vernment; for instance, that of saffron, hemp, flax, olives, vines, &c.; the benefit that will accrue to them from the establishment of manufactures of every sort; the great satisfaction and advantage of abofishing the monopolies of tobacco, gunpowder, stamps, &c. To obtain these points with some ease, in consequence of the greater part of the people being uncivilized, the agents ought to be solicitous to render themselves acceptable to the governors, in tendants, curates, and prelates. They will spare no expense, nor any other means of gaining their good will, especially that of the ecclesiastics, on whom they are to prevail, that they should urge and persuade penitents, when they come to confess, that they stand in need of an independent government, that they must not lose so favourable an opportunity as that which now presents itself, and which the emperor Napoleon affords them, who, they are to make the people believe, is sent by God to chastise the pride and tyranny of monarchs; and that it is a mortal sin, admitting of no pardon, to resist God's will. They will, on every occasion, call to their minds the opposition they experience from the Europeans, the vile manner in which they are treated by them, and the contempt to which they are exposed. They will also remind the Indians, circumstantially, of the cruelties of the Spaniards in conquest, and of their infamous treatment of their legitimate sovereigns, in dethroning them, in taking away their lives, or enslaving them. They will describe the acts of injustice which they daily experience when applying for places, which are bestowed by the viceroys and governors on worthless persons, to the exclusion of the meritorious. They will direct the people's attention to the superior talents of the many neglected Creoles, and people of merit, contrasted with the European public officers and ecclesiastics, which will make apparent the hardships they suffer, and will enable them to draw a parallel between the talents and merits of the Creoles and those of the European officers. They will represent to them the difference between the United States and Spanish America, the comforts which those Americans enjoy, and their advancement in commerce, agriculture, and navigation; and the pleasure of living free from the European yoke, and being left solely to their own patriotic and elective government. They will assure them, that America, once disengaged from Spain, will become the legislatrix of Europe. All agents, both principal and subordinate, are to specify the names of those who declare themselves friends and votaries of liberty; and the subaltern agents are to transmit the lists to the principals, who will make their reports to my envoy in the United States, for my in formation, and that I may duly reward every individual. My agents will refrain from declaiming against the inquisition or the church, and, in their conversations, rather

insist upon the necessity of that holy tribunal, and on the usefulness of the clergy. Upon the insurrectional standards or banners is to be inscribed, the motto, Long live the catholic, apostolic, and Roman religion, and perish the bad government!' They will, besides, make the Indians observe how happy they will be when they become once more masters of their country, and free from the tyrannical tribute which they pay to a foreign monarch; and, lastly, they will tell the people that their said monarch does not so much as exist in his own government, but is in the power of the restorer of liberty, and the universal legislator, Napoleon. In short, these agents must, by all possible means, endeavour to show the people the utility which will arise to them from the government in question. The revolution having been thus prepared, and all the principal members who are to take a share in it, in every city and province, having been gained over, it will be for the chief, as well as the subordinate agents, to accelerate the insurrection, in order that the revolt may take place at the different points agreed upon, on the same day and at the same hour; this being a very material point, which will greatly facilitate the enterprise. The principal agents in every province of their department, and the subalterns in the posts assigned them, will win over the domestics of governors, intendants, and other persons in power, and by means of them they will poison those of this class whom they consider as hostile to the undertaking; an operation which is to precede the revolution, in order to remove all obstacles. The first thing to be considered will be, how to stop the remittances of treasure to the peninsula, which may easily be effected by having good agents at Vera Cruz, where all the vessels arriving from Europe will be received, and their officers and crews imme diately confined in the fortresses, until every thing shall have succeeded, and the revolu tion be in forwardness. The agents are further directed to instruct their sub-agents to transmit to them frequent accounts of the progress of the revolution; and the chief agents will communicate with my envoy in the United States by the channels which shall be pointed out to them. For this pur pose it will be proper to keep prepared land conveyances to those points of the coast which may be deemed suitable, and where there are always to be ready vessels for any emergency.

