orders of the self-constituted sovereignty, previously issued to deceive us, every bound was over-leaped in the re-election of ultramarine functionaries, whose only merit consisted in swearing to maintain the system contrived by the regency. In the most scandalous and barefaced manner, that order which favoured our trade and encouraged our agriculture was annulled, condemned to the flames, and its authors and promoters proscribed. Every kind of aid was expected of us; but we were never informed of its destination, inversion, and expenditure. In contempt of even a shadow of public faith, and without any exception whatever, all epistolary correspondence from these countries was ordered to be opened, an excess unheard of even under the despotism of Godoy, and only adopted to make the espionage over America more tyrannical. In fine, the plans laid for the purpose of perpetuating our bondage now began to be practically realized.

"In the mean time, Venezuela, free, and mistress of herself, thought of nothing less than imitating the detestable conduct of the regency and its agents: content with having secured her fate against the ambition of an intrusive and illegitimate authority, and shielded it against the blackest and most complicated plans, was satisfied with shewing by positive acts her desire for peace, friendship, correspondence, and co-operation with her European brethren. All those of this class who were among us, as such were considered, and two-thirds of the political, civil, and military employments, both of the high and middle classes, remained or were placed in the hands of Europeans without any precaution, but with a sincerity and good faith that nearly proved fatal to our own interests.

"Our treasures were generously opened to our enemies, that they might enjoy every convenience and profusion in their passage from our country: the captains of the packets, Carmen, Fortuna, and Araucana were received into our ports, and assisted with money to enable them to proceed on their voyage, and fulfil their respective commissions, and even the insolence and crimes of the captain of the Fortuna were referred to the judgment of the Spanish government. Notwithstanding the junta of government of Caracas made manifest the motives of precaution which obliged them not to expose the public funds which were destined to recover the nation, to the veracity of government they allowed and exhorted the people to be generous, and use their fortunes according to the impulse of their own sensibility, by publishing in the public papers the mournful statement of the regency, in which was portrayed the agonizing state of the nation, with the view to solicit our aid, and the same time that they represented it, through the medium of their public prints, as vigorous, organized, and triumphant; but these were destined to deceive us. The commissioners of the regency sent to Quito,[2] Santa FÉ, and Peru were hospitably received, treated as friends, and their pecuniary wants supplied to their own satisfaction. But we lose time in thus analyzing the dark and cunning conduct of our enemies, as all their endeavours have not sufficed to warp the imperious and triumphing impression of ours.

"The arrogant mandataries of our country were not, however, the only persons authorized to support the horrid plans of their constituents; the same uniform and universal mission was brought out by all those who inundated America from the sad and ominous reigns of the junta of Seville, the central junta, and the regency, and under the system of political freemasonry, founded on the Machiavelic pact; they all accorded in mutually substituting, replacing, and assisting each other in the combined plans against the felicity and political existence of the new world. The island of Puerto Rico was immediately made the haunt of all the agents of the regency; the place of equipment for all the expeditions; the head quarters of all the anti-American forces; the workshop of all the impostors, calumnies, triumphs and threats of the regents; the refuge of all the wicked; the rendezvous of a new gang of bucaniers, in order that there might not be wanting any of the calamities of the sixteenth century in the new conquest of America in the nineteenth. The Americans of Puerto Rico, oppressed by the bayonets, cannons, fetters, and gibbets which surrounded the bashaw Melendes and his satellites, had to add to their own misfortunes the painful necessity of contributing to ours. Such was the fate of the Americans; condemned not only to be galley-slaves, but to be the drivers of each other.

"The conduct observed by Spain to America is harder and more insulting than that which she appears to exercise towards France. It is well known that part of the dynasty, still resisted by part of the nation, has had decided partizans in many of those who considered themselves the first national dignitaries, for their rank, offices, talents, and knowledge; among these may be counted Morla, Azanza, Ofarrill, Urquijo, Masarredo, and many others of every class and profession; but still there has not appeared one of those who so much desire the liberty of independence and regeneration of the peninsula, that has raised his voice in favour of the American provinces. These, therefore, adopting the same principles of fidelity and national integrity, have of their own accord been ambitious of preserving themselves independent of such intrusive, illegitimate, weak, and tumultuary governments, as have been all those that have hitherto called themselves the agents of the king, or representatives of the nation. It is vexing to see so much liberality, so much civism, and so much disinterest in the cortes with regard to disorganized, exhausted, and nearly conquered Spain, and full of so much meanness, suspicion, prejudice and pride, towards America; tranquil, faithful, generous, decided to assist her brethren, when she alone can give reality, at least in the most essential point, to the theoretical and brilliant plans which make the Spanish Congress so arrogant. How many treasons, murders, assassinations, perfidies and convulsions have appeared in Spain; these have passed by as the inseparable misfortunes of circumstances, yet not one of the provinces that surrendered, or was attached to the French domination, has been treated like Venezuela; their conduct must however have been analyzed, and characterised according to reasons, motives, and circumstances that dictated it; this must have been judged in conformity to the rights of war, and the sentiments of the nation must have been pronounced according to the statements laid before it, but not one of them has yet been declared traitorous, in open rebellion, and unnaturalized as was Venezuela; for none of them has been created a public commission of diplomatic mutineers, to arm Spaniard against Spaniard, to fan the flame of civil war, and to burn and annihilate all that cannot be held in the name of Ferdinand VII. America alone is condemned to endure the until now unheard of condition of being warred upon, destroyed, or enslaved with the very means of assistance which she destined for the liberty and common felicity of the nation of which she was led to believe for a few moments that she constituted a part.

