CHAPTER III.

State of Lima in 1811....Constitution proclaimed....Some Effects

of....Wishes of the Inhabitants of Lima....Manifest of Venezuela.

On my arrival in Lima I found the same spirit of revolutionary

principles disseminated among all ranks of creoles, excepting some few

individuals who possessed lucrative employments under the government.

The Viceroy Abascal endeavoured to check the spirit of rebellion by the

mildest measures possible, avoiding all acts of persecution; he

established a regiment, called _de la Concordia_, of concord, from the

respectable inhabitants of the city, constituted himself the colonel of

it, and nominated the officers from among the more leading individuals,

whether Spaniards or creoles: this for a short time lulled the spirit of

insurrection. The victory of Guaqui, gained by General Goyoneche over

the army of Buenos Ayres, was welcomed with feasts and rejoicings; but

the scarcity of wheat, the ports of Chile being closed, began to be very

apparent.

In 1812 the constitutional government was proclaimed, and copies of the

constitution of the Spanish monarchy were the only books that were read,

consulted, and studied by all classes. The formation of a constitutional

corporation, cabildo, and the election of constitutional alcaldes,

caused some uproar in the city; but the measures became alarming to the

Spaniards when the election of deputies for the cortes took place. The

Spaniards, accustomed to consider the natives as inferiors, and almost

as intruders in their own country, had now to brook their contempt in

return, to bear with their opposition, and sometimes with their

reproaches. The poll was conducted in the patio, or principal cloister

of the convent of La Merced; several collegians of San Carlos placed

themselves on the hustings, and, according to the _Ley de Partido_, no

native of Spain is permitted to reside in the colonies without a special

license of the Casa de Contratacion of Seville, or in the employ of the

government, and the latter were declared by the constitution, tit. 2,

cap. IV. art. 24, to have no vote. Thus as no Spaniards in Lima could

produce a license, or passport, they were not allowed to vote; and this

excited in them the most frantic rage and chagrin. One Spaniard

presented himself with his passport, and insultingly advanced towards

the hustings to vote; but one of the collegians, looking over the

paper, found that the voter was a native of the Canary Islands, which

being African islands, and all Africans, or descendants of Africans,

being declared by art. 22, tit. 2, cap. IV. of the constitution, as not

having an elective vote, unless they had obtained a letter of

denizenship from the cortes, he was obliged to retire amid the shouts of

the creoles, and the curses against the cortes of the Spaniards.

Nothing could possibly be more favourable to the colonies than the

publication of a constitutional form of government, and the liberty of

the press, as it was sanctioned by the cortes. The restrictions were

such as would have produced a clamour in England, but to a slave an hour

of rest is an hour of perfect freedom, and to men whose pens had been

chained by political trammels and inquisitorial anathemas, a relief from

such restrictions was hailed as an absolute immunity. Those colonies

that still remained faithful to the mother country had an opportunity of

reading the periodical papers, a thing unknown at this time, unless we

except the government gazette; and although such news as was

unfavourable to the Spanish system did not appear in print, yet the

barefaced falsehoods of the old ministerial paper were checked in their

exaggerations, by the appearance of authentic intelligence in the new

papers, and the public were informed of such facts as had taken place:

they were apprised of the establishment of republican governments in

Mexico, Colombia, Buenos Ayres, and Chile--facts that would have been

disguised by the old established authorities, and the people would have

been stigmatized by the name of banditti, of discontented indians, a

gang of traitors, or a horde of highwaymen and freebooters.

The inhabitants of Lima wished for a change in their form of government

as ardently perhaps as those of any other part of America; and for not

having established one, they have been considered by many as a race of

effeminate listless cowards, and have been reported as such--but most

undeservedly. Although in a cause adverse to their own interest, for

many years they sustained the brunt of the war against all the forces

that could be brought to the field by those whom they were taught to

consider as enemies. Soldiers are instructed by the precepts and the

examples of their commanders, and rarely reflect on what is right or

wrong; otherwise history would not present us with such numberless

instances of armed forces acting in open hostility against their very

homes, their friends, and their parents; wherever a city is garrisoned

by a military force, the inhabitants as well as the soldiers must submit

to the will of the commanders. Such was the state of Lima: many of the

soldiers it is true were Limeños, but many were from different parts of

Peru, and nearly the whole of the officers were Spaniards, and those who

were not were under the suspicious eye of jealous masters.

At first, the several provinces that revolted, and which had established

new governments, most solemnly declared, that it was not their intention

to separate from the crown of Spain, but to govern themselves in such a

manner as would secure to that crown the possession of America. The

Regency of Spain, however, invested with the authority to govern the

peninsula, insisted on the prerogative of governing the American

colonies, forgetting that the famous grant of America made by Pope

Alexander VI. annexed America to the crowns of Castile and Arragon, and

not to the nation nor to any representative body belonging to that

nation. Every individual that was apprehended during the first years of

commotion was treated as a traitor. At Quito the words "constituted

authorities" contained in the oath which was administered were

converted into high treason, and there is no doubt but Arrechaga would

have solicited the sentence of capital punishment on all those who had

taken it, had not their number included many of his friends.

Declarations of independence, and manifestos containing the motives for

at once separating from the mother country, now began to circulate among

the natives of Peru; and although some of them contained exaggerations,

and the government of Lima became possessed of copies of them, yet such

was the apathy or the timidity of the chiefs, that no attempt at

refutation was ever made. The following are translations of papers from

Venezuela, which fully express all the grievances of which the

Hispano-Americans complained. They were drawn up for the purpose of

instilling into the minds of their countrymen a determination to shake

off those grievances, and to convince the world at large that the

insurrection of the Spanish colonies had become a matter of necessity

and not of choice:

"Manifesto made to the world by the confederation of Venezuela in South

America, of the reasons on which it founds its absolute independence of

Spain, and of every other foreign power. Done by the general Congress of

the United States, and ordered to be published.

"Spanish America, condemned for more than three centuries to exist only

for the purpose of increasing the political preponderance of Spain,

without the least influence in, or participation of her greatness,

would, according to the order of events in which she had no other part

than that of sufferance, have been the victim and the sacrifice of the

disorder, corruption, and conquest, which have disorganized the nation

her conqueror, if the instinct of self-preservation had not dictated to

the Americans, that the moment of action had arrived, and that it was

time to reap the fruits of three centuries of patience and forbearance.

"If the discovery of the new world was to the human race an occurrence

highly interesting, the regeneration of this same world, degraded from

that period by oppression and servitude, will not be less so. America,

raising herself from the dust, and throwing off her chains without

passing through the political gradations of other countries, will in her

turn triumph over the world, without deluging it in blood, without

enslaving it, without brutifying it. A revolution most useful to mankind

will be that of America, when she shall constitute her own authorities

and govern herself, opening her arms to receive those people of Europe

who may be trampled on by policy, wish to fly from the evils of war, or

escape the persecution and the fury of party. The inhabitants of one

hemisphere will then cross the ocean to the other in search of peace and

tranquillity; not with the lust nor perfidy of conquest, like the heroes

of the sixteenth century--as friends, not as tyrants: as men willing to

obey, not as lords to command--not to destroy, but to save--not as

ravenous tigers, but as human beings, who, horror-struck at the account

of our past misfortunes, were taught to estimate them by their own--who

will not convert their reason into a spirit of blind persecution, nor

wish to stain our annals with blood and misery. Then shall navigation,

geography, astronomy, industry, and trade perfected by the discovery of

America, though until now the source of her debasement, be converted

into the means of accelerating, consolidating, and making more perfect

the happiness of the two worlds.

"This is not a flattering dream, but the homage of reason to prudence,

whose ineffable wisdom designed that one part of the human race should

not groan under the tyranny of another; consequently, the great fiat of

what should precede the dissolution of the world could not take place

before one part of its inhabitants had enjoyed their inherent rights.

Every thing has long been preparing for this epoch of felicity and

consolation. In Europe the shock and the fermentation of opinions, the

contempt and the inversion of the laws; the profanation of those bonds

which ought to have held states together; the luxury of courts, the

cessation of industry, the consequent unproductiveness of lands, the

oppression of virtue, and the triumph of vice accelerated the progress

of evil in one world, while the increase of population in America, of

the wants of foreign countries dependent on her, the development of

agriculture in a new and fertile soil, the germ of industry under a

beneficent climate, the elements of science under a privileged

organization, the means of a rich and prosperous trade, and the strength

of a political adolescence, all, all contributed to accelerate the

progress of good in the other.

"Such was the advantageous alternative that enslaved America presented

to her mistress, Spain, on the other side of the ocean, when oppressed

by the weight of every evil, and undermined by every principle

destructive to society, America called upon her to ease her of her

chains that she might fly to her succour. Fortunately prejudice

triumphed, the genius of evil and disorder seized on the government,

goaded pride usurped the seat of prudence; ambition triumphed over

liberality, and substituting deceit and perfidy for generosity and

integrity, those very arms were turned against us which we ourselves

used when impelled by fidelity and good faith; we taught Spain herself

the way to resist her enemies, under the banners of a presuming king,

unfit to reign, and void of all title except the generous compassion of

the people and his own misfortunes.