"JOSEPH NAPOLEON. "To my envoy Desmolard.'"

nies of a native government, they had Previous to the adoption by the colotransmitted to the cortes a formal representation of the grievances under which they laboured, and the redress of which would have left Spain in possession of some of the finest regions of the earth

"1st. In conformity to the decree of the central junta, dated the 15th of October, 1809, which declared the inhabitants of Spanish America equal in rights to those of the peninsula, the national representation of every part of Spanish America, the Spanish West-Indies, and the Philippine Islands, including every class of their inhabitants, shall be the same in form, manner, and without distinction, as in the kingdom and islands of European Spain.

"2dly. The free natives and inhabitants of Spanish America shall be allowed to plant and to cultivate whatever their climate will produce; with license to encour age industry, and to promote manufactures and arts in their fullest extent.

3dly. Spanish America shall enjoy the liberty of exporting her own natural and manufactured productions to the peninsula, as well as to the allies, and to neutral nations; and of importing whatever she may want. All her ports are consequently to be opened. This and the preceding demand were agreed to, but the order to carry them into execution was never published.

4thly. There shall be a free trade between Spanish America and the Spanish settlements in Asia. Every thing militating against this treedom to be abolished.

5thly. Freedom of trade to be granted from all the ports in Spanish America and the Philippine Islands to other parts of Asia. Any law existing contrary to such freedom to be annulled.

6thly. All estancos, or monopolies in favour of the public treasury, or of the king, shall be suppressed; but the public treasury shall be indemnified for the loss of profit arising from such monoply, by new dutics on the same articles.

7thly. The working the quicksilver mines shall be free in Spanish America, but the administration of the produce shall remain in charge of the officers of the minery department, independent of the viceroys and captains-general, and officers of the real hacienda. This was granted, and orders were published for carrying it into execution in the provinces under the Spaniards. "Sthly. All Spanish Americans shall be eligible equally with Spaniards to all appointments of rank or emolument, whether at court or in any part of the monarchy, either in political, military, or ecclesiastical departments.

9thly. Consulting the natural protection of each kingdom in Spanish America, half of the public appointments shall be filled by Spanish subjects born in America, "10thly. That the above stipulations may be punctually adhered to, a consultive junta shall be formed in each capital, to the intent that it may propose persons suited to fill each vacancy.

"11thly. Considering the great adven

science, and the benefits that may be derived from instructing the Indians, the order of the Jesuits to be re-established by the cortes.'"

These conditions, for even the seventh article was never put into efficient operation, were rejected, and the establishment of the native governments was immediately resolved. This measure only served still farther to exasperate the haughty and self-sufficient men constituting the cortes, and they determined to quell by arms what they called an open and audacious rebellion against the mother-country. They had, however, to deal with a people at least as determined to resist as were they to subdue. There was now an open war between the two parties, which, on the part of the Spaniards, was begun and pursued in a manner paralleled only by that adopted by the first conquerors. Hear what the author of the present volume says.

"The Spanish chiefs and rulers gave the first example of violating capitulations, of shooting prisoners, and of refusing all means for accommodation, in that cruel war carried on in the new continent by the authority of the cortes of Spain, and by Ferdinand the Seventh. I may, indeed, defy the old Spaniards of either world to find an excuse, or even a palliation, for their want of humanity, and breaches of faith, since the beginning of the revolution. The following are instances:

"When Hidalgo approached the Mexican capital at the head of 80,000 men, he sent his envoys to Venegas, with proposals of peace, which the viceroy refused to answer. The junta of Sultepec made similar proposals, in 1812, and the result was the same. General Miranda delivered up the fort of La Guayra, the town of Caraccas, and the provinces of Cumana and Barcelona, to the Spanish General Monteverde, by capitulation, who promised to bury in oblivion every thing militating against the Spanish government, and granting the liberty of emigration from Venezuela. Notwithstanding this treaty and solemn engagement, general Miranda was shortly after made a prisoner, thrown into a dungeon at Puerto Cabello, afterwards sent to Puerto Rico, and from thence to the prison of La Cartaca, in Cadiz, where he lately died. During a truce between the armies of Peru, commanded by general Goyeneche, and that of Buenos Ayres, under the command of general Valcarce, an attack was made while the army of Buenos Ayres considered itself secure, confiding in the exist ing treaty. Belgrano, general of the pa triots, who, in 1812, had taken general Tristan prisoner, and the division he commanded of the army of Peru, generously gave them liberty to return home, having re

