Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/563

APPENDIX. 523 therefore, to doubt the nature of the measures by which the rebellious spirit of the country must be quelled. Notwithstanding the apprehensions which I have thought it my duty to express in the most unreserved manner, with regard to the state of this country, in order the better to enable his Majesty to take the re- quisite measures for its preservation, I have no hesitation in assuring your Excellency that, whatever changes may occur, Mexico shall not succeed in throwing oflF the yoke, and withdrawing her obedience to her lawfiil sovereign, while I am charged with her preservation, although it should be necessary for me, as a last resource, (which, however, 1 do not think probable,) to put myself at the head of the whole army, and to lay waste the country with fire and sword, until I had destroyed our in- famous opponents, and planted in every corner the standard of the Mo- narch of Spain. I have extended this letter much beyond what 1 intended, but my profound loyalty, and my wish to preserve to my August Sovereign this precious part of his dominions, have compelled me to present to his Ma- jesty, thi-ough the medium of your Excellency, a detailed account of the state of New Spain. I have done no more than furnish, at present, a mere sketch of the dangers of its position ; but considering that this will be sufficient to enable his Majesty to take the most necessary steps at once, I shall reserve for the next opportunity a detailed history of the rebellion, which shaU be accompanied by all the documents necessary to confirm what I have stated here, and shall be compelled to state here- after, respecting the fatal disposition of the natives. In the mean time, I entreat your Excellency to examine my correspondence with the minis- ters of War, and of Grace and Justice, in which you will find the same ideas and principles which I have expressed in this letter respecting the new system, and my sad forebodings as to the effects which must be pro- duced by its observance in this country. It now only remains for me to solicit your Excellency to lay at His Majesty's feet the expression of my unspeakable joy at the happy succes- sion of His Majesty to the Throne, and Sovereign rights of his August Predecessors ; my eternal adherence to His Majesty's Royal person and rights, and my determination to sacrifice my life, as a soldier and a sub- ject, in their defence, following as Viceroy the conduct which I observed, in the face of the world, at the beginning of the civil disturbances in the year 1810, when I quitted the command of San Luis Potosi, in order to take the field, and snatching from the bosom of the Insurrection those very men who would have been its most formidable support, but have, in fact, done most towards extinguishing it, I immortalized the brave and loyal warriors of the North by dissipating on the fields of Aculco, Gua- najuato, and Calderon, the tempest, which the apostate Curate, Miguel Hidalgo, had raised against the throne of Spain, and proved that the first wish of my heart was the defence of our adored Ferdinand, and the