"It appears that the independence of America creates more irritation to Spain, than the foreign oppression that threatens her, for against her are in preference employed measures that have not even been adopted against the very provinces that have proclaimed the new king. The incendiary and turbulent talent of a minister of the council of Indies could not have a more dignified employment than that of again conquering Venezuela with the same arms as those of the Alfingers and the Welzers, those first tyrants of Venezuela, authorized by Charles V., and the promoters of civil war amongst her primitive inhabitants, now re-assumed in the name of a king placed on the throne against the pretensions of the family of him who let out these provinces to the German factors. Under this name of Ferdinand all the sluices of iniquity are opened upon us, and the horrors of conquest are renewed, the remembrance of which we had generously endeavoured to blot out from the memory of our posterity; under this name we are treated with more severity than those who abandoned it before we did; and under this name it is attempted to continue the system of Spanish domination in America, which has been looked upon as a political phenomenon even in the times of the reality, energy and vigour of the Spanish monarchy. And can there be found any law that obliges us to preserve it, and to suffer in its name the torrent of distresses heaped upon us by those who call themselves the agents of the peninsula? By their means this very name obtained the treasures, the obedience, and acknowledgments of America, and by means of their flagitious conduct afterwards, in the exercise of their powers, the name of Ferdinand has lost every consideration amongst us, and consequently we ought to abandon it for ever. Ex qua persona quis lucrum capit, ejus factum prÆstare tenetur.

"The tyrant of Borrigum (primitive name of Puerto Rico) not content with constituting himself a sovereign, to declare war against us, and with insulting and calumniating us in his flimsy, mean, and self-flattering papers; not satisfied with creating himself the gratuitous gaol-keeper of the emissaries of peace, and confederation sent to him by his comrade Migares from the castle of ZapÁras de Maracaibo; because they overturned the plans he had received, and accepted from the regency and the new king of Spain, in exchange for the captain-generalship of Venezuela, purchased at a cheap rate of the regents; not considering such superior merit sufficiently rewarded with the honour of faithfully serving his king; in the most barefaced manner plundered upwards of a hundred thousand dollars from the public funds belonging to Caracas, that had been embarked in the ship Ferdinand VII. in order to purchase stores and military clothing in London, where the insurance was effected; and in order that his insult might be the more complete, he alleged that the Spanish government might waste and misapply them, that England might appropriate them to herself, disowning our resolution, so that in no place they could, or ought to be more secure than in his hands, negociated by means of his partners in trade, as in fact they were in Philadelphia, adding that an account should be given in when Puerto Rico had conquered Venezuela, when the latter should deliver herself up to the regency, or when Ferdinand VII. should return to reign in Spain. Such it appears were the periods that the governor of Puerto Rico imposed upon himself to render an account of so atrocious and scandalous a depredation; but this is not all that this worthy agent of the regency has done in favour of the designs of his constituents.

"Notwithstanding so much insult, robbery, and ingratitude, Venezuela maintained her resolution, not to vary the principles she had traced out for her conduct; the sublime act of her national representation was proclaimed in the name of Ferdinand VII.; under his phantasmagorical authority all the acts of our government and administration were maintained, though they required no other origin than the people who had constituted them. By the laws and regulations of Spain a horrible and sanguinary gang of European conspirators were tried, and these laws were mercifully infringed to save their lives, in order that the philanthropic memory of our revolution might not be stained with the blood of our brethren, although they were perfidious. Under the name of Ferdinand, and through the interposition of the bonds of fraternity and patriotism, endeavours were used to inform and reduce the imperious mandataries of Coro and Maracaibo, who kept separated from our interests our brethren of the west; under the auspices of reciprocal interests, we triumphed over the oppressive acts of Barcelona, and under the same we will conquer Guayana, twice snatched from our confederation, as was Maracaibo, against the general wishes of its inhabitants.

"It would appear as if nothing now remained to be done to secure a reconciliation with Spain, or the entire and absolute separation of America, equally as ruinous and calamitous to the one, as it was ungratefully despised by the other party; but Venezuela was desirous of draining every means left within her reach, in order that justice and necessity should leave her no other alternative than that of total independence, which ought to have been declared on the fifteenth of July, 1808, or on the nineteenth of April, 1810. After appealing to sensibility and not to vengeance, in the horrid scenes that took place at Quito, Pose, and La Pas; after beholding our own cause supported by the uniformity of opinions in Buenos Ayres, Santa FÉ, the Floridas, Mexico, Guatemala, and Chile; after obtaining an indirect guarantee on the part of England; after having our conduct applauded by impartial individuals in Europe; after seeing the same principles triumph from the Orinoco to the Magdalena, and from Cape Codero to the Andes; we have still to endure fresh insults, before we fly to the extreme of breaking with our brethren for ever.

"Caracas, without having done more than imitate the conduct of many of the provinces of Spain, and practised the rights that the regency declared to appertain to America; without having had in this conduct other designs than those inspired by the necessity of not being involved in an unknown fate, and to relieve the regents from attending to the government of countries as remote as they are extensive, at the same time they protested to attend to nothing but the expulsion of the French from Spain; without having rent her unity and political integrity with Spain; without having disowned as was possible and proper the lame rights of Ferdinand; the regency, far from applauding on the right of convenience, if not of generosity, so just, modest and necessary a resolution, and without even answering or submitting to the judgment of the nation our complaints and our claims: Caracas is declared in a state of war, her inhabitants are proclaimed rebels and unnaturalized, every communication with her brethren is cut off, England is deprived of her trade, the excesses of Melendes are approved of, and he is authorized to commit whatever the malignity of his heart may suggest to him, however opposed to reason and to justice; all this is proved by the order of the fourth of September, 1810, unparalleled for its enormity even among the despots of Constantinople or Indostan; and not to deviate in the least from the plots of the conquest, a new encomendero is sent out, under the title of a pacificator, (pacificador) who with more prerogatives than conquerors and settlers themselves, was to fix his residence in Puerto Rico, and thence to threaten, rob, pirate, promise, deceive, excite civil disturbances, and all in the name of the beloved Ferdinand VII.