"Venezuela was the first in the new world to pledge to Spain that

generous aid which she considered as a necessary homage; Venezuela was

the first to pour the consoling balm of friendship and fraternity into

her wounds when afflicted; Venezuela was the first that knew the

disorders which threatened the destruction of Spain; she was the first

to provide for her own safety, without severing the bonds that linked

her to the mother country; the first to feel the effects of her

ambitious ingratitude; she was the first on whom war was declared by her

brethren; and she is now the first to recover and declare her

independence and civil dignity in the new world. In order to justify

this measure of necessity and of justice, she considers it an incumbent

duty to present to the universe the reasons which have urged her to the

same, that her honour and principles may not be doubted, nor endangered

when she comes to fill the high rank which Providence restores her to.

"All those persons who are aware of our determinations know what was our

fate previous to the late inversion of things, which alone dissolved our

engagements with Spain, even granting that these were legal and

equitable. It would be superfluous to present again to impartial Europe

the misfortunes and vexations she has so often had cause to lament, at a

time when we were not allowed to do so; neither is it necessary to

assert the injustice of our dependence and degradation, when every

nation has viewed as an insult to political equity, that Spain

unpeopled, corrupted, and plunged into a state of sloth and indolence by

the measures of a despotic government, should have exclusively usurped

from the industry and activity of the rest of the continent, the

precious and incalculable resources of a world constituted in the fief

and monopoly of a small portion of the other.

"The interest of Europe cannot oppose the liberty of one quarter of the

globe, which now discovers itself to the interest of the other three;

yet a mere peninsula is found to oppose the interests of its government

to those of its nation, in order to raise the old hemisphere against the

new one, since the impossibility of oppressing it alone for any longer

period is now visible. In opposition to these endeavours, more fatal to

our tranquillity than to our prosperity, we will disclose to the world

the causes which operated on our conduct on the fifteenth of July, 1808,

and the acts that have wrested from us the resolutions of the nineteenth

of April, 1810, and of the fifth of July, 1811. These three epochs will

form the first period of the glories of regenerated Venezuela, when the

impartial pen of history shall record the first lines of the political

existence of South America.

"Our manifests and public papers testified almost all the reasons that

influenced our resolutions, as well as our designs, and all the just and

decorous means that were employed to realize them; it might be supposed

that an exact and impartial comparison of our conduct with that of the

late governments of Spain would of itself suffice to justify not only

our moderation, not only our measures of security, not only our

independence, but also even the declaration of an irreconcilable enmity

to those who directly or indirectly have contributed to the unnatural

system now adopted against us. Nothing in truth should we have to do if

good faith had been the spring of action, used by the partisans of

oppression against liberty; but, as the last analysis of our

misfortunes, we cannot extricate ourselves from the condition of slaves

without being branded with the disgraceful epithets of ungrateful

rebels. Let those therefore listen and judge us who have no part in our

misfortunes, and who are now desirous of having none in our disputes, in

order not to augment the prejudices of our enemies, and let them not

lose sight of the solemn act of our just, necessary, and modest

emancipation.

"Caracas was apprised of the scandalous scenes which took place at the

Escurial and Aranjues at a time when she was already convinced of what

were her rights, and the state in which they were placed by those

extraordinary occurrences; but the habit of obedience on the one hand,

the apathy that despotism had produced on the other, and in fine our

fidelity and good faith, were at that moment paramount to every other

feeling. After the communication of Murat, the kingly substitute of

Joseph Bonaparte, had reached the capital of the monarchy, the

authorities did not even hesitate respecting the reception of it, the

people only thought of being faithful, consistent, and generous,

without premeditating on the evils to which this noble and gallant

conduct would expose them. Without any other view than that of honour,

Venezuela refused to follow the opinions of the leading characters in

Madrid, some of whom, in support of the orders of the French Regent of

the kingdom, exacted of us the oath of allegiance to the new king;

others declared and published that Spain had received a new existence

since her old authorities abandoned her, since the cession made by the

Bourbons and the entrance of the new dynasty; that they had recovered

their absolute independence and liberty, and that they offered the same

alluring terms to the Americans, who by the same means might procure the

same rights. But the first step we took for our own security convinced

the junta central that there was something in us besides habits and

prejudices, and they began to change their tune respecting liberality

and sincerity; they perfidiously adopted the talisman Ferdinand at first

practised in good faith; they suppressed, but with cunning and suavity,

the plain and legal project of Caracas in 1808 to form a junta, and to

imitate the representative system of the governments of Spain; and they

began to set up a new species of despotism under the factitious name of

a king, acknowledged only from a principle of generosity, and destined

to oppress and tyrannise us by those who had usurped the sovereignty.

"New governors and judges initiated in the new system projected by Spain

against America, decided in the support of it at our expense, and

provided with instructions for even the last political change which

might occur in the other hemisphere, were the consequences resulting

from the surprize that our unparalleled and unexpected generosity caused

to the central junta. Ambiguity, artifice, and disorder were the springs

employed to keep in motion this short-lived administration: as they saw

their empire exposed and tottering, they wished to gain in one day what

had enriched their ancestors for many years; and as their authority was

backed by that of their parasites, all their endeavours were directed to

the support of each other under the shadow of our illusion and good

faith. No statute or law against these plans was effective; and every

measure that favoured the new system of political freemasonry was to

have the force of law, however opposed it might be to the principle of

equity and justice. After the declaration of the Captain-general Emparan

made to the _audiencia_, that in Caracas there was no other law nor

will but his own, and this fully demonstrated in several arbitrary acts

and excesses, such as placing on the bench of the judge the King's

accuser-general; intercepting and opening the papers sent by Don Pedro

Gonsales Ortega to the central junta; expulsing from the provinces this

same public functionary, as well as the captain, Don Francisco

Rodrigues, and the assessor of the consulate, Don Miguel Jose Sanz, who

were all embarked for Cadiz or Porto Rico, as well as sentencing to

labour in the public works without any previous form of trial a

considerable number of men, who were dragged from their homes under the

epithet of vagrants; revoking and suspending the resolutions of the

royal audience, when they were according to his caprice and absolute

will, after naming a recorder without the consent of the corporation;

creating and causing the assessor to be received without either title or

authority for the same, after he had supported his pride and his

ignorance in every excess; after many scandalous disputes between the

audience and the corporation, and after all the law characters had been

reconciled to the plan of these despots, in order that these might be

more inexpugnable to us, it was agreed to organize and carry into

effect the project of espionage and duplicity.

"Of all this there remains authentic testimony in our archives,

notwithstanding the vigilance with which these were examined by the

friends of the late authorities: there exists in Cuenca an order of the

Spanish government to excite discord among the nobles and among the

different branches of American families. There are besides many written

and well-known documents of corruption, gambling, and libertinism

promoted by Guevara, for the purpose of demoralizing the country; and no

one can ever forget the collusions and subornings publicly used by the

judges, and proved in the act of their residencia.

"Under these auspices the defeats and misfortunes of the Spanish armies

were concealed. Pompous and imaginary triumphs over the French on the

peninsula were forged and announced; the streets were ordered to be

illuminated, gunpowder was wasted in salutes, the bells announced the

rejoicings, and religion was prostituted by the chanting Te Deums and

other public acts, as if to insult Providence, and invoke a perpetuity

of the evils we groaned under. In order to allow us no time to analyze

our own fate, or discover the snares laid for us, conspiracies were

invented, parties and factions were forged in the imagination of our

oppressors, every one was calumniated who did not consent to be

initiated in the mysteries of perfidy; fleets and emissaries from France

were figured as being on our seas, and residing among us; our

correspondence with the neighbouring colonies was circumscribed and

restricted; our trade received new fetters, and the whole was for the

purpose of keeping us in a state of continual agitation, that we might

not fix our attention on our own situation and interests.

"When our forbearance was once alarmed, and our vigilance awakened, we

began to lose all confidence in the governments of Spain and their

agents; through the veil of their intrigues and machinations we

perceived the horrid futurity that awaited us; the genius of truth,

elevated above the dense atmosphere of oppression and calumny, pointed

out to us with the finger of impartiality the true fate of Spain, the

disorders of her governments, the unavailing energy of her inhabitants,

the formidable power of her enemies, and the groundless hopes of her

salvation. Shut up in our own houses, surrounded by spies, threatened

with infamy and banishment, scarcely daring to bewail our own

situation, or even secretly to complain against our vigilant and cunning

enemies; the consonance of our blinded sighs exhaled in the moments of

the most galling oppression, at length gave uniformity to our sentiments

and united our opinions. Shut up within the walls of our own houses, and

debarred from all communication with our fellow-citizens, there was

scarcely an individual in Caracas who did not think that the moment of

being for ever free, or of sanctioning irrevocably a new and horrid

slavery, had arrived.

"Every day discovered more and more the nullity of the acts of Bayonne,

the invalidity of the rights of Ferdinand, and of all the Bourbons who

were privy to the arrangements; the ignominy with which they delivered

up as slaves those who had placed them on the throne in opposition to

the house of Austria; the connivance of the head functionaries in Spain

to the plans of the new dynasty; the fate that these same plans prepared

for America, and the necessity of forming some resolution that might

shield the new world from the calamities which from its relations with

the old were about to visit it. All saw their treasures buried in the

unfathomable disorders of the peninsula; they wept for the blood of

Americans spilt in defence of the enemies of America, in order to

support the slavery of their own country. Notwithstanding the vigilance

of the tyrants, all saw the very interior of Spain, where they beheld

nothing but disorder, corruption, factions, misfortunes, defeats,

treacheries, dispersed armies, whole provinces in the hands of the enemy

and their disciplined troops, and at the head of all a weak and

tumultuary government formed out of such rare elements.

