[clxii. 245]

1821 Jan 7

Rid Yourselves

' 2 Creoles Willing

During this golden age for defence of these vast countries against their inhabitants by the supposition you are not in want of any thing: But I have given you no short term for it, /the term I have given you is not a short one,/ and I can not give you any longer. At the end of this term, the age of probability must commence. Before this term is at an end, beginning at the time when the happy intelligence has been compleated namely six months from the present day whatever it is your preparations for subsequent possession and retention must commence, and within the two years be compleated. Your supposition must then be - that the state of things such as that which at the time when I am now writing 7th January 1821 has place, may unless prevented by adequate preventives have place again, and must therefore at all points be provided against.

Moreover, /Again,/ though during this golden age the country will not any part of it be to be defended against its inhabitants, yet It will every part of be to be defended against all its neighbours: not one of whom but may become its enemy: for such is the unhappy supposition upon which action has always and every where been grounded: action, of which the prudence has been but too fully demonstrated by experience.

You have for enemies if not actual at all times but too probable, the nations savage or barbarous by which your Ultramaria in all parts is encompassed. You have the King of the Brasils, who at this time knows not any more than I do whether he is King of Portugal - but whose own weakness has hitherto preserved from restlessness. France, Netherlands, England - no one of these States not even England will I on this occasion mention as being worth taking into account against the Anglo-American Union from whose just hostility you have so long been[?] saved by their long-suffering prudence, you are at length secured by your own justice.