"Till then the progress of the system of subversion, anarchy, and depredation, which the regency proposed to itself on hearing of the movements of Caracas, had been but slow; now the principal fears of civil war being transferred nearer to us, the subaltern agents acquired more strength, the flames of passion were increased, as well as the efforts of the parties guided by the directions of Cortavarria and Melendes. Hence originated the incendiary energy acquired by the ephemeral sedition of the west; hence the flame of discord, newly formed by Myares, rendered vain and arrogant by the imaginary and promised captain-general-ship of Venezuela; hence the American blood spilled in spite of ourselves on the plains of Coro; hence the robberies and assassinations committed on our coasts by the commissioned pirates of the regency; hence that miserable blockade, intended to reduce and disaffect our settlements on the coast; hence the insults committed on the English flag; hence the falling off of our trade; hence the conspiracies of the valleys of Aragua and CumanÁ; hence the horrid perfidy in Guayana; and the insulting transportation of its leading characters to the Moorish dungeons of Puerto Rico—dungeons constructed like those of Tunis and Algiers; hence the generous and impartial offices of reconciliation sincerely interposed by a representative[3] of the British government in the Antilles, and rejected by the pseudo pacificator; hence, in fine, all the evils, all the atrocities, and all the crimes which are and ever will be attached to the names of Cortavarria and Melendes in Venezuela, and which have impelled her government to exceed what was proposed when it took upon itself the fate of those who honored it with their confidence.

"The mission of Cortavarria in the nineteenth century, and the state of Spain which decreed it, compared with America, against whom it is directed, evinces to what an extent the illusion of ambition blinds those who found all the origin of their authority on the depravity of the people. This act alone sufficed to authorize our conduct. The spirit of Charles V., the memory of Cortes and Pizarro, and the names of Montesuma and Atahualpa, are involuntarily reproduced in our imagination, when we see the adelantados, the pesquisadores, and the encomenderos, officers peculiar to the first settlement of America, renewed in a country which, having suffered three centuries of sacrifice and debasement, had promised to continue faithful on the only condition of being free, in order that accidents of slavery might not tarnish the merit of fidelity. The scandalous plenitude of power conferred on a man who is authorised by an intrusive and illegitimate government, under the insulting name of pacificator, to tyrannize and plunder, and to crown the vexation, that he might pardon a noble, generous, tranquil, innocent people, who were masters of their own rights, could only be credited in the impotent delirium of a government that tyrannizes over a disorganized nation, stunned by the fury of the tempest that reaches her; but as the evils of this disorder, and the abuses of such an usurpation might be considered as not derived from Ferdinand, already acknowledged in Venezuela, at the time that he was unable to prevent such accumulated insults, such excesses, and so much violence, committed in his name, we consider it necessary to retrace the origin of these rights, that we may descant on the nullity and invalidity of our generous oath, by which we acknowledged him conditionally; notwithstanding, we have in spite of ourselves to violate the spontaneous silence we had imposed upon ourselves respecting every thing that occurred prior to the affairs at the Escurial and Aranjues.

"The fact, that America does not belong to the territory of Spain is self-evident, and it is equally evident that the right which the Bourbons justly or unjustly exercised over it, and notwithstanding this was hereditary, yet it could not be disposed of without the consent of the people, and particularly of those of America, who, on the election between the French and Austrian dynasties, might have acted in the seventeenth century as they now have done in the nineteenth. The bull of Alexander VI., and the titles which the house of Austria alleged in the American code had no other origin than the right of power and conquest, partially ceded to the conquerors and to the settlers for their assistance rendered to the crown in extending its dominion in America. Without taking into consideration the scanty population of the country, the extermination of the natives, and the emigration which the self-called mother country sustained; it appears that when the fury of conquest had ceased—when the thirst for gold was satisfied—when the continued equilibrium was declared in favour of Spain, by the advantageous acquisition of America—the feudal government destroyed and rooted out from the time of the Bourbons in Spain, and every right extinct that did not originate in the new concessions or commands of the prince, the conquerors and the settlers then became absolved of theirs. As soon as the faultiness and invalidity of the rights which the Bourbons have arrogated to themselves are demonstrated, the titles by which the American descendants of the conquerors possessed these countries revive—not to the detriment of the natives and primitive proprietors, but to equalize them in the enjoyment of liberty, property, and independence, which they always held by a right stronger than that of the Bourbons or any other person or persons to whom they may have ceded America, without the consent of its natural owners, the Americans.

"That America does not belong to the territory of Spain is a principle of natural, and a law of positive right. No title just or unjust which exists of American slavery can belong to the Spaniards of Europe, and all the liberality of Alexander VI. could only declare the Austrian kings promoters of the faith, in order to find out for them a preternatural right by which to make them lords of America. Neither the pre-eminence of the parent state, nor the prerogative of the mother country, could at any time constitute the origin of lordship on the part of Spain. The first was lost the moment the monarch who was acknowledged by the Americans left his country and renounced his rights; and the second never was more than a scandalous abuse of words, as great as that of calling our slavery felicity; that of calling the fiscals protectors of the indians; and that of saying that the sons of Americans were divested of every right and civil dignity. By the mere act of even passing from one country to another to settle in it, those who do not leave their homes acquire no property, nor do they expose themselves to the hardships of emigration. Those who conquer and obtain possession of a country by means of their labour, industry, cultivation, and connection with the natives thereof, are the individuals who have a right of preference in preserving it, which right they transmit to their posterity born therein; for if the country where one is born possessed the origin of sovereignty, or gave the right of acquisition, the general will of nations, and the fate of the human race, would then be riveted to the soil, as are the trees, mountains, rivers, and lakes.

