[clxvii. 106]

1821 March 24

Rid Yourselves

Anticonstitutional evil

Consumption of Cortes time.

But the supposition is not true that to the performance of the business of Ultramaria in a manner equally proper no greater length of time is /would be/ necessary to the Cortes sitting in Spain than to the performance of the business of Spain is not true /a true one/. The length of /magnitude of/ time the distance in Spain and thence in time requisite for communication backwards and forwards have been brought /submitted/ to your consideration: so also the ignorance necessitated by that disastrous distance insurmountable bar so good government : the misrule necessitated by that ignorance: the dissatisfaction and complaints necessitated by that misrule.

By all these circumstances taken together the demand made upon the time of the Cortes by Ultramaria will /would/ be found to exceed in a prodigious degree the demand made upon it by Spain if rid of Ultramaria.

1. In the first place the mass of injury which would be laid on the shoulders of the Ultramarian being infinite, the mass of complaints would be proportionable. For under the Code by Art. 373, complaint is expressly authorized and thereby encouraged. "Every Spaniard" (says Art. 373) "has the right of making representation to the Cortes, or to the King, to call for the observance of the Constitution." No argument would it therefore be to say - under the absolute /pure/ Monarchy Before the Code there was little or no complaint, therefore there will be none under the Code, under the supremacy of the Cortes.