[clxii. 227]

1821 Jany. 6

Rid Yourselves

'. Preliminary distinctions

But for these distinctions I should at every turn be asserting what to your knowledge could not be true, and what anybody could show not to be true.

'. Preliminary distinctions and explanations - State of interests with reference to this question.

So much for the past: I come now to the present and the future.

People of Spain! Under the same set of rulers union between your Ultramarian kinsmen and you would to you be the most oppressive and intolerable of all burthens: such is my opinion: rid yourselves of it as soon as possible: such is my advice.

Without reserve - without disguise - the grounds of that opinion shall now be laid before you: the judgement will be yours.

Forgive me - but at the very outset I must beg your attention to those essential distinctions in so far as any one of them remains unheeded, perceptions will remain confused, judgement erroneous and delusive. But for these distinctions, no clear result would be found obtainable: falsehood in some proportion or other, would be mixt up, and be seen to be so in every truth I could advance.

1. Distinction the first - distinction between your interests the interests of you the inhabitants of Spain - of the peninsula as you call it considered in the aggregate on the one part and the interests of the inhabitants on those countries that without being included in Spain were deputed in the person[?], exercise dominion over Spain of Ultramaria as you call those countries, taken in the aggregate on the other part of which Ultramaria that part of America called Spanish America forms by far the principal part.

2. Distinction the second - In Spain itself - in the peninsula - distinction in the first place between the universal interest, and the two particular interests of which taken in the aggregate it is confused - the distinction between the interests of the rulers and otherwise influential few on the one hand, and the interests of the subject many on the other. This distinction of course applies to Ultramaria as well as to Spain itself.