"Neither could it ever be considered as a title of property to one part of a nation, the other having gone to another country to settle in it; for by such a right Spain would belong to the Phoenicians, or their descendants, or to the Carthagenians, wherever these may be found; even the whole of the nations of Europe would have to change their abodes to make room for and re-establish so singular a territorial right; home would then become as precarious as are the wants and caprices of men. The moral abuse of the maternity of Spain, with regard to America is still more insignificant, for it is well known that in the natural order of things, it is the duty of the father to emancipate the son, so soon as his minority expire, and he is able to use his strength and reason in providing for his subsistence; and also that it is the duty of the son to emancipate himself, whenever the cruelty or extravagance of the father or tutor endanger his welfare, or expose his patrimony to become the prey of a miser, or an usurper. Under these principles let a comparison be made of the three hundred years of our filiation to Spain; and even when it is proved, that she was our mother, it still remains to be proved that we are yet her minors or pupils.

"At any period when Spain has entertained any doubt of the rights of the Bourbons, or of any other dynasty, the only source, and that not a very clear one, of the Spanish dominion in America, it would appear that the Americans were excluded from alleging any reasons that might destroy such claims, though doubtful from their very origin; but as Venezuela may hereafter be reproached for the conditional oath by which the representative body that now declares its absolute independence of any foreign power previously acknowledged Ferdinand VII., the same august body feels anxious that no room should be left for scruples of conscience, for the illusions of ignorance, and for the malice of wounded ambition, whereby to discredit, calumniate, and weaken a resolution, taken with such maturity and deliberation as best suited its magnitude and importance.

"It is well known, that the promissory oath in question is no more than an accessory bond, which always pre-supposes the validity and legitimacy of the contract ratified by the same. When in the contract there is no defect that may render it null and illegitimate, it is then that we invoke God by an oath, believing that he will not refuse to witness it, and guarantee the fulfilment of our promises, because the obligation to comply with them is founded on an evident maxim of the natural law instituted by the divine author. God can at no time guarantee any contract that is not binding in the natural order of things, nor can it be supposed that he will accept any contract opposed to those very laws which he himself has established for the felicity of the human race. It would be insulting his wisdom to believe that he would listen to our vows when we implore his divine concurrence to a contract that is opposed to our own liberty, the only origin of the right of our actions—such a supposition would inculcate an idea that God had an interest in multiplying our duties by means of such agreements, to the prejudice of our national liberty. Even in case the oath could add any new obligation to that of the contract thereby confirmed, the nullity of the one would consequently be inseparable from the nullity of the other; and if he who violates a sworn contract be criminal, and worthy of punishment, it is because he has violated good faith, the only bond of society, without the perjury being more concerned than to increase the crime, and to aggravate the punishment. That national law which binds us to fulfil our promises, and that divine one which forbids us to invoke the name of God in vain, do not in any manner alter the obligation contracted under the simultaneous and inseparable effects of both laws, so that the infraction of the one supposes the infraction of the other. For our good we call on God to witness our promises, and when we believe that he can guarantee them, and avenge their violation, it is only because the contract has nothing in itself that can render it invalid, illicit, unworthy of or contrary to the eternal justice of the Supreme Arbiter to whom we submit it. It is according to these principles that we are to analyze the conditional oath by which the congress of Venezuela has promised to preserve the rights legally held by Ferdinand VII., without attributing to it any other which, being contrary to the liberty of the people, would consequently invalidate the contract, and annul the oath.

"We have seen that the people of Venezuela, impelled by the government of Spain, became insensible of the circumstances that rendered the tolerated rights of Ferdinand void, in consequence of the transactions of the Escurial and Aranjues, as well as those of all his house, by the cessions and abdications made at Bayonne; and from the demonstration of this truth, follows, as a corollary, the invalidity of an oath, which, besides being conditional, could not subsist beyond the contract to which it was added as an accessory bond. To preserve the right of Ferdinand was all that Caracas promised on the nineteenth of April, at a time when she was ignorant that he had lost them—Judicio caret juramentum, incantum Div. tom. 22, p. 80, art. 3. Si vero sit quidem posibile fieri; sed fieri non debeat, vel quid est per se malum, vel quia est boni impeditivum, tunc juramento deest justitia, et ideo non est servandum. Quest, cit. art. 7. Even if Ferdinand retained them with regard to Spain, it remains to be proved, whether by virtue of the same he was authorized to cede America to another dynasty, without the concurrence of her own consent. The accounts which Venezuela, in spite of the oppression and cunning of the intrusive government, was enabled to obtain of the conduct of the Bourbons, and the fatal effects that it was likely to entail on America, have constituted a body of irrefragable proofs, evincing that as Ferdinand no longer retained any rights, the preservation of which Venezuela promised, as well as the oath by which she confirmed this promise, consequently are, and ought to be cancelled—Jurabis in veritate, et in judicio, et in justicia. From the first part of the position, the nullity of the second becomes a legitimate consequence.

"But neither the Escurial, Aranjues, nor Bayonne were the first theatres of the transactions which deprived the Bourbons of their rights to America. By the treaty of Basil, made July fifteenth, 1795, (by which Godoy obtained the title of Prince of the Peace), and in the court of Spain the fundamental laws of the Spanish dominion were broken. Charles IV., contrary to one of them (Recopil. de Indias, law 1. tit. 1.) ceded the island of Santa Domingo to France, and disposed of Louisiana to the same foreign power, which unequalled and scandalous infractions authorised the Americans, against whom they were committed, as well as the whole of the Colombian people, to separate from the obedience, and lay aside the oath by which they had bound themselves to the crown of Castile, in like manner as they were entitled to protest against the imminent danger which threatened the integrity of the monarchy in both worlds, by the introduction of French troops into Spain previous to the transactions at Bayonne, invited no doubt by one of the Bourbon factions, in order to usurp the national sovereignty in favour of an intruder, a foreigner, or a traitor; but as these events are prior to the period that we have fixed on for our discussion, we will return to those which have authorised our conduct since the year 1808.

