1822 April 11.

Rid yourselves

Revised

Lett 17. Relinquishm t entire.

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 for

the 8 th of March 1822 to the Congress by the President of the

Anglo American United States. (a) For more than three years

together,- to humour the pride of less than two hundred, so many millions, probably

not less than twenty, kept in a state of sufferance: in your Ultramaria, the

independent portion of your Ultramarian kinsmen; in that same country, the adherents

to your rulers: in your own country, youselves: in a state of sufferance, all : in

two of the three instances, in a state of of the most wide-spreading as well as

excruciating sufferance. Of all this suffering, who were the real authors? 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, even to these same

authors fo the sufferance themselves: for, when the true character of their conduct

comes to be generally seen, how much more severe will not the wound be, that will be

given to their pride by public opinion, than it would have been if their own hands

had gueded the lancet as above! For more than three years had this source of

inpotence, useless cruelty, and dishonor, been manifesting itself, when after an

express view taken of it, your late 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.

In the case of the result to England from the imdependence of so

large a portion of her Colonies, I have shown you the only channel through which net

profit can be derived - derived by any nation from a connection with a distant one:

trade, on terms equal and free on both sides;

subjection

Note (a)

(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. Chron. 9 April 1822.

Translator. Add, if you have no objection an extract from the Spanish

documents, shewing in relation to this matter what has been done by the Cortes and

the Ministry.