"Dismay was the general and uniform impression observed in the

countenances of the people of Venezuela by the agents of oppression sent

from Spain to support at any hazard the infamous cause of their

constituents; a word might cause proscription, or a discourse banishment

to the author; and every attempt to do in America what was done in

Spain, if it did not shed the blood of the Americans, it was at least

sufficient to occasion the ruin, infamy, and desolation of many

families, as may be seen by the act of proscription of several officers

and citizens of rank and probity, decreed on the twentieth of March,

1810, by Emparan.[1] Such a miscalculation could not fail to produce or

multiply the convulsions, to augment the popular reaction, to prepare

the combustible, and dispose it in such a manner that the least spark

would kindle it, and create a blaze that would consume, and even efface

every vestige of so hard and melancholy a condition. Spain needy and

almost desolate, her fate dependent on the generosity of America, and

almost in the act of being blotted out from the list of nations,

appeared as if transported back to the sixteenth or seventeenth

centuries, she again began to conquer America with arms more destructive

than iron or lead; every day gave birth to some new proof of the fate

that awaited us, a fate that would place us in the sad alternative of

being sold to a foreign power, or obliged to groan for ever under a

fresh and irrevocable bondage, whilst we alone were expectant on the

happy moment that might bring our opinions into action, and join us in

such a manner that we could express them, and support them.

"Amidst the sighs and imprecations of general despair, the entrance of

the French in Andalusia, the dissolution of the central junta brought

about by the effects of public execration, and the abortive institution

of another protean government, under the name of regency, reached our

ears. This was announced under ideas more liberal, and on perceiving the

efforts of the Americans to avail themselves of the opportunity which

the vices and nullities of so strange a government presented to them,

they endeavoured to strengthen the illusion by brilliant promises, by

theories barren of reform, and by announcing to us that our fate was no

longer in the hands of viceroys, ministers, or governors; at the same

time that all their agents received the strictest orders to watch over

our conduct, and even over our opinions, and not to suffer these to

exceed the limits traced by the eloquence that gilded the chains forged

in the captious and cunning promise of emancipation.

"At any other period this would have sufficed to deceive the Americans,

but the junta of Seville, as well as the central junta, had already gone

too far in order to remove the bandage from our eyes, and what was then

combined, meditated, and polished to subject us again with phrases and

hyperboles, only served to redouble our vigilance, to collect our

opinions, and to establish a firm and unshaken resolution to perish

rather than remain any longer the victims of cabal and perfidy. The eve

of that day on which our religion celebrates the most august mystery of

the redemption of the human race, was that designated by Providence to

be the commencement of the political redemption of America. On Holy

Thursday, April nineteenth, 1810, the colossus of despotism was thrown

down in Venezuela, the empire of law proclaimed, and the tyrants

expelled with all the suavity, moderation, and tranquillity that they

themselves have confessed, so much so in fact, as to have filled with

admiration of, and friendship for us the rest of the impartial world.

"All sensible persons would have supposed that a nation recovering its

rights, and freeing itself from its oppressors, would in its blind fury

have broken down every barrier that might place it directly or

indirectly within the reach of the influence of those very governments

that had hitherto caused its misfortunes, and its oppression. Venezuela,

faithful to her promises, did no more than ensure her own security in

order to comply with them, and if with one strong and generous hand she

deposed the authors of her misery and her slavery, with the other she

placed the name of Ferdinand VII. at the head of her new government,

swore to maintain his rights, promised to acknowledge the unity and

integrity of the Spanish nation, opened her arms to her European

brethren, offered them an asylum in their misfortunes and calamities,

equally hated the enemies of the Spanish name, solicited the generous

alliance of England, and prepared to take her share of the success or

misfortunes of the nation from whom she could and ought to be separated.

"But it was not this that the regency exacted of us, when it declared us

free in its theories, it subjected us in practice to a small and

insignificant representation, believing that those to whom it considered

nothing was due, would be content to receive whatever was granted to

them by their masters. Under so liberal a calculation the regency was

desirous of keeping up the illusion, to pay us with words, promises, and

inscriptions for our long slavery, and for the blood and treasure we had

expended in Spain. We were fully aware how little we had to expect from

the policy and intrusive agents of Ferdinand, we were not ignorant that

if we were not to be dependent on viceroys, ministers, and governors,

with greater reason we could not be subject to a king, a captive and

without the rights of authority; nor to a government null and

illegitimate, nor to a nation incapable of holding sway over another,

nor to a peninsular corner of Europe, almost wholly occupied by a

foreign force. Nevertheless, desirous of effecting our own freedom by

the means of generosity, moderation, and civic virtues, we acknowledged

the imaginary rights of the son of Maria Louisa, we respected the

misfortunes of the nation, and officially announced to the regency that

we disowned, that we promised not to separate from Spain so long as she

maintained a legal government, established according to the will of the

nation, and in which America had that part given to her, required by

justice, necessity, and the political importance of her territory.

"If three hundred years of former servitude do not suffice to authorize

our emancipation, there has been sufficient cause in the conduct of the

governments which arrogated to themselves the sovereignty of a conquered

nation, which never could have any property in America declared an

integral part of the same, whilst they attempted to involve it in

conquest. If the governors of Spain had been paid by her enemies, they

could not have done more against the felicity of the nation, bound in

its close union and correspondence with America. With the greatest

contempt of our importance, and of the justice of our claims when they

could not deny us the appearance of a representation, they subjected it

to the despotic influence of their agents, over our municipalities, to

whom the election was committed; and whilst Spain allowed even for the

provinces in possession of the French, the Canaries and Balearic

islands, one representative for each 50,000 souls, freely elected by

these, in America a 1,000,000 scarcely sufficed to have the right of one

representative, named by the Viceroy or captain-general, under the

signature of the municipality.

"At the same time that we, strong in the right of our own justice and

the moderation of our proceedings, hoped that if the reasons we alleged

to the regency to convince them of the necessity of our resolution did

not triumph, at least that the generous disposition with which we

promised not to become the enemy of our oppressed and unfortunate

brethren would be successful, dispositions which the new government of

Caracas was desirous should not be limited to barren promises; and the

unprejudiced and impartial world will know, that Venezuela has passed

the time which intervened between April 19th, 1810, to July 5th, 1811,

in a bitter and painful alternative of acts of ingratitude, insults, and

hostilities on the part of Spain; and of generosity, modesty, and

forbearance on ours. This period is the most interesting of the history

of our revolution, so much so, that its events present a contrast so

favourable to our cause, that it cannot have failed to gain over for us

the impartial decision of those nations that have no interest in

disparaging our efforts.

"Previous to the result of our political transformation, we received

daily new motives sufficiently strong for each to have caused us to do

what we have now done, after three centuries of misery and degradation.

In every vessel that arrived from Spain new agents with fresh

instructions came to strengthen those who supported the cause of

ambition and perfidy. For the very same ends, those Europeans who wished

to return to Spain, and assist in the war against the French, received a

refusal to their request. On the tenth of April, 1810, the schools were

ordered to be closed, to the end, that under the pretence of attending

solely to the war, both Spain and America might be sunk deeper into a

state of ignorance. It was also ordained, that rights and rewards should

be forgotten, and that we should do nothing but send to Spain our money,

our men, provisions, productions, submissions, and obedience.

"The public press teemed with nothing but triumphs and victories, with

donations and acknowledgments wrested from the people, as yet uninformed

of our resolution; and under the most severe threats of punishment, a

political inquisition with all its horrors was established against those

who should read, possess, or receive papers, not only foreign but even

Spanish that were not issued at the manufactory of the regency. Contrary

to the very orders of the self-constituted sovereignty, previously

issued to deceive us, every bound was over-leaped in the re-election of

ultramarine functionaries, whose only merit consisted in swearing to

maintain the system contrived by the regency. In the most scandalous and

barefaced manner, that order which favoured our trade and encouraged our

agriculture was annulled, condemned to the flames, and its authors and

promoters proscribed. Every kind of aid was expected of us; but we were

never informed of its destination, inversion, and expenditure. In

contempt of even a shadow of public faith, and without any exception

whatever, all epistolary correspondence from these countries was ordered

to be opened, an excess unheard of even under the despotism of Godoy,

and only adopted to make the espionage over America more tyrannical. In

fine, the plans laid for the purpose of perpetuating our bondage now

began to be practically realized.

"In the mean time, Venezuela, free, and mistress of herself, thought of

nothing less than imitating the detestable conduct of the regency and

its agents: content with having secured her fate against the ambition of

an intrusive and illegitimate authority, and shielded it against the

blackest and most complicated plans, was satisfied with shewing by

positive acts her desire for peace, friendship, correspondence, and

co-operation with her European brethren. All those of this class who

were among us, as such were considered, and two-thirds of the political,

civil, and military employments, both of the high and middle classes,

remained or were placed in the hands of Europeans without any

precaution, but with a sincerity and good faith that nearly proved fatal

to our own interests.

