[clxiv. 92]

Emancipation Spanish

1820 May 4

. Rulers Arguments

Virtue no Security

1. Creoles obsequious

The case of the Anglo-American United States, may be regarded as affording if not a disproof, an exception. As to the result, yes: as to the disposition, not

By the ruling few under three Constitutions it were too much to say there is no plunderage. For even under that government the part of absolute perfection is not yet attained. But so small is the quantity of evil in this shape, that, but for that horror of misrepresentation which one honest mind will not discourage in itself, the negative asserted might have been pure and simple. So much for the result.

Now as to the disposition. On the part of the rulers in those countries, the ruling few being men, the predominance of self-regarding interest over social, and the disposition to practice depredation on the subject many must exist there as every where else. In private life it is said to be even less tempered by mental culture than in the longer cultivated country from whence the bodies of the inhabitants received their existence, and their minds those associations are formed /those the associations which are formed/ by words /by language/ of which language is the instrument. But such are the Constitutions, that successful depredation, depredation worth regarding in its amount and unpunishable in its effect is plainly hopeless. And /But/ without hope there is no desire, and without desire there is no practice.