"Every one is aware of the occurrences that took place at the Escurial in 1807, but perhaps all are not acquainted with the natural results of those events. It is not our intention to enter here into the discovery of the origin of the discord that existed in the family of Charles IV.; let England and France attribute it to themselves, both governments have their accusers and their defenders; neither is it to our purpose to notice the marriage agreed on between Ferdinand and the daughter-in-law of Napoleon, the peace of Tilsit, the conference at Erfuhrt, the secret treaty at St. Cloud, and the emigration of the house of Bragansa to the Brasils. What most materially concerns us is, that by the transactions of the Escurial, Ferdinand VII. was declared a traitor to his father Charles IV. A hundred pens and a hundred presses published at the same time in both worlds his perfidy, and the pardon which at his prayer was granted to him by his father; but this pardon, as an attribute of the sovereignty and of paternal authority, only absolved the son from corporal punishment; the king his father had no power to free him from the infamy and inability which the constitutional laws of Spain impose on the traitor, not only to prevent him from obtaining the royal dignity, but even the lowest office of civil employment; Ferdinand therefore never could be a lawful king of Spain, or of the Indies.

"To this condition the heir of the crown remained reduced till the month of March, 1808, when while the court was at Aranjues, the project that was frustrated at the Escurial was converted into insurrection, and open mutiny, by the friends of Ferdinand. The public exasperation against the ministry of Godoy served as a pretext to the faction of Ferdinand, and as an indirect plea to convert to the good of the nation what was perhaps allotted to other designs. The fact of using force against his father, instead of supplication and convincing arguments; his having excited the people to mutiny; his having assembled the mob in front of the palace, in order to take it by surprise, to insult the minister, and force the king to abdicate his crown, which, far from giving Ferdinand any title to it, tended to increase his crime, to aggravate his treachery, and to complete his inability to ascend the throne, vacated by violence, perfidy, and faction. Charles IV., outraged, disobeyed, and threatened, had no other alternative suitable to his decorum, and favourable to his vengeance, than to emigrate to France to implore the protection of Bonaparte, in favour his offended royal dignity. Under the nullity of the abdication of Aranjues, and contrary to the will of the people of Spain, all the Bourbons assembled at Bayonne, preferring their personal resentments to the safety of the nation. The emperor of the French availed himself of this opportunity, and having under his controul, and within his influence the whole family of Ferdinand, and several of the first Spanish dignitaries, as well as many substitutes for deputies in the cortes, he obliged Ferdinand to restore the crown to his father, and then the latter to cede it to him, the emperor, in order that he might afterwards confer it on his brother Joseph.

"When the emissaries of the new King reached Caracas, Venezuela was ignorant or knew but partially what had happened. The innocence of Ferdinand, compared to the insolence and despotism of the favourite, Godoy, directed the conduct of Venezuela when the local authorities wavered on the fifteenth of July, 1808; and being left to choose between the alternative of delivering himself up to a foreign power, or of remaining faithful to a king who appeared to be unfortunate and persecuted—the ignorance of what had occurred—triumphed over the interests of the country, and Ferdinand was acknowledged, under the belief, that by this means, the unity of the nation being maintained, she would be saved from the oppression that threatened her, and the king ransomed, of whose virtues, wisdom, and rights we were falsely prepossessed. But less was requisite on the part of those who relied on our good faith to oppress us. Ferdinand, disqualified, and unable legally to obtain the crown—previously announced by the leaders of Spain as dispossessed of his right of succession—incapable of governing in America, and held in bondage by a foreign power—from that time became by illusion a legitimate but unfortunate prince. As many as had the audacity to call themselves his self-created heirs and representatives became as such, and taking advantage of the innate fidelity of the Spaniards of both worlds, and forming themselves into intrusive governments, they appropriated to themselves the sovereignty of the people, under the name of a chimerical king, began to exercise new tyrannies, and, in a word, the commercial junta of Cadiz sought to extend her controul over the whole of Spanish America.

"Such have been the antecedents and consequences of an oath, which, dictated by candour and generosity, and conditionally maintained by good faith, is now arrayed against us, in order to perpetuate those evils which the dear-bought experience of three years has proved to be inseparable to so fatal and ruinous an engagement. Taught as we are by a series of evils, insults, hardships, and ingratitude, during the interval of from the fifteenth of July, 1808, to the fifth of July, 1811, and such as we have already manifested, it became full time that we should abandon it, as a talisman invented by ignorance, and adopted by a misguided fidelity, as from its first existence it has constantly heaped upon us all the evils that accompany an ambiguous state of suspicion and discord. The rights of Ferdinand, and the legitimate representation of them on the part of the intrusive governments of Spain on the one side, demonstrations of compassion and gratitude on the other, have been the two favourite springs alternately played on to support our illusion, to decrease our substance, to prolong our degradation, to multiply our evils, and ignominiously to prepare us to receive that passive fate prepared for us by those who have dealt with us so kindly for three centuries. Ferdinand VII. is the universal watch-word for tyranny, as well in Spain as in America.

"No sooner was that vigilant and suspicious fear, produced among us by the contradictory acts and artificious falsehoods of the strange and short-lived governments which have succeeded one another since the junta of Seville, made known to these governments, than they recurred to a system of apparent liberality towards us, in order to cover with flowers the very snare we had not perceived while covered by the veil of candour, which was at length rent asunder by mistrust. For this purpose of deceit were accelerated, and tumultuously assembled, the cortes, so wished for by the nation, and opposed by the commercial government of Cadiz, but which were at length considered as necessary to restrain the torrent of liberty and justice, which on every side burst the wounds of oppression and iniquity in the new world; it was even still supposed that the habit of obedience, submission, and dependence, would be in us superior to the conviction which at so high a price we had just obtained.

