JB_172_089.xml

Title: [1820. Aug. 16 Emancipation Spanish]

Description: 1820. Aug. 16

Emancipation Spanish

' 11 Particular Interests adverse

' 8 Interests adverse

Retrenchment

3 Aug 1821 Suppposed superseded by Letter 2

When you have though sufficiently of the sufferings which the dominion would produce

at a distance, and the interests it would have to contend with from without, in a

word from Spanish America,- think of the sufferings - equally incontestable, though

the proportions being as yet so compleatly unascertainable, the not equally obvious

sufferings it would produce, and the correspondently less obvious oppostie interests

it would have to contend with, at home - Think twhether in some quarter or other, ret

renchment must not be made. Think whether in any quarter it cna be made with near so

little suffering - with near so little resistence, national andindividual, as in

this.

Two quantitites - you observe - call at once for your consideration, as being among

the unavoidable results of whatsoever retrenchment came to be made: tow quantities,

the quantity of that suffering which in some quantity or other cna not but be

produced and the quantity of resistence, which in some shape or other and in some

quantity or other in the minds of the persons threatened by it, by the application[?]

that suffering can not fail /but be/ to produce. The first of these considerations

addresses itself to your benevolence; the latter to your prudence.

First is to the necessity of retrenchment, and thw quantum to which that necessity

applies

Of the existance of such a necessity considered in a general point of view, this an

not be more than an opinion.

To the consideration of the quantum belongs the following elements - the following

data that have so lately been furnished, from the most authentic sources.

JB_172_095.xml

Title: [1820. Aug. 17 Emancipation Spanish]

Description: 1820. Aug. 17

Emancipation Spanish

'. 11. Particular interests adverse

' 5. Interests adverse

Retrenchment necessary

As to the three pecuniary interests - the Public Creditor's, the Monarch's and the

Clergy's - to place thse claims at a vast and conspicuous height aboe that of the

Daemon, they have this in common - that retrenchment can not apply to them, without

giving birth to suffering:- to evil in positive shapres. To the demon it may apply

itself - and apply closely - if not withut porducing any such effect, at any rate

without porducing in that shape, any thing like equal effect.

See if this be not the case. Amminition, for example you

have none: @ well then, forbear to provide that quantity, which,

but for the cravings of the demon, you would not have thought of provideing: so

forbearing, yo produce not, in any human breast, any sense of suffering. In like

manner forbear in regard to stores of all sorts; forbear in

regard to men: men for the army,

men for the navy - men for every other branch of the

service, through which the demands of the demon would come.

So much as to the case where retrenchment may be made to a vast amount, yet no

suffering produced.

Now for an example of the case, where unless great caution is used, retrenchment can

not be made but proportioable suffering must be produced.

You have as yet your Council of the Indies. You will want no

council of the Indies when you have no Indies. But, like other men, the Members of

the existing council of the Indies will want subsistence. So will the present

professors of every permanent fund, which to supply the more imperious exigencies of

the state, you extinguish. For all this you will have your rules: rules by which the

great controversy between the present and the future will, somehow or other, be

decided. To touch upon the field calls for those rules, belongs not to the present

purposes. All that at present I need beg you to remember, is - that the demopn can

better bear fasting that any human creature can: the demon of ambition although he

has the demon of slaughter in his belly: and that which with my p[ublic means for the

war I am now waging against the [...?] of [...?], I have King, Clergy, and Public

Creditor and I hope the Soldiery on my side.

@. Cortes. sitting of July 18th 1820. Per Canga Arguelles War

Minister.

JB_172_091.xml

Title: [1820 Aug. 16. Emancipation Spanish]

Description: 1820 Aug. 16.

Emancipation Spanish

'. 11. Particular interests adverse

'. 8. Interests adverse

Retrenchmenft

To meet the above total demand, composed of the sum of these two unliquidated items,

/articles/ added to the above liquidated one behold now according to the same

unquestionable authority the amount of the habitual revenue

Reals Vellon Pounds sterling

2. Contributions, as per d o ... 470,000,000 4,700,000

That which the habitual resource wants, /requires/ to bring it to an equality with

the ordinary and habitual expenditure, and this without reckoning the extraordinary

expenditure, permanent or temporary, being thus upwards of 200,000,000 of your reals

vellon, upwards of 2,000,000 of our pounds sterling, to supply this same deficiency

what is to be done?- Two courses /sorts of operations [...?] presenst themselves, and

but tow possible ones: two courses, /operations/ taxation

and retrenchment: taxation, viz raising the amount of the

contribution as above

1. As to taxation any considerable addition to the amount of it seems to be regarded

as impracticable: the quantity of money extractable from this source being considered

as long ago exhausted

2. As to retrenchment, in so far as it keeps clear of those branches of expenditure

the necessity of which and to the amount not inferior to that which has been habitual

seems to be regarded as altogether [...?] as well as [...?], nemely those which are

employed in the preservation of public security against disturbances in every shape

as well at home as abroad, it must in some proportion or other apply itself to this

or some of those great sources of expenditure which by some peculiarities in that

character are placed in a prominent situation above the rest.

These are 1 the expenditure employed in the discharge of the interest of /on/ the

public debt: 2. the expenditure made by the Monarch and his family in support of what

is called the dignity of the Crown: 3. The expenditure made by the Clergy in the

character of Ministers of religion under the notion of maintaining the influence of

the religious sanction on mens minds.

To these branches of expenditure correspond three great interests: that of the

Public creditor, that of the Monarch, and that of the Clergy which, extensive as they

each of then are, can not but be acknowledged to be in comparison of the great

universal interest composed of that of subject many and that of ruling few together,

but so many particular interests: the interest of the Public Creditor, the interest

of the Monarch, /Royal family/ and the interest of the Clergy.