ceived their pledged honour that they would not fight against Buenos Ayres. They however, violated this sacred engagement a few days after. General Bolivar, having repeatedly defeated the royalists, commanded by Monteverde in Venezuela, accepted terms of capitulation, which were never ratified. General Truxillo, in a despatch to Venegas, boasts of his having admitted a flag of truce, he being himself at the head of his troops, drawn up in battle array. The bearers of the flag of truce wore a banner of the Virgin Mary; this Truxillo asked for, and haring obtained it, he gave orders for firing on these envoys. By this means,' he said, I free myself of them and their proposals.' General Calleja, informing the viceroy of Mexico, that in the battle of Aculco he had only one man killed and two wounded, adds, that he put to the sword five thousand Indians, and that the loss of the insurgents amounted to ten thousand. General Calleja likewise entered Gaunaxuato with fire and sword, where he sacrificed 14,000 old men, women, and children. These, and many more of general Calleja's achievements were well known in Spain, when the regency appointed him successor to the viceroy Venegas. The conduct of Monteverde was likewise approved when he was appointed captain-general of Venezuela, after breaking the terms of capitulation with Miranda; and, what formed his excuse for this breach of faith was, that he was not empowered to capitulate with the insurgents."

These and similar atrocities at length exasperated the minds of the people to so high a degree, and so completely alienated them from the mother-country, that they resolved to separate from her entirely, and declare themselves free, independent, and sovereign states. Venezuela was the first to adopt this bold and decisive, but prudent step. Our readers will peruse with the liveliest feelings of pleasure the declaration of independence published by her congress in the year 1811.

"In the name of the all powerful God: "We, the representatives of the united provinces of Caraccas, Cumana, Barinas, Margaritta, Barcelona, Merida, and Truxillo, forming the united confederation of Venezuela in the southern continent, in congress assembled, considering the full and absolute possession of our rights, which we received justly and legally the 19th of April, 1810, in consequence of the occurrences at Bayonne, of the Spanish throne being possessed by a conqueror, and of a new government having succeeded, constituted without our consent: We are desirous, before we make use of those rights, of which we have been deprived for more than three ages, but are now restored to us by the political order of human events, to make known to the world those reasons which have

emanated from these occurrences, and which authorize us in the free use we are going to make of our own sovereignty.

"Nevertheless, we do not wish to begin by alleging the rights inherent in every conquered country to recover its state of property and independence. We generously forget the long series of ills, injuries, and privations which the sole right of conquest has indistinctly caused to all the descendants of the discoverers, conquerors, and settlers of these countries. Plunged into a worse state by the very same cause that ought to have favoured them, and drawing a veil over the three hundred years of Spanish dominion in America, we will now only present to view those authenticated facts which ought to have wrested from one world the right over the other, by the inversion, disorder, and conquest which have already dissolved the Spanish nation.

"This disorder has increased the evils in America, by rendering void its claims and remonstrances; enabling the governors of Spain to insult and oppress this part of the nation, by leaving it without the succour and guarantee of the laws.

"It is contrary to order, impossible to the government of Spain, and fatal to the welfare of America, that the latter, possessed of a range of country infinitely more extensive, and a population more numerous than that of Spain, should be dependent on, and subject to a small peninsula in the European continent.

The cessions and abdication at Ba

yonne, the revolutions of the Escurial and Aranjuez, and the orders of the royal substitute, the duke of Berg being sent to America, suffice to give virtue to the rights which until then the Americans had sacrificed to the unity and integrity of the Spanish nation.

"Venezuela was the first to acknowledge and generously to preserve this integrity; nor did she abandon the cause of her fellow countrymen while they retained the least hope of salvation.

