exhausted by the arms and uniforms, which our deserters are enabled, by the general assistance that they meet with, to carry over to the rebels:—For, as six millions of inhabitants, decided in the cause of Independence, have no need of previous consultation or agreement, each one acts, according to his means and opportunities, in favour of the project common to all:—The Judge, and his dependents, by concealing or conniving at crimes:—the Clergy, by advocating the justice of the cause in the confessional, and even in the pulpit itself:—the writers, by corrupting public opinion:—the women, by employing their attractions to seduce the royal troops, and even prostituting themselves to them in order to induce them to go over to the insurgents:—the Government officer, by revealing, and thus paralyzing the plans of his superiors:—the youth, by taking arms:—the old man, by giving intelligence, and forwarding correspondence:—the public Corporations, by giving an example of eternal differences with the Europeans, not one of whom they will admit as a colleague,—by refusing any sort of assistance to the Government,—and by representing its conduct, and that of its faithful agents, in the most odious light, in protests, for which malice always finds a specious pretext; while the edifice of the State is thus sapped by all, under the shelter of the liberal institutions of the day!
An association has subsisted in this Capital for more than three years, under the name of "the Guadalupes," which corresponds with every part of the kingdom, and is composed of a number of men whose situation necessarily gives them a participation in the affairs of the Government. And yet it is by these men that the operations of the rebels have been directed, and that they have been encouraged and supported in their reverses.
From this club they received every species of information that could conduce either to their security, or to the success of their plans,—a diary of all that passed in the Capital,—statements of forces,—of money and stores issued by the Government,—accounts of its resources, wants, and necessities, and intelligence of every measure taken by the Viceroy, in order to meet the exigencies of the moment. Proofs of this treasonable correspondence have been acquired during the late severe
