regard to trade, which the Mother country had always conceived it to be its interest to maintain. This was the great bar to accommodation on both sides. Pecuniary advantages might have afforded a compensation for the loss of a portion of that authority, which could hardly have been retained much longer, under any circumstances, in its former extent: but freedom of discussion and commercial monopoly could not exist together. Ignorance was its basis, and the strong arm of power its support. To allow of inquiry or interference on the part of the Colonies, (and who was to check them, if once a Legislative assembly were granted?) was virtually to abrogate the prohibitory laws; and against this, the pride and the prejudices of the Peninsula alike rebelled.
Neither the Constitution of 1812, nor the overthrow of that Constitution in 1814, nor its re-establishment in 1820, created any material difference in the Colonial policy of Spain: the King, on his return from captivity, though he reprobated all the other acts of the Cortes, adopted their system with regard to America, and even pursued it with additional vigour. General Murillo's expedition against Carthagena took place a year after the restoration, (1815,) and a second expedition, upon a still larger scale, was, as is well known, preparing in 1819, and led to the Revolution of 1820.
It is unnecessary to enter into the details of this contest, which possess but little interest for the