"Our treasures were generously opened to our enemies, that they might

enjoy every convenience and profusion in their passage from our country:

the captains of the packets, Carmen, Fortuna, and Araucana were received

into our ports, and assisted with money to enable them to proceed on

their voyage, and fulfil their respective commissions, and even the

insolence and crimes of the captain of the Fortuna were referred to the

judgment of the Spanish government. Notwithstanding the junta of

government of Caracas made manifest the motives of precaution which

obliged them not to expose the public funds which were destined to

recover the nation, to the veracity of government they allowed and

exhorted the people to be generous, and use their fortunes according to

the impulse of their own sensibility, by publishing in the public papers

the mournful statement of the regency, in which was portrayed the

agonizing state of the nation, with the view to solicit our aid, and the

same time that they represented it, through the medium of their public

prints, as vigorous, organized, and triumphant; but these were destined

to deceive us. The commissioners of the regency sent to Quito,[2] Santa

Fé, and Peru were hospitably received, treated as friends, and their

pecuniary wants supplied to their own satisfaction. But we lose time in

thus analyzing the dark and cunning conduct of our enemies, as all their

endeavours have not sufficed to warp the imperious and triumphing

impression of ours.

"The arrogant mandataries of our country were not, however, the only

persons authorized to support the horrid plans of their constituents;

the same uniform and universal mission was brought out by all those who

inundated America from the sad and ominous reigns of the junta of

Seville, the central junta, and the regency, and under the system of

political freemasonry, founded on the Machiavelic pact; they all

accorded in mutually substituting, replacing, and assisting each other

in the combined plans against the felicity and political existence of

the new world. The island of Puerto Rico was immediately made the haunt

of all the agents of the regency; the place of equipment for all the

expeditions; the head quarters of all the anti-American forces; the

workshop of all the impostors, calumnies, triumphs and threats of the

regents; the refuge of all the wicked; the rendezvous of a new gang of

bucaniers, in order that there might not be wanting any of the

calamities of the sixteenth century in the new conquest of America in

the nineteenth. The Americans of Puerto Rico, oppressed by the bayonets,

cannons, fetters, and gibbets which surrounded the bashaw Melendes and

his satellites, had to add to their own misfortunes the painful

necessity of contributing to ours. Such was the fate of the Americans;

condemned not only to be galley-slaves, but to be the drivers of each

other.

"The conduct observed by Spain to America is harder and more insulting

than that which she appears to exercise towards France. It is well known

that part of the dynasty, still resisted by part of the nation, has had

decided partizans in many of those who considered themselves the first

national dignitaries, for their rank, offices, talents, and knowledge;

among these may be counted Morla, Azanza, Ofarrill, Urquijo, Masarredo,

and many others of every class and profession; but still there has not

appeared one of those who so much desire the liberty of independence and

regeneration of the peninsula, that has raised his voice in favour of

the American provinces. These, therefore, adopting the same principles

of fidelity and national integrity, have of their own accord been

ambitious of preserving themselves independent of such intrusive,

illegitimate, weak, and tumultuary governments, as have been all those

that have hitherto called themselves the agents of the king, or

representatives of the nation. It is vexing to see so much liberality,

so much civism, and so much disinterest in the cortes with regard to

disorganized, exhausted, and nearly conquered Spain, and full of so much

meanness, suspicion, prejudice and pride, towards America; tranquil,

faithful, generous, decided to assist her brethren, when she alone can

give reality, at least in the most essential point, to the theoretical

and brilliant plans which make the Spanish Congress so arrogant. How

many treasons, murders, assassinations, perfidies and convulsions have

appeared in Spain; these have passed by as the inseparable misfortunes

of circumstances, yet not one of the provinces that surrendered, or was

attached to the French domination, has been treated like Venezuela;

their conduct must however have been analyzed, and characterised

according to reasons, motives, and circumstances that dictated it; this

must have been judged in conformity to the rights of war, and the

sentiments of the nation must have been pronounced according to the

statements laid before it, but not one of them has yet been declared

traitorous, in open rebellion, and unnaturalized as was Venezuela; for

none of them has been created a public commission of diplomatic

mutineers, to arm Spaniard against Spaniard, to fan the flame of civil

war, and to burn and annihilate all that cannot be held in the name of

Ferdinand VII. America alone is condemned to endure the until now

unheard of condition of being warred upon, destroyed, or enslaved with

the very means of assistance which she destined for the liberty and

common felicity of the nation of which she was led to believe for a few

moments that she constituted a part.

"It appears that the independence of America creates more irritation to

Spain, than the foreign oppression that threatens her, for against her

are in preference employed measures that have not even been adopted

against the very provinces that have proclaimed the new king. The

incendiary and turbulent talent of a minister of the council of Indies

could not have a more dignified employment than that of again conquering

Venezuela with the same arms as those of the Alfingers and the Welzers,

those first tyrants of Venezuela, authorized by Charles V., and the

promoters of civil war amongst her primitive inhabitants, now re-assumed

in the name of a king placed on the throne against the pretensions of

the family of him who let out these provinces to the German factors.

Under this name of Ferdinand all the sluices of iniquity are opened upon

us, and the horrors of conquest are renewed, the remembrance of which

we had generously endeavoured to blot out from the memory of our

posterity; under this name we are treated with more severity than those

who abandoned it before we did; and under this name it is attempted to

continue the system of Spanish domination in America, which has been

looked upon as a political phenomenon even in the times of the reality,

energy and vigour of the Spanish monarchy. And can there be found any

law that obliges us to preserve it, and to suffer in its name the

torrent of distresses heaped upon us by those who call themselves the

agents of the peninsula? By their means this very name obtained the

treasures, the obedience, and acknowledgments of America, and by means

of their flagitious conduct afterwards, in the exercise of their powers,

the name of Ferdinand has lost every consideration amongst us, and

consequently we ought to abandon it for ever. _Ex qua persona quis

lucrum capit, ejus factum præstare tenetur._

"The tyrant of Borrigum (primitive name of Puerto Rico) not content with

constituting himself a sovereign, to declare war against us, and with

insulting and calumniating us in his flimsy, mean, and self-flattering

papers; not satisfied with creating himself the gratuitous gaol-keeper

of the emissaries of peace, and confederation sent to him by his

comrade Migares from the castle of Zapáras de Maracaibo; because they

overturned the plans he had received, and accepted from the regency and

the new king of Spain, in exchange for the captain-generalship of

Venezuela, purchased at a cheap rate of the regents; not considering

such superior merit sufficiently rewarded with the honour of faithfully

serving his king; in the most barefaced manner plundered upwards of a

hundred thousand dollars from the public funds belonging to Caracas,

that had been embarked in the ship Ferdinand VII. in order to purchase

stores and military clothing in London, where the insurance was

effected; and in order that his insult might be the more complete, he

alleged that the Spanish government might waste and misapply them, that

England might appropriate them to herself, disowning our resolution, so

that in no place they could, or ought to be more secure than in his

hands, negociated by means of his partners in trade, as in fact they

were in Philadelphia, adding that an account should be given in when

Puerto Rico had conquered Venezuela, when the latter should deliver

herself up to the regency, or when Ferdinand VII. should return to reign

in Spain. Such it appears were the periods that the governor of Puerto

Rico imposed upon himself to render an account of so atrocious and

scandalous a depredation; but this is not all that this worthy agent of

the regency has done in favour of the designs of his constituents.

"Notwithstanding so much insult, robbery, and ingratitude, Venezuela

maintained her resolution, not to vary the principles she had traced out

for her conduct; the sublime act of her national representation was

proclaimed in the name of Ferdinand VII.; under his phantasmagorical

authority all the acts of our government and administration were

maintained, though they required no other origin than the people who had

constituted them. By the laws and regulations of Spain a horrible and

sanguinary gang of European conspirators were tried, and these laws were

mercifully infringed to save their lives, in order that the

philanthropic memory of our revolution might not be stained with the

blood of our brethren, although they were perfidious. Under the name of

Ferdinand, and through the interposition of the bonds of fraternity and

patriotism, endeavours were used to inform and reduce the imperious

mandataries of Coro and Maracaibo, who kept separated from our interests

our brethren of the west; under the auspices of reciprocal interests,

we triumphed over the oppressive acts of Barcelona, and under the same

we will conquer Guayana, twice snatched from our confederation, as was

Maracaibo, against the general wishes of its inhabitants.

"It would appear as if nothing now remained to be done to secure a

reconciliation with Spain, or the entire and absolute separation of

America, equally as ruinous and calamitous to the one, as it was

ungratefully despised by the other party; but Venezuela was desirous of

draining every means left within her reach, in order that justice and

necessity should leave her no other alternative than that of total

independence, which ought to have been declared on the fifteenth of

July, 1808, or on the nineteenth of April, 1810. After appealing to

sensibility and not to vengeance, in the horrid scenes that took place

at Quito, Pose, and La Pas; after beholding our own cause supported by

the uniformity of opinions in Buenos Ayres, Santa Fé, the Floridas,

Mexico, Guatemala, and Chile; after obtaining an indirect guarantee on

the part of England; after having our conduct applauded by impartial

individuals in Europe; after seeing the same principles triumph from the

Orinoco to the Magdalena, and from Cape Codero to the Andes; we have

still to endure fresh insults, before we fly to the extreme of breaking

with our brethren for ever.