"America was called into a new state of existence, since the period when she felt that she could and ought to take upon herself the charge of her own fate and preservation, &c.

"The governments that arrogated to themselves the national representation took advantage of those dispositions which confidence, distance, oppression, and ignorance created in the Americans against the new government which had entered Spain by means of force; and, contrary to their own principles, they maintained among us the illusion in favour of Ferdinand, in order to devour and harass us with impunity; they promised us liberty, equality, and fraternity conveyed in pompous discourses and studied phrases, for the purpose of covering the snare laid by a cunning, useless, and degrading représentation.

"As soon as they were dissolved, and

had substituted and destroyed among themselves the various forms of the government of Spain, and as soon as the imperious law of necessity had dictated to Venezuela the urgency of preserving herself, in order to guard and maintain the rights of her king, and to offer an asylum to her European brethren against the evils that threatened them, their former conduct was disowned, they varied their principles, and gave the appellations of insurrection, perfidy, and ingratitude to the same acts that had served as models for the governments of Spain, because for them the gate was then closed to the advantageous administration of public affairs, which they intended to perpetuate among themselves under the name of an imaginary king.

"Notwithstanding our remonstrances, our moderation, generosity, and the inviolability of our principles, contrary to the wishes of the majority of our brethren in Europe, we were declared in a state of rebellion; we were blockaded; war was declared against us; agents were sent among us to excite us one against the other, endeavouring to destroy our credit among the nations in Europe, and imploring their assistance to oppress us.

"Without taking the least notice of our reasons, without offering them to the impartial judgment of the world, and without any other judges than our enemies, we are condemned to be debarred from all intercourse with our mother-country; and, to add contempt to calumny, empowered agents are named for us against our own express will, that in their cortes they may arbitrarily dispose of our interests under the influence and power of our enemies.

"In order to crush and suppress the effects of our representation when they were obliged to grant it to us, we were degraded to a paltry and diminutive scale, and the form of election depended on the passive voice of the municipal bodies, whose importance was lessened by the despotism of the governors. This was an insult to our confidence and frank mode of acting, rather than an acknowledgment of our incontestable political consequence.

"Always deaf to the cries of justice on our part, the governments of Spain have endeavoured to discredit all our efforts, by declaring as criminal, and stamping with infamy, and rewarding with the scaffold and confiscation, every attempt which the Americans, at different periods, have made for the welfare of their country; such was that which our own security lately dictated to us, that we might not be driven into that state of confusion which we foresaw, and hurried to that horrid fate which we hope soon to avert for ever. By means of such atrocious policy, they have succeeded in making our Spanish countrymen insensible to our misfortunes; in arming them against us; in erasing from their bosoms the sweet impressions of friendship, of consanguinity; VOL. III.-No. IV.

34

and converting into enemies members even of our own great family.

"When we, faithful to our promises, were sacrificing our security and civil dignity, not to abandon the rights which we generously preserved to Ferdinand of Bourbon, we have heard that, to the bords of power which bound him to the emperor of the French, he has added the ties of blood and friendship; in consequence of which, even the governments of Spain have already declared their resolution only to acknowledge him conditionally.*

"In this sad alternative, we have remained three years in a state of political indecision and ambiguity so fatal and dangerous, that this alone would authorize the resolu tion, which the faith of our promises and the bonds of fraternity had caused us to defer, till necessity obliged us to go beyond what we at first proposed, impelled by the hostile and unnatural conduct of the goverment of Spain, which has freed us of our conditional oath; by which circumstance we are called to the august representation we now exercise.

"But we, who glory in founding our proceedings on better principles, and not wishing to establish our felicity on the misfortunes of our fellow beings, consider and declare as friends, as companions of our fate, and participators of our happiness, those who, united to us by the ties of blood, language, and religion, have suffered the same evils under the old order of things; pro vided they acknowledge our absolute independence of them, and of any foreign power whatever; that they assist us to maintain this independence with their lives, fortunes, and sentiments; declaring and acknowledg ing to us, as well as to every other nation, that we are in war enemies, in peace friends, brothers, and copatriots.