"It is most strange by what kind of deception, fatal to Spain, it has been believed, that the one part of a nation which crosses the ocean, or is born under the tropics, acquires a habit united to servitude, and incapable of bending to the habits of liberty. The effects of this strong-rooted prejudice, as notorious to the world as they are fatal, were at length converted into the welfare of America. Without it Spain would perhaps not have lost the rank she held as a nation, and America in obtaining this blessing would have had to pass through the bitter ordeal of a civil war, more ominous to its promoters than to ourselves.

"Our public papers have already sufficiently demonstrated the defects under which the cortes laboured respecting America, and the measures as illegal as insulting adopted by that body to give us a representation which we could not but object to, even though we were, as the regency had loudly boasted us to be, integral parts of the nation, and had no other complaints to allege against their government than the scandalous usurpation of our rights at a moment when they most required our aid. They have, no doubt, been informed of the reasonings we used with their perfidious envoy, Montenegro, at a time that the former missions being frustrated, the great shipments of newspapers filled with triumphs, reforms, heroic acts, and lamentations, being rendered useless; and the inefficacy of blockades, pacificators, squadrons and expeditions, made known; it was thought convenient to dazzle the self-love of the Americans, by seating near to the throne of the cortes deputies whom we had never named, and who could not be chosen our substitutes by those who created them such, in the same manner as they did others for the provinces in possession of the French, submitting to, and alleging themselves content under their domination. In case this puerile measure of the prolific genius of Spain should not produce a due effect, the envoy (and for this purpose an American, a native of Caracas, was selected) was ordered, that in case the energy of the country, now called rebellion, should prevail against fraternity, (the name given to perfidy), he was to add fuel to the flame already kindled in Coro and Maracaibo, and that discord, again raising her serpent head, might lead the herald of the cortes by the hand under the banner of rebellion through those deceived districts of Venezuela that had not been able to-triumph over their oppressing tyrants.

"Stratagems and artifices were repeatedly forged, in order that duplicity and cunning might prepare the road for the sanguinary armies of the chiefs of Coro, Maracaibo, and Puerto Rico; and when the cortes were convinced that the conduct of Ferdinand, his bonds of affinity with the emperor of the French, and his influence over all the Bourbons already placed under his tutelage, began to weaken the insidious impressions, which fidelity, sustained by illusion, had produced in the Americans; preventatives were employed to stop the flame already kindled, and limit it to what was yet necessary for their vast complicated and dark designs. For this purpose was written the eloquent manifest which the cortes on the ninth of January directed against America, worded in a stile worthy of a better object; but under the brilliancy of diction the dark side of the argument, designed to deceive, was discovered. Fearing that we should be the first to protest against the whole of these nullities, they began to calculate on what was already known, not to risk what was yet hidden. The misfortunes of Ferdinand were the pretexts that had obtained for his pseudo-representatives the treasures, submission, and slavery of America; and Ferdinand seduced, deceived, and prostituted to the designs of the emperor of the French, is now the last resource to which they fly to extinguish the flames of liberty which Venezuela had kindled in the south continent. We have discovered and published the true spirit of the manifest in question, reduced to the following reasoning, which may be considered as an exact commentary:—'America is threatened with becoming the victim of a foreign power, or of continuing to be our slave; but in order to recover her rights, and to throw off all dependency whatever, she has considered it necessary not violently to break the bonds that held her to this country. Ferdinand has been the signal of reunion which the new world had adopted, and we have followed; he is suspected of connivance with the emperor of the French, and if we give ourselves up blindly to him, we afford the Americans a pretext for believing us still his representatives; and as these designs already begin to be understood in some parts of America, let us previously manifest our intention not to acknowledge Ferdinand, except under certain conditions; these will never be carried into effect, and whilst Ferdinand neither in fact nor right is our king, we shall reign over America, the country we so much covet, which although so difficult to preserve in slavery, will not then so easily slip through our fingers.' Such are the expressions illustrative of the opinions of Spaniards, agitated in the cortes, respecting the allegiance to Ferdinand.

"The above brilliant appearance of liberality is now the real and visible spring of the complicated machine destined to excite and stir up commotions in America; at the same time that within the walls of the cortes justice towards us is overlooked, our efforts are eluded, our resolutions are contemned, our enemies are supported, the voices of our imaginary representatives are suppressed, the inquisition is renewed against them, when the liberty of the press is proclaimed, and it is controversially discussed whether the regency could or could not declare us free, and one integral part of the nation. When an American, worthy of that name, speaks against the abuses of the regency in Puerto Rico, endeavours are made to silence his just, energetic, and imperious claims, that distinguish him from the slaves of despotism, and by means of a short, cunning, and insignificant decree, they strive to avoid the conflict of justice against iniquity. MelendÉs, named by the regency king of Puerto Rico, is by a decree of the cortes left with the equivalent investiture of a governor, names synonymous in America, because it now appeared too monstrous to have two kings in a small island of the Spanish Antilles. Cortavarria only was capable of eluding the effects of a decree dictated merely by a momentary fit of decency. It happened that when the investiture, granted by the regency to Melendes was declared iniquitous, arbitrary, and tyrannical, and a revocation was extended to all the countries of America, then situated as was Puerto Rico, nothing was said of the plenipotentiary Cortavarria, authorized by the same regency against Venezuela, with powers the most uncommon and scandalous ever registered in the annals of organized despotism.