"Caracas, without having done more than imitate the conduct of many of

the provinces of Spain, and practised the rights that the regency

declared to appertain to America; without having had in this conduct

other designs than those inspired by the necessity of not being involved

in an unknown fate, and to relieve the regents from attending to the

government of countries as remote as they are extensive, at the same

time they protested to attend to nothing but the expulsion of the French

from Spain; without having rent her unity and political integrity with

Spain; without having disowned as was possible and proper the lame

rights of Ferdinand; the regency, far from applauding on the right of

convenience, if not of generosity, so just, modest and necessary a

resolution, and without even answering or submitting to the judgment of

the nation our complaints and our claims: Caracas is declared in a state

of war, her inhabitants are proclaimed rebels and unnaturalized, every

communication with her brethren is cut off, England is deprived of her

trade, the excesses of Melendes are approved of, and he is authorized to

commit whatever the malignity of his heart may suggest to him, however

opposed to reason and to justice; all this is proved by the order of

the fourth of September, 1810, unparalleled for its enormity even among

the despots of Constantinople or Indostan; and not to deviate in the

least from the plots of the conquest, a new _encomendero_ is sent out,

under the title of a pacificator, (pacificador) who with more

prerogatives than conquerors and settlers themselves, was to fix his

residence in Puerto Rico, and thence to threaten, rob, pirate, promise,

deceive, excite civil disturbances, and all in the name of the beloved

Ferdinand VII.

"Till then the progress of the system of subversion, anarchy, and

depredation, which the regency proposed to itself on hearing of the

movements of Caracas, had been but slow; now the principal fears of

civil war being transferred nearer to us, the subaltern agents acquired

more strength, the flames of passion were increased, as well as the

efforts of the parties guided by the directions of Cortavarria and

Melendes. Hence originated the incendiary energy acquired by the

ephemeral sedition of the west; hence the flame of discord, newly formed

by Myares, rendered vain and arrogant by the imaginary and promised

captain-general-ship of Venezuela; hence the American blood spilled in

spite of ourselves on the plains of Coro; hence the robberies and

assassinations committed on our coasts by the commissioned pirates of

the regency; hence that miserable blockade, intended to reduce and

disaffect our settlements on the coast; hence the insults committed on

the English flag; hence the falling off of our trade; hence the

conspiracies of the valleys of Aragua and Cumaná; hence the horrid

perfidy in Guayana; and the insulting transportation of its leading

characters to the Moorish dungeons of Puerto Rico--dungeons constructed

like those of Tunis and Algiers; hence the generous and impartial

offices of reconciliation sincerely interposed by a representative[3] of

the British government in the Antilles, and rejected by the pseudo

pacificator; hence, in fine, all the evils, all the atrocities, and all

the crimes which are and ever will be attached to the names of

Cortavarria and Melendes in Venezuela, and which have impelled her

government to exceed what was proposed when it took upon itself the fate

of those who honored it with their confidence.

"The mission of Cortavarria in the nineteenth century, and the state of

Spain which decreed it, compared with America, against whom it is

directed, evinces to what an extent the illusion of ambition blinds

those who found all the origin of their authority on the depravity of

the people. This act alone sufficed to authorize our conduct. The spirit

of Charles V., the memory of Cortes and Pizarro, and the names of

Montesuma and Atahualpa, are involuntarily reproduced in our

imagination, when we see the _adelantados_, the _pesquisadores_, and the

_encomenderos_, officers peculiar to the first settlement of America,

renewed in a country which, having suffered three centuries of sacrifice

and debasement, had promised to continue faithful on the only condition

of being free, in order that accidents of slavery might not tarnish the

merit of fidelity. The scandalous plenitude of power conferred on a man

who is authorised by an intrusive and illegitimate government, under the

insulting name of pacificator, to tyrannize and plunder, and to crown

the vexation, that he might pardon a noble, generous, tranquil, innocent

people, who were masters of their own rights, could only be credited in

the impotent delirium of a government that tyrannizes over a

disorganized nation, stunned by the fury of the tempest that reaches

her; but as the evils of this disorder, and the abuses of such an

usurpation might be considered as not derived from Ferdinand, already

acknowledged in Venezuela, at the time that he was unable to prevent

such accumulated insults, such excesses, and so much violence, committed

in his name, we consider it necessary to retrace the origin of these

rights, that we may descant on the nullity and invalidity of our

generous oath, by which we acknowledged him conditionally;

notwithstanding, we have in spite of ourselves to violate the

spontaneous silence we had imposed upon ourselves respecting every thing

that occurred prior to the affairs at the Escurial and Aranjues.

"The fact, that America does not belong to the territory of Spain is

self-evident, and it is equally evident that the right which the

Bourbons justly or unjustly exercised over it, and notwithstanding this

was hereditary, yet it could not be disposed of without the consent of

the people, and particularly of those of America, who, on the election

between the French and Austrian dynasties, might have acted in the

seventeenth century as they now have done in the nineteenth. The bull of

Alexander VI., and the titles which the house of Austria alleged in the

American code had no other origin than the right of power and conquest,

partially ceded to the conquerors and to the settlers for their

assistance rendered to the crown in extending its dominion in America.

Without taking into consideration the scanty population of the country,

the extermination of the natives, and the emigration which the

self-called mother country sustained; it appears that when the fury of

conquest had ceased--when the thirst for gold was satisfied--when the

continued equilibrium was declared in favour of Spain, by the

advantageous acquisition of America--the feudal government destroyed and

rooted out from the time of the Bourbons in Spain, and every right

extinct that did not originate in the new concessions or commands of the

prince, the conquerors and the settlers then became absolved of theirs.

As soon as the faultiness and invalidity of the rights which the

Bourbons have arrogated to themselves are demonstrated, the titles by

which the American descendants of the conquerors possessed these

countries revive--not to the detriment of the natives and primitive

proprietors, but to equalize them in the enjoyment of liberty, property,

and independence, which they always held by a right stronger than that

of the Bourbons or any other person or persons to whom they may have

ceded America, without the consent of its natural owners, the Americans.

"That America does not belong to the territory of Spain is a principle

of natural, and a law of positive right. No title just or unjust which

exists of American slavery can belong to the Spaniards of Europe, and

all the liberality of Alexander VI. could only declare the Austrian

kings promoters of the faith, in order to find out for them a

preternatural right by which to make them lords of America. Neither the

pre-eminence of the parent state, nor the prerogative of the mother

country, could at any time constitute the origin of lordship on the part

of Spain. The first was lost the moment the monarch who was acknowledged

by the Americans left his country and renounced his rights; and the

second never was more than a scandalous abuse of words, as great as that

of calling our slavery felicity; that of calling the fiscals protectors

of the indians; and that of saying that the sons of Americans were

divested of every right and civil dignity. By the mere act of even

passing from one country to another to settle in it, those who do not

leave their homes acquire no property, nor do they expose themselves to

the hardships of emigration. Those who conquer and obtain possession of

a country by means of their labour, industry, cultivation, and

connection with the natives thereof, are the individuals who have a

right of preference in preserving it, which right they transmit to their

posterity born therein; for if the country where one is born possessed

the origin of sovereignty, or gave the right of acquisition, the general

will of nations, and the fate of the human race, would then be riveted

to the soil, as are the trees, mountains, rivers, and lakes.

"Neither could it ever be considered as a title of property to one part

of a nation, the other having gone to another country to settle in it;

for by such a right Spain would belong to the Phoenicians, or their

descendants, or to the Carthagenians, wherever these may be found; even

the whole of the nations of Europe would have to change their abodes to

make room for and re-establish so singular a territorial right; home

would then become as precarious as are the wants and caprices of men.

The moral abuse of the maternity of Spain, with regard to America is

still more insignificant, for it is well known that in the natural order

of things, it is the duty of the father to emancipate the son, so soon

as his minority expire, and he is able to use his strength and reason in

providing for his subsistence; and also that it is the duty of the son

to emancipate himself, whenever the cruelty or extravagance of the

father or tutor endanger his welfare, or expose his patrimony to become

the prey of a miser, or an usurper. Under these principles let a

comparison be made of the three hundred years of our filiation to Spain;

and even when it is proved, that she was our mother, it still remains to

be proved that we are yet her minors or pupils.

"At any period when Spain has entertained any doubt of the rights of the

Bourbons, or of any other dynasty, the only source, and that not a very

clear one, of the Spanish dominion in America, it would appear that the

Americans were excluded from alleging any reasons that might destroy

such claims, though doubtful from their very origin; but as Venezuela

may hereafter be reproached for the conditional oath by which the

representative body that now declares its absolute independence of any

foreign power previously acknowledged Ferdinand VII., the same august

body feels anxious that no room should be left for scruples of

conscience, for the illusions of ignorance, and for the malice of

wounded ambition, whereby to discredit, calumniate, and weaken a

resolution, taken with such maturity and deliberation as best suited its

magnitude and importance.

