98 MEXICO. would not, understand the soundness of the reasoning, by which a measure, that was allowed to have been productive of the most beneficial results in the Peninsula, could be con- structed into absolute treason on the opposite side of the Atlantic* Their perception of their own rights was quickened by a deep sense of the grievances under which they laboured, as well as by the injudicious manner in which the justice of their complaints was admitted by the new governments of the Mother country, although not one of those measures was taken, by which the causes of them might have been removed. The State papers of the day furnish abundant proofs of the vacillating policy which prevailed, with regard to American affairs ; and, as they have long become the property of the historian, I shall avail myself of them, without scruple, in order to illustrate it. After proclaiming " a perfect equality of rights, between the American and Spanish subjects of the crown,"" and de- claring the provinces of Ultramar " to be component parts of the Monarchy, and not Colonies or Factories, like those of other nations,"-f- the Central Junta gave place to the Regency, which, desirous still farther to conciliate the Creoles, by a de- cree, dated the l^ih of May, 1810, conceded to them, under
- It is impossible too strongly to insist upon the fact, that all the pro-
ceedings of the American Independents were but a transcript of those which had taken place in the Mother Country. They applied to the Cortes, at a later period, the very principles which the Cortes applied to Ferdinand VII.; and refused to submit to that despotism, in the hands of a popular assembly, which was admitted by that assembly to be intole- rable, while in the hands of a monarch. t Vide Proclamation, dated Seville, 5th June, 1809; and "Aviso of 10th January, 1810.
- ' Considerando que los vastos y preciosos dominios que la Espana
posee en las Indias, no son, propiamente, Colonias, o' Factorias, como los de otras naciones, sino una parte esencial, e integrante, dela Monarquia Espanola.