"After this decree of the cortes the effects of discord promoted, sustained, and denied at the fatal observatory of Puerto Rico were more severely felt; it was after this decree that the fishermen and coasters were inhumanly assassinated in Ocumare, by the pirates of Cortavarria, after the report of which Cumana and Barcelona were blockaded, threatened, and summoned. A new and sanguinary conspiracy against Venezuela was formed, and organized by a vile emissary, who perfidiously entered the peaceable bosom of his country, in order to destroy it; deceptions were successively practised on the most innocent and laborious classes of the imported colonists of Venezuela, principally emigrants from the Canary Islands, and in spite of our endeavours the chief instigators were led to the block as a sacrifice to justice and to tranquillity. By the suggestions of the pacificator of the cortes, and posterior to their said decree, the political union of our constitution was lacerated in Valencia; attempts were made in vain to reduce other cities of the interior; a false summons was sent to Carora, by the factious leaders of the west, to the end that Venezuela might on the same day be deluged in blood, and sunk in affliction and desolation, and be hostilely assaulted from every point within the reach of the conspirators, who were scattered amongst us by the same government that issued the decree in favour of Puerto Rico and of all America. The name of Ferdinand VII. is the pretext under which the new world is about to be laid waste, if the example of Venezuela does not henceforward cause the standard of our unshaken and established liberty to be distinguished from the banners of a seditious and dissembled fidelity.

"The bitter duty of vindicating ourselves would carry us still further, if we did not dread splitting on the same rocks as have the governments of Spain, by substituting resentment for justice; at the same time that we can charge her with three centuries of acts of injustice, we have opposed three years of lawful, generous, and philanthropic efforts to obtain what it was never in our power to dispose of, although by nature ours. Had gall and poison been the chief agents of this our solemn, true, and candid manifest, we should have begun by destroying the rights of Ferdinand, in consequence of the illegitimacy of his origin, declared by his mother at Bayonne, and published in the French and Spanish papers; we should have proved the personal defects of Ferdinand, his ineptitude to reign, his weak and degrading conduct in the court at Bayonne; his inefficient education, and the futile securities that offered for the realization of the gigantic hopes of the governments of Spain; hopes founded in the illusion of America, nor any other support than the political interests of England, much opposed to the rights of the Bourbons. The public opinion of Spain, and the experience of the revolution of the kingdom, furnish us with sufficient proofs of the conduct of the mother, and the qualifications of the son, without recurring to the manifest of the minister Azanza, published after the transactions of Bayonne, and the secret memoirs of Maria Luisa; but decency is the guide of our conduct, to which we are ready to sacrifice even our reason. Sufficient has already been alleged to prove the justice, necessity, and utility of our resolution, for the support of which, nothing is wanting but the examples by which we will strive to justify our independence.

"It were necessary for the partizans of slavery in the new world either to destroy, or to falsify history, that unchangeable monument of the rights and of the usurpations of the human race, before they could maintain that America was not liable to the same changes that all other nations have experienced. Even when the rights of the Bourbons had been incontestible and indelible, the oath that we have proved never did exist, the injustice, force, and deceit with which the same was exacted of us would suffice to render it null and void, so soon as it was found to be opposed to our liberty, grievous to our rights, prejudicial to our interests, and fatal to our tranquillity. Such is the nature of an oath made to the conquerors and to their heirs, at the same time that the crown holds them in oppression by means of the same additional strength that it obtained by means of the result of their conquest. It was in this manner that Spain herself recovered her rights, after she had sworn allegiance to the Carthagenians, Romans, Goths, Arabs, and almost to the French; nevertheless she yet disowns the rights of America, no longer to depend on any nation when she is capable of throwing off the yoke, and following the example of Spain and of other nations.

"It would be superfluous to remind our enemies of what they already knew, and in what they have themselves founded the sacred right of their own liberty and independence; epochs so memorable, that they ought not to have been tarnished with the slavery of the greater part of a country situated on the other side of the ocean. But unfortunately it is not they alone whom it is necessary to convince by palpable examples of the justice and common resemblance that our independence bears to that of all other nations which had lost and again recovered it. The illusions of slavery, kept alive by the candour of the Americans, and supported by the most criminal abuse that superstition can form of the established belief and religion, which one would suppose were only dictated for the happiness, liberty, and salvation of the people, namely, by the excommunications denounced against the people of Caracas for changing their government, render it necessary to tranquillize the deceived piety of some, to instruct their unwary ignorance, and stimulate their apathy, that had slumbered since the unusual tranquillity of the new order of things: in short, it is time to inculcate, that governments never had nor ever can have any other duration than the utility and happiness of the human race may require; that kings are not of any privileged nature, nor of an order superior to other men; that their authority emanates from the people, directed and supported by the providence of God, who leaves our actions to our own free-will; that his omnipotence does not interfere in favour of any peculiar form of government; and that neither religion nor its ministers can anathematize the efforts of a nation struggling to be free and independent in the political order of things, and resolved to depend only on God and his ministers in a moral and religious sense.