"In consequence of all these solid, public, and incontestable reasons of policy, which so powerfully urge the necessity of recovering our natural dignity, restored to us by the order of events, and in compliance with those unprescribed rights enjoyed by nations to destroy every compact, agreement, or association which does not answer the purposes for which governments were established, we believe that we cannot nor ought not to preserve the bonds which hitherto kept us united to the government of Spain; and that, like all the other nations of the world, we are free, and authorized not to depend on any other authority than our own; and to take among the powers of the earth that place of equality which nature and the Supreme Being assign to us, and to which we are called by the succession of human events, urged on to our own good and utility.

"We are aware of the difficulties that attend, and the obligations imposed upon us

*"Ferdinand was at one time supposed to be married to a relation of Bonaparte."

by the rank we are going to take in the political order of the world, as well as of the powerful influence of forms and customs to which, unfortunately, we have been long used; we at the same time know that the shameful submission to them, when we can throw them off, would be still more ignominious for us, and fatal to our posterity, than our long and painful slavery; and, that it now becomes an indispensable duty to provide for our own preservation, security, and happiness, by essentially varying all the forms of our former constitution.

Considering, therefore, that by the reasons thus alleged, we have satisfied the respect which we owe to the opinions of the human race, and the dignity of other nations, into the number of which we now enter, and on whose communication and friendship we rely; we, the representatives of the united provinces of Venezuela, calling on the Supreme Being to witness the justice of our proceedings, and the rectitude of our intentions, do implore his divine and celestial help; and ratifying, at the moment in which we are raised to the dignity which he restores to us, the desire we have of liv ing and dying free, and of believing and defending the holy catholic and apostolic religion of Jesus Christ. We, therefore, in the name and authority which we hold from the virtuous people of Venezuela, declare solemnly to the world, that its united provinces are, and ought to be, from this day, by act and right, free, sovereign, and independent states; and that they are absolved from every submission and dependence on the throne of Spain, or on those who do, or may call themselves its agents or representatives; and, that a free and independent state, thus constituted, has full power to take that form of government which may be conformable to the general will of the people; to declare war, make peace, form alliances, regulate treaties of commerce, limits, and navigation, and to do and transact every act in like manner as other free and independent states. And that this our solemn declaration may be held valid, firm, and durable, we hereby mutually bind each province to the other, and pledge our lives, fortunes, and the sacred tie of our national honour. Done in the federal palace of Caraccas. Signed by our own hands, sealed with the great provisional seal of the confederation, and countersigned by the secre tary of congress, this 5th day of July, 1811, the first of our independence.

"JUAN ANTONIO RODRIGUEZ DOMINGUZZ, President..

"LUIS IGNACIO MENDOZA,

Vice-President. "FRANCISCO ISNARDY, Secretary.' "Similar declarations were made in Mexico, and in Carthagena, Socorro, Tunja, Pamplona, Antioquia, and the other provinces, which composed the confederation of New-Grenada, and, latterly, by the congress of Buenos Ayres."

In 1811 the British government offered its mediation between the contending parties; but its endeavours proved unsuccessful. The following were the conditions first proposed by its commissioners

as the basis of reconciliation:

"Ist. The revolting provinces, las provincias disidentes, shall swear allegiance to the cortes and regency, and nominate their deputies to the cortes.

"2dly. Hostilities between the armies shall be suspended, and all prisoners released.

"3dly. That the cortes shall duly attend to the complaints of the Spanish Americans. 4thly. That the commissioners shall render an account of the progress and effect of the mediation eight months from its commencement.

"5thly. While the mediation continues, the cortes are to allow a free trade between England and the rebelling provinces.

666 6thly. The mediation must be concluded in fifteen months.

7thly. If the commissioners are not successful in prevailing with the Spanish Americans to accede to the terms proposed. the English government engages to assist Spain to subdue them by force.

8thly. The Spanish government, for the support of its own honour, is openly to declare to the English minister, those reasons which have induced the cortes to accept of their mediation.'"

These conditions were subsequently amended and enlarged in the following