"It is well known, that the promissory oath in question is no more than

an accessory bond, which always pre-supposes the validity and legitimacy

of the contract ratified by the same. When in the contract there is no

defect that may render it null and illegitimate, it is then that we

invoke God by an oath, believing that he will not refuse to witness it,

and guarantee the fulfilment of our promises, because the obligation to

comply with them is founded on an evident maxim of the natural law

instituted by the divine author. God can at no time guarantee any

contract that is not binding in the natural order of things, nor can it

be supposed that he will accept any contract opposed to those very laws

which he himself has established for the felicity of the human race. It

would be insulting his wisdom to believe that he would listen to our

vows when we implore his divine concurrence to a contract that is

opposed to our own liberty, the only origin of the right of our

actions--such a supposition would inculcate an idea that God had an

interest in multiplying our duties by means of such agreements, to the

prejudice of our national liberty. Even in case the oath could add any

new obligation to that of the contract thereby confirmed, the nullity of

the one would consequently be inseparable from the nullity of the

other; and if he who violates a sworn contract be criminal, and worthy

of punishment, it is because he has violated good faith, the only bond

of society, without the perjury being more concerned than to increase

the crime, and to aggravate the punishment. That national law which

binds us to fulfil our promises, and that divine one which forbids us to

invoke the name of God in vain, do not in any manner alter the

obligation contracted under the simultaneous and inseparable effects of

both laws, so that the infraction of the one supposes the infraction of

the other. For our good we call on God to witness our promises, and when

we believe that he can guarantee them, and avenge their violation, it is

only because the contract has nothing in itself that can render it

invalid, illicit, unworthy of or contrary to the eternal justice of the

Supreme Arbiter to whom we submit it. It is according to these

principles that we are to analyze the conditional oath by which the

congress of Venezuela has promised to preserve the rights legally held

by Ferdinand VII., without attributing to it any other which, being

contrary to the liberty of the people, would consequently invalidate the

contract, and annul the oath.

"We have seen that the people of Venezuela, impelled by the government

of Spain, became insensible of the circumstances that rendered the

tolerated rights of Ferdinand void, in consequence of the transactions

of the Escurial and Aranjues, as well as those of all his house, by the

cessions and abdications made at Bayonne; and from the demonstration of

this truth, follows, as a corollary, the invalidity of an oath, which,

besides being conditional, could not subsist beyond the contract to

which it was added as an accessory bond. To preserve the right of

Ferdinand was all that Caracas promised on the nineteenth of April, at a

time when she was ignorant that he had lost them--_Judicio caret

juramentum, incantum Div. tom. 22, p. 80, art. 3. Si vero sit quidem

posibile fieri; sed fieri non debeat, vel quid est per se malum, vel

quia est boni impeditivum, tunc juramento deest justitia, et ideo non

est servandum_. Quest, cit. art. 7. Even if Ferdinand retained them with

regard to Spain, it remains to be proved, whether by virtue of the same

he was authorized to cede America to another dynasty, without the

concurrence of her own consent. The accounts which Venezuela, in spite

of the oppression and cunning of the intrusive government, was enabled

to obtain of the conduct of the Bourbons, and the fatal effects that it

was likely to entail on America, have constituted a body of

irrefragable proofs, evincing that as Ferdinand no longer retained any

rights, the preservation of which Venezuela promised, as well as the

oath by which she confirmed this promise, consequently are, and ought to

be cancelled--_Jurabis in veritate, et in judicio, et in justicia_. From

the first part of the position, the nullity of the second becomes a

legitimate consequence.

"But neither the Escurial, Aranjues, nor Bayonne were the first theatres

of the transactions which deprived the Bourbons of their rights to

America. By the treaty of Basil, made July fifteenth, 1795, (by which

Godoy obtained the title of Prince of the Peace), and in the court of

Spain the fundamental laws of the Spanish dominion were broken. Charles

IV., contrary to one of them (Recopil. de Indias, law 1. tit. 1.) ceded

the island of Santa Domingo to France, and disposed of Louisiana to the

same foreign power, which unequalled and scandalous infractions

authorised the Americans, against whom they were committed, as well as

the whole of the Colombian people, to separate from the obedience, and

lay aside the oath by which they had bound themselves to the crown of

Castile, in like manner as they were entitled to protest against the

imminent danger which threatened the integrity of the monarchy in both

worlds, by the introduction of French troops into Spain previous to the

transactions at Bayonne, invited no doubt by one of the Bourbon

factions, in order to usurp the national sovereignty in favour of an

intruder, a foreigner, or a traitor; but as these events are prior to

the period that we have fixed on for our discussion, we will return to

those which have authorised our conduct since the year 1808.

"Every one is aware of the occurrences that took place at the Escurial

in 1807, but perhaps all are not acquainted with the natural results of

those events. It is not our intention to enter here into the discovery

of the origin of the discord that existed in the family of Charles IV.;

let England and France attribute it to themselves, both governments have

their accusers and their defenders; neither is it to our purpose to

notice the marriage agreed on between Ferdinand and the daughter-in-law

of Napoleon, the peace of Tilsit, the conference at Erfuhrt, the secret

treaty at St. Cloud, and the emigration of the house of Bragansa to the

Brasils. What most materially concerns us is, that by the transactions

of the Escurial, Ferdinand VII. was declared a traitor to his father

Charles IV. A hundred pens and a hundred presses published at the same

time in both worlds his perfidy, and the pardon which at his prayer was

granted to him by his father; but this pardon, as an attribute of the

sovereignty and of paternal authority, only absolved the son from

corporal punishment; the king his father had no power to free him from

the infamy and inability which the constitutional laws of Spain impose

on the traitor, not only to prevent him from obtaining the royal

dignity, but even the lowest office of civil employment; Ferdinand

therefore never could be a lawful king of Spain, or of the Indies.

"To this condition the heir of the crown remained reduced till the month

of March, 1808, when while the court was at Aranjues, the project that

was frustrated at the Escurial was converted into insurrection, and open

mutiny, by the friends of Ferdinand. The public exasperation against the

ministry of Godoy served as a pretext to the faction of Ferdinand, and

as an indirect plea to convert to the good of the nation what was

perhaps allotted to other designs. The fact of using force against his

father, instead of supplication and convincing arguments; his having

excited the people to mutiny; his having assembled the mob in front of

the palace, in order to take it by surprise, to insult the minister,

and force the king to abdicate his crown, which, far from giving

Ferdinand any title to it, tended to increase his crime, to aggravate

his treachery, and to complete his inability to ascend the throne,

vacated by violence, perfidy, and faction. Charles IV., outraged,

disobeyed, and threatened, had no other alternative suitable to his

decorum, and favourable to his vengeance, than to emigrate to France to

implore the protection of Bonaparte, in favour his offended royal

dignity. Under the nullity of the abdication of Aranjues, and contrary

to the will of the people of Spain, all the Bourbons assembled at

Bayonne, preferring their personal resentments to the safety of the

nation. The emperor of the French availed himself of this opportunity,

and having under his controul, and within his influence the whole family

of Ferdinand, and several of the first Spanish dignitaries, as well as

many substitutes for deputies in the cortes, he obliged Ferdinand to

restore the crown to his father, and then the latter to cede it to him,

the emperor, in order that he might afterwards confer it on his brother

Joseph.

"When the emissaries of the new King reached Caracas, Venezuela was

ignorant or knew but partially what had happened. The innocence of

Ferdinand, compared to the insolence and despotism of the favourite,

Godoy, directed the conduct of Venezuela when the local authorities

wavered on the fifteenth of July, 1808; and being left to choose between

the alternative of delivering himself up to a foreign power, or of

remaining faithful to a king who appeared to be unfortunate and

persecuted--the ignorance of what had occurred--triumphed over the

interests of the country, and Ferdinand was acknowledged, under the

belief, that by this means, the unity of the nation being maintained,

she would be saved from the oppression that threatened her, and the king

ransomed, of whose virtues, wisdom, and rights we were falsely

prepossessed. But less was requisite on the part of those who relied on

our good faith to oppress us. Ferdinand, disqualified, and unable

legally to obtain the crown--previously announced by the leaders of

Spain as dispossessed of his right of succession--incapable of governing

in America, and held in bondage by a foreign power--from that time

became by illusion a legitimate but unfortunate prince. As many as had

the audacity to call themselves his self-created heirs and

representatives became as such, and taking advantage of the innate

fidelity of the Spaniards of both worlds, and forming themselves into

intrusive governments, they appropriated to themselves the sovereignty

of the people, under the name of a chimerical king, began to exercise

new tyrannies, and, in a word, the commercial junta of Cadiz sought to

extend her controul over the whole of Spanish America.

"Such have been the antecedents and consequences of an oath, which,

dictated by candour and generosity, and conditionally maintained by good

faith, is now arrayed against us, in order to perpetuate those evils

which the dear-bought experience of three years has proved to be

inseparable to so fatal and ruinous an engagement. Taught as we are by a

series of evils, insults, hardships, and ingratitude, during the

interval of from the fifteenth of July, 1808, to the fifth of July,

1811, and such as we have already manifested, it became full time that

we should abandon it, as a talisman invented by ignorance, and adopted

by a misguided fidelity, as from its first existence it has constantly

heaped upon us all the evils that accompany an ambiguous state of

suspicion and discord. The rights of Ferdinand, and the legitimate

representation of them on the part of the intrusive governments of Spain

on the one side, demonstrations of compassion and gratitude on the

other, have been the two favourite springs alternately played on to

support our illusion, to decrease our substance, to prolong our

degradation, to multiply our evils, and ignominiously to prepare us to

receive that passive fate prepared for us by those who have dealt with

us so kindly for three centuries. Ferdinand VII. is the universal

watch-word for tyranny, as well in Spain as in America.