"The very people of God, governed by himself, and guided by such miracles, portentous signs and favors as will perhaps never again be repeated, offer a proof of the rights of insurrection on the part of the people sufficiently satisfactory to the orthodox piety of the friends of public order. The subjects of Pharaoh, and bound by force to obey him, collect round Moses, and under his guidance triumph over their enemies, and recover their independence without being blamed by God or his prophet and legislator, Moses, for their conduct, or being subjected by them to the least malediction or anathema. This same people being afterwards subjected by the forces of Nebuchadnezzar; first—under the direction of Holofernes, Judith was sent by God to procure their independence by the death of the Babylonian general. Under Antiochus, Epiphanes, Mattathias and his sons raised the standard of independence, and God blessed and aided their efforts till he obtained the entire liberty of his people against the oppression of that impious king and his successors. Not only against the foreign kings who oppressed them did the Israelites resort to the right of insurrection by breaking through the obedience to force; but even against those whom God had given them in their own country and of their own nation do we behold them claim this imprescriptable right wherever their liberty and their advantage required it, or when the sacred character of those facts by which God himself bound them to those he chose as their governors, had been profaned. David obtained the allegiance of the Israelites in favour of his dynasty, and his son Solomon ratified it in favour of his posterity; but at the death of this king, who had oppressed his subjects by exactions and contributions to support the splendour of his court and the luxury and sumptuousness of his pleasures, then the tribes of Judah and Benjamin alone acknowledged his son, and the other ten, availing themselves of their rights, recovered their political independence, and in excuse thereof deposited their sovereignty in Jereboam, the son of Nabath. The momentary and passing hardships of the reign of Solomon were sufficient for the Israelites to annul their obedience sworn to his line, and to place another on the throne without waiting for an order from the Deity, informing them, that their fate no longer depended on the kings of Judah, nor on the ministers, chiefs, or priests of Solomon. And shall the Christian people of Venezuela and of all Spanish America be still in a worse plight, and after being declared free by the government of Spain after three hundred years of captivity, exactions, hardships, and injustice, shall they not be allowed to do what the God of Israel, whom they equally adore, formerly permitted to his people without being spurned, and without vengeance being hurled upon their heads? It is his divine hand that guides our conduct, and to his eternal judgments our resolution shall be submitted.

"If the independence of the Hebrew people was not a sin against the written law, that of a Christian people cannot be such against the law of grace. At no time has the apostolical see excommunicated any nation that has risen against the tyranny of those kings or governments which had violated the social compact. The Swiss, Dutch, French, and North Americans proclaimed their independence, overturned their constitution, and varied their forms of government without having incurred any other spiritual censures than those which the church might have fulminated for the infringements on the belief, discipline, or piety, but without their being connected with political measures or alluding to the civil transactions of the people. The Swiss were bound by oath to Germany, as were also the Dutch to Spain, the French to Louis XVI., and the North Americans to George III.; yet neither they nor the princes that favoured their independence were excommunicated by the Pope. The grandfather of Ferdinand VII., one of the most pious and catholic kings that ever filled the throne of Spain, together with his nephew, Louis XVI., protected the independence of North America, without dreading ecclesiastical censures or the anger of heaven; and now that the order and succession of events more justly place it within the reach of South America, those who call themselves the authorized agents of the grandson wish to abuse that same religion so much respected by Charles III., in order to prolong the most atrocious and unparalleled usurpations. Just, omnipotent, and most merciful God! Till when will fanaticism dispute the empire of that sacred religion which thou sent to the uncorrupted regions of America for thy glory and her felicity.

"The events which have accumulated in Europe to terminate the bondage of America, beyond doubt entered into the high designs of Providence. Placed at a transatlantic distance of two thousand leagues, we have done nothing in the three years which have elapsed since we ought to be free and independent, till the period when we resolved to be so, than pass through the bitter trials of stratagems, conspiracies, insults, hostilities, and depredations on the part of that same nation whom we invite to partake of the good of our regeneration, and for whose welfare we wished to open the gates of the new world, heretofore closed to all communication with the old one, now wasted and inflamed by war, hunger, and desolation. Three distinct oligarchies have declared war against us, have despised our claims, have excited civil dissensions amongst us, have sown the seeds of discord and mistrust in our great family, have planned three horrible conspiracies against our liberty, have interrupted our trade, have suppressed our agriculture, have traduced our conduct, and have sought to raise against us an European power, by vainly imploring its aid to oppress us. The same flag, the same language, the same religion, the same laws, have till now confounded the party of liberty with that of tyranny: Ferdinand VII. as liberator, has been opposed to Ferdinand VII. as oppressor; and if we had not resolved to abandon a name at the same time synonymous with crime and virtue, America would in the end be enslaved by the same power that is exercised for the independence of Spain.

"Such has been the nature of the imperious impulse of conviction, tending to open our eyes, and to impel Venezuela to separate eternally from a name so ominous and so fatal. Placed by it in the irrevocable alternative of being the slave or the enemy of her brethren, she has preferred the purchase of her own freedom at the expense of friendship, without destroying the means of that reconciliation she desired. The most powerful reasons, the most serious meditations, the most profound considerations, long discussions, contested debates, well analyzed combinations, imperious events, imminent dangers, and the public opinion clearly pronounced and firmly sustained, have been the precursors of that solemn declaration made on the fifth of July, by the general congress of Venezuela, of the absolute independence of this part of South America; an act sighed for and applauded by the people of the capital, sanctioned by the powers of the confederation, acknowledged by the representatives of the provinces, sworn to and hailed by the chief of the church of Venezuela, and to be maintained with the lives, fortunes, and honour of all the citizens.

"Freemen, companions of our fate! Ye who have known how to divest your hearts of fear, or of hope; give from the elevation on which your virtues have placed you an impartial and disinterested look on the portrait that Venezuela has just traced out to you. She constitutes you the arbitrators of her differences with Spain, and the judges of her new destinies. If you have been affected by our evils, and are interested in our felicity, unite your efforts with ours, that the artifices of ambition may not any longer triumph over liberality and justice.

"To you it belongs to convince Spain of what an unfortunate rivalship places beyond the reach of America. Refrain the giddiness that has seized on her new governments; point out to them the reciprocal advantages of our regeneration; unfold to them the soothing prospect that they are prevented from beholding in America by that monopoly which has hardened their hearts; tell them what threatens them in Europe, and point out to them what they may expect in America, tranquil, uncorrupted, and already covered with all the blessings of liberty; nay swear to them in our name, that Venezuela awaits her brethren with open arms to share with them her happiness without asking any other sacrifice than that of prejudice, pride, and ambition, which for three centuries have produced the united misery of both countries."

"Juan Antonio Rodriguez Dominguez, President."

"Francisco Isnardy, Secretary."

"Federal Palace of Caracas, July 30th, 1811."