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 declaring the provinces of Ultramar "to be component parts of the Monarchy, and not Colonies or Factories, like those of other nations,"[1] the Central Junta gave place to the Regency, which, desirous still farther to conciliate the Creoles, by a decree, dated the 17th May, 1810, conceded to them, under certain limitations, free trade, during the suspension of the usual intercourse with the Mother country. This wise decree, the best possible antidote, (as the author of the "Español" very justly terms it,) against a revolutionary spirit in
- ↑ Vide Proclamation, dated Seville, 5th June, 1809; and "Aviso" of 10th January, 1810.
"Considerando que los vastos y preciosos dominios que lă Espana posee en las Indias, no son, propiamente, Colonias, o' Factorias, como los de otras naciones, sino una parte esencial, é integrante, de la Monarquía Española."
