1822 Apr. 17

Rid Yourselves

Lett. 18. Relinquisht. Plan

' 6. Case V. Subjection uncontested

2. Buyers inhabitants.

All democratic forms notwithstanding from all the accounts that have

reached this country - and public and private together I have seen numbers - numbers

more than you can have seen, in the least badly governed of those several states

every thing that in the Anglo-American United States or even in this country is

presented to the mind by the words good government is still in prospect only, at best

in hope, not in experience. By Solomon the sluggard was sent to the anvil to learn

industry: by every well-wisher every one of those

effects from the over-grown polype need /should/ be recommended to betake themselves

to those Anglo-American neighbours, and under them bind themselves as apprentices for

a few years to learn self-government.

Under these circumstances I see nothing in any degree extravagant

/romantic/ or considerably wide in practice in the idea that Well then suppose that

in pursuance of an invitation from your rulers, your as yet unemancipated kinsmen

between the Mississippi and the Pacific were to come to an agreement with the

Anglo-American Union, and for the present become members of it on terms the same in

principle with those other States which from the dominion of your rulers have been

added to it. In any such tripartite agreement what is there that can justly be

charged with extravagance? what is there of which it can ever be said that it would

stand considerably wide from /in/ practice.

In this at present I see such an opportunity as if not now embraced

never can so long as this orb turns round present itself anew /again/ a second time.

As to whether under existing /their/ circumstances the people in question would be

content to give any thing, and if any thing what on this head it would be altogether

useless for a man in mine to set himself to conjecture.
Similar Items
  • Title: [1822 Apr. 17 Rid Yourselves]
    Description: 1822 Apr. 17

    Rid Yourselves

    Lett. 18. Relinquisht. Plan

    ' 6. Case V. Subjection uncontested

    2. Buyers foreigners.

    With relation to their interests, objections to any such transaction

    are obvious: 1. distance from the central seat of government so vast: 2 thence,

    tardiness of redress after complaint of grievance: 3. encrease given to patronage,

    thence to corruptive influence: in a word mischiefs /evil/ in kind the same as those

    which I have been as long labouring to represent to you as resulting from the claims

    made by your rulers of the dominion over your Ultramarian kinsmen.

    But to this there are two answers.

    1. As to the distance it will be but a comparatively small part

    between Spain and those her Ultramarian Provinces

    2. As to redress there is /will be/ no demand for it where there is no

    grievance. Many /Already/ are the new born States which have had for their nursing

    mother the Anglo-American Columbia /for their nurse/: in no one of them, while it has

    been in her leading strings, has there been grievance or complaint of grievance: in

    the instance of no one of them has there been on her part any backwardness as to the

    taking off the leading-strings.

    As to the patronage and corruptive influence on the part of those who profit by

    /draw profit from/ it true it is that a propensity /desire/ to give encrease to it

    can not be reasonably doubted of: but on the part of those at whose expence it is

    created and sustain loss from it /deserve loss and danger/ from it there will exist

    /exists/ a counter desire to apply diminution to it: and that which they desire to do

    is in their power to do. Though at no great distance from the pinnacle of perfection

    their constitution is not yet in actual contact with it: ever since the Union changes

    have accordingly been making: but they have always been from good to better: never

    from better to less good: not to speak of the changes as are every day making in this

    country: changes from bad to worse.
  • Title: [1822 April 9 Rid Yourselves]
    Description: 1822 April 9

    Rid Yourselves

    Ult r

    Lett. 17. Relinquishm t

    For more than three years past not a man sent from Spain for the maintenance of the

    dominion! such is the official assurance given in his message of the 8th of March

    1822 to the Congress, by the President fo the Anglo-American United States. For more

    than three years together no humans the pride of less than two hundred, so many

    millions probably not less than twenty kept in a state of suffisance: in your

    Ultramarian Your independent portion of your Ultramarian kinsmen; in that same

    country, the adherent to your rulers; in your own, yourselves: in a state of

    sufferance, all: in two of the three instances or a state of the most wide-spreading

    as well as excruciating sufferance all this suffering who were the real sufferers?

    Who but they in whose power it was, without sacrifice in any shape to you or any one,

    to put an end to it: without sacrifice to a preponderant amount were to those same

    authours themselves: for whom the true character of their conduct comes to be

    generally understood /seen/ how much more soever will not the wound be that will be

    given to their pride by public impotence, know it would have been if their own hands

    had guided the lancet as above. For more than three years had this source of

    impotence made useless cruelty, and dishonor been manifesting itself, when after an

    express view taken of it, year later Representatives marked the termination of their

    authority by the declared determination to give an indefinite continuance to it: by

    the declared refusal to substitute peace and amity to a war of suffering without

    hope.

    (a) "For the last three years the government of Spain has not sent a single corps of

    troops to any part of that country: nor is there reason to believe it will send any

    in future" Morn. Chronicle 9 Apr. 1822 Translator. Add, if you have no objection, an

    extract from the documents sharing what on that occasion was done by the Cortes and

    the Ministry.
  • Title: [[clxvii. 70] 1821 Aug. 4 Rid]
    Description: [clxvii. 70]

    1821 Aug. 4

    Rid Yourselves

    Anti. Cost. Evils

    Lett. Foreigners in Cortes

    While it swallows camels, Your Constitution strains out gnats. It forces you to receive as sovereign arbiters of your destiny, whether you will or no a set of men who, supposing their constituents fairly dealt with, and not plundered for your profit, are kept for your sake from thriving and breeding, would outnumber your representatives, and thus have it in their power to retaliate upon you that oppression which your rulers with their Code have striven to impose on them. It renders impossible for any of you were you ever so desirous to call in the assistance of so much as one single foreign mind. Now suppose that from the Anglo-American United States, from England, from France, from Piedmont, from Poland - from Portugal I range them alphabetically from each of those political states, you the constituents were amongst you to choose each of you one or more Representatives, what harm would you have to fear from them? What likelyhood that they should be ill disposed toward those by whom they had been sohighly honoured? supposing those were so ill-disposed towards you what mischief /evil/ in numbers such as theirs could any one could all together do to you? Well - and the men whom you have been reduced to choose are they all of them so well informed on the subject of legislation, whether by book or practice, as to have nothing to learn from any other quarter.

    Thus while it forces you under the absolute government of foreigners with adverse interests it suffers you not to have the assistance of so much as one foreigner with accordant interests.

    Spaniards! it is not personal interest - it is not disappointed ambition - that thus speaks in me. My labours my faculties such as they are belong to the whole species, not exclusively to any part of it.

    To you in particular, I am rendering at this moment more service in this my Hermitage than I could if in your Cortes.