"No sooner was that vigilant and suspicious fear, produced among us by

the contradictory acts and artificious falsehoods of the strange and

short-lived governments which have succeeded one another since the junta

of Seville, made known to these governments, than they recurred to a

system of apparent liberality towards us, in order to cover with flowers

the very snare we had not perceived while covered by the veil of

candour, which was at length rent asunder by mistrust. For this purpose

of deceit were accelerated, and tumultuously assembled, the cortes, so

wished for by the nation, and opposed by the commercial government of

Cadiz, but which were at length considered as necessary to restrain the

torrent of liberty and justice, which on every side burst the wounds of

oppression and iniquity in the new world; it was even still supposed

that the habit of obedience, submission, and dependence, would be in us

superior to the conviction which at so high a price we had just

obtained.

"It is most strange by what kind of deception, fatal to Spain, it has

been believed, that the one part of a nation which crosses the ocean, or

is born under the tropics, acquires a habit united to servitude, and

incapable of bending to the habits of liberty. The effects of this

strong-rooted prejudice, as notorious to the world as they are fatal,

were at length converted into the welfare of America. Without it Spain

would perhaps not have lost the rank she held as a nation, and America

in obtaining this blessing would have had to pass through the bitter

ordeal of a civil war, more ominous to its promoters than to ourselves.

"Our public papers have already sufficiently demonstrated the defects

under which the cortes laboured respecting America, and the measures as

illegal as insulting adopted by that body to give us a representation

which we could not but object to, even though we were, as the regency

had loudly boasted us to be, integral parts of the nation, and had no

other complaints to allege against their government than the scandalous

usurpation of our rights at a moment when they most required our aid.

They have, no doubt, been informed of the reasonings we used with their

perfidious envoy, Montenegro, at a time that the former missions being

frustrated, the great shipments of newspapers filled with triumphs,

reforms, heroic acts, and lamentations, being rendered useless; and the

inefficacy of blockades, pacificators, squadrons and expeditions, made

known; it was thought convenient to dazzle the self-love of the

Americans, by seating near to the throne of the cortes deputies whom we

had never named, and who could not be chosen our substitutes by those

who created them such, in the same manner as they did others for the

provinces in possession of the French, submitting to, and alleging

themselves content under their domination. In case this puerile measure

of the prolific genius of Spain should not produce a due effect, the

envoy (and for this purpose an American, a native of Caracas, was

selected) was ordered, that in case the energy of the country, now

called rebellion, should prevail against fraternity, (the name given to

perfidy), he was to add fuel to the flame already kindled in Coro and

Maracaibo, and that discord, again raising her serpent head, might lead

the herald of the cortes by the hand under the banner of rebellion

through those deceived districts of Venezuela that had not been able

to-triumph over their oppressing tyrants.

"Stratagems and artifices were repeatedly forged, in order that

duplicity and cunning might prepare the road for the sanguinary armies

of the chiefs of Coro, Maracaibo, and Puerto Rico; and when the cortes

were convinced that the conduct of Ferdinand, his bonds of affinity with

the emperor of the French, and his influence over all the Bourbons

already placed under his tutelage, began to weaken the insidious

impressions, which fidelity, sustained by illusion, had produced in the

Americans; preventatives were employed to stop the flame already

kindled, and limit it to what was yet necessary for their vast

complicated and dark designs. For this purpose was written the eloquent

manifest which the cortes on the ninth of January directed against

America, worded in a stile worthy of a better object; but under the

brilliancy of diction the dark side of the argument, designed to

deceive, was discovered. Fearing that we should be the first to protest

against the whole of these nullities, they began to calculate on what

was already known, not to risk what was yet hidden. The misfortunes of

Ferdinand were the pretexts that had obtained for his

pseudo-representatives the treasures, submission, and slavery of

America; and Ferdinand seduced, deceived, and prostituted to the designs

of the emperor of the French, is now the last resource to which they fly

to extinguish the flames of liberty which Venezuela had kindled in the

south continent. We have discovered and published the true spirit of the

manifest in question, reduced to the following reasoning, which may be

considered as an exact commentary:--'America is threatened with becoming

the victim of a foreign power, or of continuing to be our slave; but in

order to recover her rights, and to throw off all dependency whatever,

she has considered it necessary not violently to break the bonds that

held her to this country. Ferdinand has been the signal of reunion which

the new world had adopted, and we have followed; he is suspected of

connivance with the emperor of the French, and if we give ourselves up

blindly to him, we afford the Americans a pretext for believing us still

his representatives; and as these designs already begin to be understood

in some parts of America, let us previously manifest our intention not

to acknowledge Ferdinand, except under certain conditions; these will

never be carried into effect, and whilst Ferdinand neither in fact nor

right is our king, we shall reign over America, the country we so much

covet, which although so difficult to preserve in slavery, will not then

so easily slip through our fingers.' Such are the expressions

illustrative of the opinions of Spaniards, agitated in the cortes,

respecting the allegiance to Ferdinand.

"The above brilliant appearance of liberality is now the real and

visible spring of the complicated machine destined to excite and stir up

commotions in America; at the same time that within the walls of the

cortes justice towards us is overlooked, our efforts are eluded, our

resolutions are contemned, our enemies are supported, the voices of our

imaginary representatives are suppressed, the inquisition is renewed

against them, when the liberty of the press is proclaimed, and it is

controversially discussed whether the regency could or could not declare

us free, and one integral part of the nation. When an American, worthy

of that name, speaks against the abuses of the regency in Puerto Rico,

endeavours are made to silence his just, energetic, and imperious

claims, that distinguish him from the slaves of despotism, and by means

of a short, cunning, and insignificant decree, they strive to avoid the

conflict of justice against iniquity. Melendés, named by the regency

king of Puerto Rico, is by a decree of the cortes left with the

equivalent investiture of a governor, names synonymous in America,

because it now appeared too monstrous to have two kings in a small

island of the Spanish Antilles. Cortavarria only was capable of eluding

the effects of a decree dictated merely by a momentary fit of decency.

It happened that when the investiture, granted by the regency to

Melendes was declared iniquitous, arbitrary, and tyrannical, and a

revocation was extended to all the countries of America, then situated

as was Puerto Rico, nothing was said of the plenipotentiary Cortavarria,

authorized by the same regency against Venezuela, with powers the most

uncommon and scandalous ever registered in the annals of organized

despotism.

"After this decree of the cortes the effects of discord promoted,

sustained, and denied at the fatal observatory of Puerto Rico were more

severely felt; it was after this decree that the fishermen and coasters

were inhumanly assassinated in Ocumare, by the pirates of Cortavarria,

after the report of which Cumana and Barcelona were blockaded,

threatened, and summoned. A new and sanguinary conspiracy against

Venezuela was formed, and organized by a vile emissary, who perfidiously

entered the peaceable bosom of his country, in order to destroy it;

deceptions were successively practised on the most innocent and

laborious classes of the imported colonists of Venezuela, principally

emigrants from the Canary Islands, and in spite of our endeavours the

chief instigators were led to the block as a sacrifice to justice and to

tranquillity. By the suggestions of the pacificator of the cortes, and

posterior to their said decree, the political union of our constitution

was lacerated in Valencia; attempts were made in vain to reduce other

cities of the interior; a false summons was sent to Carora, by the

factious leaders of the west, to the end that Venezuela might on the

same day be deluged in blood, and sunk in affliction and desolation, and

be hostilely assaulted from every point within the reach of the

conspirators, who were scattered amongst us by the same government that

issued the decree in favour of Puerto Rico and of all America. The name

of Ferdinand VII. is the pretext under which the new world is about to

be laid waste, if the example of Venezuela does not henceforward cause

the standard of our unshaken and established liberty to be distinguished

from the banners of a seditious and dissembled fidelity.

"The bitter duty of vindicating ourselves would carry us still further,

if we did not dread splitting on the same rocks as have the governments

of Spain, by substituting resentment for justice; at the same time that

we can charge her with three centuries of acts of injustice, we have

opposed three years of lawful, generous, and philanthropic efforts to

obtain what it was never in our power to dispose of, although by nature

ours. Had gall and poison been the chief agents of this our solemn,

true, and candid manifest, we should have begun by destroying the rights

of Ferdinand, in consequence of the illegitimacy of his origin, declared

by his mother at Bayonne, and published in the French and Spanish

papers; we should have proved the personal defects of Ferdinand, his

ineptitude to reign, his weak and degrading conduct in the court at

Bayonne; his inefficient education, and the futile securities that

offered for the realization of the gigantic hopes of the governments of

Spain; hopes founded in the illusion of America, nor any other support

than the political interests of England, much opposed to the rights of

the Bourbons. The public opinion of Spain, and the experience of the

revolution of the kingdom, furnish us with sufficient proofs of the

conduct of the mother, and the qualifications of the son, without

recurring to the manifest of the minister Azanza, published after the

transactions of Bayonne, and the secret memoirs of Maria Luisa; but

decency is the guide of our conduct, to which we are ready to sacrifice

even our reason. Sufficient has already been alleged to prove the

justice, necessity, and utility of our resolution, for the support of

which, nothing is wanting but the examples by which we will strive to

justify our independence.

