which the good and the bad were equally infected;—resisting the fury of that political mania, the contagion of which seemed to have spread to all classes, drawing alike the merchant, the artizan, the clergyman, and the husbandman, out of their proper spheres, and making them politicians, or rather political dreamers, (febricitantes;)—trying, in every way, to conciliate the reciprocal hatred of the Europeans and the Americans; and witnessing, every hour, the danger with which the country was threatened by the effects of an ill-timed liberty, and a monstrous rebellion;—I leave it to your Excellency to imagine what must have been the anguish which I have often endured.
Happily I now see some end to the evils which have afflicted us: all will cease as soon as His Majesty deigns to turn his eyes to this much wounded portion of his kingdom. My unshaken loyalty has long sighed for the day, which has at length arrived, and henceforward no one shall venture with impunity to refuse obedience, while I am at the head of this Government, to the orders of the Sovereign of Spain, Ferdinand the desired!
But the disaffected are all in favour of the Constitution; not that they ever really and sincerely intend to adopt it, or to submit to the Mother-country on any terms, but because it affords them the means of attaining what they desire without risk, and with more facility than they could expect.
On this account they will doubtless be active on the present occasion, in fomenting discord, and encouraging rebellion, under the mask of liberty and patriotism, or of hatred to despotism and tyranny; words, of which a use has been made, of late, too dangerous to be tolerated any longer.
Some even of the Europeans have wrong views upon this subject, and will not see the danger to which they expose themselves by lending their countenance to ideas which can only lead from disaffection to rebellion: and it is the more necessary on this account to ascertain the depth to which the roots of the new system have struck, and to take advantage of this critical moment, in order to fix for ever the authority of His Majesty in this country, by changing the alimentary system altogether, and employing tonics, and actual cautery, to exterminate the cancer, by which the patient is consumed.
The insurrection is so deeply impressed and rooted in the
