An Expose on the Dissentions of Spanish America; Intended as a Means to Induce the Mediatory Interference of Great Britain, in Order to Put an End to a Destructive Civil War and to Establish Permanent Quiet and Prosperity, on a Basis Consistent with the (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1814 Excerpt: ...II. lity was displayed. Every fierce passion, that rancour and sordid gain could stimulate and impel, or slander and malice could inspire, was now unchained; and neither the intrinsic merits of the scheme, or its justice and urgency, could establish those principles of honest policy and diffusive patriotism, which were so essential to the return of peace. Spanish America, had to behold, in the first debates relating to its welfare, one of the greatest violations of national faith and common justice, ever before witnessed; and when the edifice of public happiness had been laid in ruins, by factions and the storms of war, those who presided over the fate of the nation were too unjust, seriously and impartially, to enquire, on what basis it was to be rebuilt, and what proportions the structure was to possess in future. In short, the first debates of the Sanish Cortes, respecting the situation of Spanish America, evinced, that the majority of its members, were not prepared to contend with the habitual influence and authority of long established custom, however faithless the grounds on which it had been founded; and that they were far from being ready to break to pieces, the old idol of their blind and fatal superstition. Spain, appeared disposed to regenerate within herself, every thing that she was able; but she seemed jealous of bringing her American brethren into the light of truth, and into the consoling atmosphere of civil liberty; nor was she sufficiently liberal, to dissipate the Egyptian darkness, by which they had been so long surrounded. She was careless about regaining the esteem, which in the eyes of Europe, she had forfeited, by her degraded conduct to her distant provinces; and she was forgetful of those humanising principles, which constitute the...