"It were necessary for the partizans of slavery in the new world either

to destroy, or to falsify history, that unchangeable monument of the

rights and of the usurpations of the human race, before they could

maintain that America was not liable to the same changes that all other

nations have experienced. Even when the rights of the Bourbons had been

incontestible and indelible, the oath that we have proved never did

exist, the injustice, force, and deceit with which the same was exacted

of us would suffice to render it null and void, so soon as it was found

to be opposed to our liberty, grievous to our rights, prejudicial to our

interests, and fatal to our tranquillity. Such is the nature of an oath

made to the conquerors and to their heirs, at the same time that the

crown holds them in oppression by means of the same additional strength

that it obtained by means of the result of their conquest. It was in

this manner that Spain herself recovered her rights, after she had sworn

allegiance to the Carthagenians, Romans, Goths, Arabs, and almost to the

French; nevertheless she yet disowns the rights of America, no longer to

depend on any nation when she is capable of throwing off the yoke, and

following the example of Spain and of other nations.

"It would be superfluous to remind our enemies of what they already

knew, and in what they have themselves founded the sacred right of their

own liberty and independence; epochs so memorable, that they ought not

to have been tarnished with the slavery of the greater part of a country

situated on the other side of the ocean. But unfortunately it is not

they alone whom it is necessary to convince by palpable examples of the

justice and common resemblance that our independence bears to that of

all other nations which had lost and again recovered it. The illusions

of slavery, kept alive by the candour of the Americans, and supported by

the most criminal abuse that superstition can form of the established

belief and religion, which one would suppose were only dictated for the

happiness, liberty, and salvation of the people, namely, by the

excommunications denounced against the people of Caracas for changing

their government, render it necessary to tranquillize the deceived piety

of some, to instruct their unwary ignorance, and stimulate their apathy,

that had slumbered since the unusual tranquillity of the new order of

things: in short, it is time to inculcate, that governments never had

nor ever can have any other duration than the utility and happiness of

the human race may require; that kings are not of any privileged nature,

nor of an order superior to other men; that their authority emanates

from the people, directed and supported by the providence of God, who

leaves our actions to our own free-will; that his omnipotence does not

interfere in favour of any peculiar form of government; and that neither

religion nor its ministers can anathematize the efforts of a nation

struggling to be free and independent in the political order of things,

and resolved to depend only on God and his ministers in a moral and

religious sense.

"The very people of God, governed by himself, and guided by such

miracles, portentous signs and favors as will perhaps never again be

repeated, offer a proof of the rights of insurrection on the part of the

people sufficiently satisfactory to the orthodox piety of the friends

of public order. The subjects of Pharaoh, and bound by force to obey

him, collect round Moses, and under his guidance triumph over their

enemies, and recover their independence without being blamed by God or

his prophet and legislator, Moses, for their conduct, or being subjected

by them to the least malediction or anathema. This same people being

afterwards subjected by the forces of Nebuchadnezzar; first--under the

direction of Holofernes, Judith was sent by God to procure their

independence by the death of the Babylonian general. Under Antiochus,

Epiphanes, Mattathias and his sons raised the standard of independence,

and God blessed and aided their efforts till he obtained the entire

liberty of his people against the oppression of that impious king and

his successors. Not only against the foreign kings who oppressed them

did the Israelites resort to the right of insurrection by breaking

through the obedience to force; but even against those whom God had

given them in their own country and of their own nation do we behold

them claim this imprescriptable right wherever their liberty and their

advantage required it, or when the sacred character of those facts by

which God himself bound them to those he chose as their governors, had

been profaned. David obtained the allegiance of the Israelites in favour

of his dynasty, and his son Solomon ratified it in favour of his

posterity; but at the death of this king, who had oppressed his subjects

by exactions and contributions to support the splendour of his court and

the luxury and sumptuousness of his pleasures, then the tribes of Judah

and Benjamin alone acknowledged his son, and the other ten, availing

themselves of their rights, recovered their political independence, and

in excuse thereof deposited their sovereignty in Jereboam, the son of

Nabath. The momentary and passing hardships of the reign of Solomon were

sufficient for the Israelites to annul their obedience sworn to his

line, and to place another on the throne without waiting for an order

from the Deity, informing them, that their fate no longer depended on

the kings of Judah, nor on the ministers, chiefs, or priests of Solomon.

And shall the Christian people of Venezuela and of all Spanish America

be still in a worse plight, and after being declared free by the

government of Spain after three hundred years of captivity, exactions,

hardships, and injustice, shall they not be allowed to do what the God

of Israel, whom they equally adore, formerly permitted to his people

without being spurned, and without vengeance being hurled upon their

heads? It is his divine hand that guides our conduct, and to his eternal

judgments our resolution shall be submitted.

"If the independence of the Hebrew people was not a sin against the

written law, that of a Christian people cannot be such against the law

of grace. At no time has the apostolical see excommunicated any nation

that has risen against the tyranny of those kings or governments which

had violated the social compact. The Swiss, Dutch, French, and North

Americans proclaimed their independence, overturned their constitution,

and varied their forms of government without having incurred any other

spiritual censures than those which the church might have fulminated for

the infringements on the belief, discipline, or piety, but without their

being connected with political measures or alluding to the civil

transactions of the people. The Swiss were bound by oath to Germany, as

were also the Dutch to Spain, the French to Louis XVI., and the North

Americans to George III.; yet neither they nor the princes that favoured

their independence were excommunicated by the Pope. The grandfather of

Ferdinand VII., one of the most pious and catholic kings that ever

filled the throne of Spain, together with his nephew, Louis XVI.,

protected the independence of North America, without dreading

ecclesiastical censures or the anger of heaven; and now that the order

and succession of events more justly place it within the reach of South

America, those who call themselves the authorized agents of the grandson

wish to abuse that same religion so much respected by Charles III., in

order to prolong the most atrocious and unparalleled usurpations. Just,

omnipotent, and most merciful God! Till when will fanaticism dispute the

empire of that sacred religion which thou sent to the uncorrupted

regions of America for thy glory and her felicity.

"The events which have accumulated in Europe to terminate the bondage of

America, beyond doubt entered into the high designs of Providence.

Placed at a transatlantic distance of two thousand leagues, we have done

nothing in the three years which have elapsed since we ought to be free

and independent, till the period when we resolved to be so, than pass

through the bitter trials of stratagems, conspiracies, insults,

hostilities, and depredations on the part of that same nation whom we

invite to partake of the good of our regeneration, and for whose

welfare we wished to open the gates of the new world, heretofore closed

to all communication with the old one, now wasted and inflamed by war,

hunger, and desolation. Three distinct oligarchies have declared war

against us, have despised our claims, have excited civil dissensions

amongst us, have sown the seeds of discord and mistrust in our great

family, have planned three horrible conspiracies against our liberty,

have interrupted our trade, have suppressed our agriculture, have

traduced our conduct, and have sought to raise against us an European

power, by vainly imploring its aid to oppress us. The same flag, the

same language, the same religion, the same laws, have till now

confounded the party of liberty with that of tyranny: Ferdinand VII. as

liberator, has been opposed to Ferdinand VII. as oppressor; and if we

had not resolved to abandon a name at the same time synonymous with

crime and virtue, America would in the end be enslaved by the same power

that is exercised for the independence of Spain.

"Such has been the nature of the imperious impulse of conviction,

tending to open our eyes, and to impel Venezuela to separate eternally

from a name so ominous and so fatal. Placed by it in the irrevocable

alternative of being the slave or the enemy of her brethren, she has

preferred the purchase of her own freedom at the expense of friendship,

without destroying the means of that reconciliation she desired. The

most powerful reasons, the most serious meditations, the most profound

considerations, long discussions, contested debates, well analyzed

combinations, imperious events, imminent dangers, and the public opinion

clearly pronounced and firmly sustained, have been the precursors of

that solemn declaration made on the fifth of July, by the general

congress of Venezuela, of the absolute independence of this part of

South America; an act sighed for and applauded by the people of the

capital, sanctioned by the powers of the confederation, acknowledged by

the representatives of the provinces, sworn to and hailed by the chief

of the church of Venezuela, and to be maintained with the lives,

fortunes, and honour of all the citizens.

"Freemen, companions of our fate! Ye who have known how to divest your

hearts of fear, or of hope; give from the elevation on which your

virtues have placed you an impartial and disinterested look on the

portrait that Venezuela has just traced out to you. She constitutes you

the arbitrators of her differences with Spain, and the judges of her new

destinies. If you have been affected by our evils, and are interested

in our felicity, unite your efforts with ours, that the artifices of

ambition may not any longer triumph over liberality and justice.

"To you it belongs to convince Spain of what an unfortunate rivalship

places beyond the reach of America. Refrain the giddiness that has

seized on her new governments; point out to them the reciprocal

advantages of our regeneration; unfold to them the soothing prospect

that they are prevented from beholding in America by that monopoly which

has hardened their hearts; tell them what threatens them in Europe, and

point out to them what they may expect in America, tranquil,

uncorrupted, and already covered with all the blessings of liberty; nay

swear to them in our name, that Venezuela awaits her brethren with open

arms to share with them her happiness without asking any other sacrifice

than that of prejudice, pride, and ambition, which for three centuries

have produced the united misery of both countries."

"Juan Antonio Rodriguez Dominguez, _President_."

"Francisco Isnardy, _Secretary_."

"_Federal Palace of Caracas, July 30th, 1811._"

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The occurrences at Quito also bear testimony to this.

[2] Montufar, Villavicencio, Goyoneche.

[3] Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane.