1822 April 6

Rid Yourselves Copied

Lett. 16 Slave Trade stain expunged

Letter 16. By Relinquishment, Spain will clear her morals and

reputation from the taint of the Slave-trade and Slave-holding. Both stains expunged.

Spaniards!

Yes: I have this other honor for you: and this too without cost. You

will cleanse yourselves of the foulest of all political and moral leprosies. Yes, and

not so much as the trouble of a dip into a river will be requisite. In your Peninsula

no man either buys slaves or keeps slaves: if to any Peninsula Spaniard it happens to

defile himself with this abomination, he is out of the country or at any rate sends

his money out of it. True it may perhaps be said morality will so far be preserved

inviolate, conscience unwounded dishonor escaped: but still

no honor, no positive honor gained.

Oh, but indeed there will be. True it is, in itself the honor is but

negative: but, thanks to comparison and to contrast, thanks to the dishonor that you

will leave elsewhere, this honour of yours will be positive. Washing your hands and

keeping them clean of this stain, you will place yourselves /take your station/ above

France, you will place yourselves above England: yes, in this scale of honor you will

place yourselves even above the Anglo-American United States: the nation whose place

is in so many other scales so much above that of every other. To be above France -

above her in that degraded state from which it is hoped she is emerging is alas! but

little: placing yourself above her you might still be in the mire: that the aggregate

of despotic atrocity might be served up to the maximum, murder and oppression and

depredation in this their most aggravated shape, are not merely connived at but

encouraged: encouraged with a degree of enjoyment to which perfidy violation of one

of the few treaties which have ever had beneficence for their object gives a

zest.