1820 Aug. 18

Emancipation Spanish

Lett. 12 or 19. Averse Cause

All this (it may be said) was submitted to before the change: why then (it may be asked) should it not continue to be submitted to after the change: all this was submitted to at the hands of as bad a government as ever existed: why then should it not be submitted to at the hands of a so much better one? all this was submitted to under a government in which the people in question had no share: why then should it not be submitted to under a government in which they have so large a share?

The argument is not implausible, and the endeavour has been to give to it the most advantageous shape fo which it is susceptible. The argument is not implausible: still, its own refutation, I can not help thinking, can scarce fail of having been suggested by it. The reason being so highly detrimental to the interest of the people in the two countries, the more popular the new government the more certain it is that an arrangement so detrimental to them in both countries will not continue: and, as it is that on the people of the now dependent country that the evil will press with greatest force, it is with them that the resistance will be sure to commence; a resistance for which such unexampled facility is (it will soon be seen) afforded by the very excellence of the new government, in addition to that which is afforded by its distance from the seat of supreme command.

\ZA\ Here insert the two papers about the difficulties the Constitutionalists had to contend with.

While it kept all hands in shackles, the former government, kept a gag in every omouth, a bondage over all eyes. By the present constitution these same instruments of tyranny shacles, gag, and bondage - are all cast forth: cast forth not less compleatly in the one hemisphere than in the other. By the terms of Article 371, "All Spaniards have liberty to work, print, and publish their political ideas, without any necessity for a licence, examination or approbation, previous to publication, subject to the restriction and responsibility established by law. By the terms of Article 373, "Every Spaniard has a right of Memorial to the Cortes, or the King, to claim the benefits of the obsrvances of the Constitution. Under the former government, all Spanish America was kept hermetically sealed agaist all foreigners thence against all such instruction as might be derived from them: Under the existing Constitution a payment of certain duties, the parts are, or are about to be, all of them open to all foreigners. +

+ See Sittings of the Cortes Aug. 1820.