Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/551

APPENDIX. 511 la Puente, Miguel Bachiller, Felipe Martinez, Manuel Martinez Mansilla, Ambrosio Lagarzurrieta. Note of Editor. — (Don Carlos Bustamante.) The Audiencia lost by the establishment of the Spanish Constitution, which was sworn in Mexico, the 30th October, 1812, the most lucrative part of its former privileges: The Commissions, Conservadurias de Mayorazgos, the Judgment of Natives, the Assessorships of the Mines and Post-office, the Management of the Marquisate of the Valle de Oaxaca, the Auditorships of War, &c. its direct influence over the Vice- roys by means of the Acuerdo, and its right of deciding in cases of appeal upon government measures. Hence its detestation of a system which it attacked under the pretence of zeal for the public welfare. Hence, too, its hostility to Iturrigaray, whom it deposed, ignomini- ously, and whose condemnation to a fine of 284,241 dollars, under a sen- tence of Residencia, it ultimately effected. Note of English Editor. Bustamante is undoubtedly right in his opinion of the motives by which the Audiencia was actuated ; but, at the same time, it must be con- fessed that this Tribunal appears to have had a very clear perception of the real state of Mexico. Its arguments with regard to the inapplicabi- lity of the Constitution to a country in a state of revolution, are unan- swerable: it conceded too much, or too little : Spain had no choice but to retain her power, if she could, by the means which had enabled her, during three centuries, to support it, and to modify abuses, the existence of which she could not deny, when submission was restored ; or to resign her authority at once into the hands of those, who would no longer ac- knowledge it, and to endeavour to make the best bargain she could for the cession of rights, which she could hardly hope to retain. The error lies in having thought that the first of these alternatives could be adopted with any prospect of success ■; and this error is the more in- excusable on the part of the Audiencia, from the conviction which it ex- presses, and appears to feel throughout the present Representation, that the sense of the majority of the nation was decidedly in favour of Inde- pendence. To conceive that, when once this idea had taken root, it could ever be eradicated, — to hope that in a country where it had spread in an instant from the highest to the lowest classes, " like atmospheric plague," and where its growth was fostered not only by every principle of reason and justice, but by feelings of personal interest and private animosity, the spirit could be stifled or crushed, was the height of folly ; and dearly has Spain expiated it by the loss of those advantages, which, until within the last year, it was still in her power to secure.