The National Register. — London, England, 1814-09-04 00:00:00

THE NATIONAL REGISTER. work, published for Mr. Ridgway, by Mr. William Walton, certainly contains more local information and sound reasoning on the real interests of England regardi I g the point in question, than an y thin g before printed. t not only explains with method the origin and progress of these dissentions, but it p oints out how they will affect us in a political and commercial point of view. It deve lopc:; the resources of Spanish America, establishes the so cial rights of its inhabitants, and throws a prodigious mass of !ight On an interesting bnt hitherto obscure question. Disengaged as we arc from an active struggle, and bgund to increase our resources, as a means to make up for past losses, Spanish America presents herself, as it were, like a new spot in the creation, with streams of wealth, which, like the ancient Pactolus, may carry plenty to crown our most sanguine hopes. This immense continent, even under its old degradation, consumed £13,320,000 of imported goods, and afforded to the world, coin and groat territorial productions ; and, as Mr. W. states, is capable of an astonishing progress l —and is this to be diregarded ? Spanish America has now overgrown Spain, and the late Madrid papers seem to despair of ever again securing her allegiance. The sole object of France is now to extend her commerce, to make up for past inactivity, and, most assuredly, it is to Spanish America she turns her eager eyes. French scarants have long travelled there : this was a flattering scheme of Buonaparte's ; many French officers are now emigrating there, and it behoves EnOand carefully to watch, that she is not supplanted, or shut out from an equal participation in resources to which, on the core of gratitude, she has a greater claim. it being our intention, from time to time, to call the at tention of the British public to this important subject, by extracting some of the most remarkable passages of Mr. Walto , Cs work, both relating to Spain and Spanish Ame rica, w e will, for the present, close our remarks m ith the followimr, pas ~ age from page 17'2 : 64 I f, o.erefore, an over delicacy on the part of England, has been the eanse or a pro , ongation of the horrors already sketched ; if, from a want of energy and by a tame snbser viencv to !"•pain, the calls of humanity, prudence., and in tc!-est, have been unheard; is it not time, to ponder on the di,tre,sed situl,tion Spaoish America, and as a compensa tion. for our past neglect, nay, as a return for the unpro v,:ked aeg , avat:ons we ourselves once brought on the heads of its inhabitants, and also to retrieve our honour, is it not time to tic the principles and basis, essential to the restora tion of peace? As before inculcated, Spain is a party, un der irritated and pa tii , l feelings, and consequently, cannot 130 ht own umpire. i v her conduct, and by the hostile, cr , lf.l, wry inhuman, inste.id of conciliatory mea , ures, pur sue;i, stle has hurled the art ow of defiance at every hope of SPPT. 4, reconciliation, by her own means ; and oppression and nar row-mirded policy, have completed that baneful structure. of which political hatred, the clashing of interests, an d the deadly spirit of monopoly, first laid the foundation. As before clearly roved, for Spain to affiance her sway in the manner she now seeks, it must be on ihc ruin or degra- dation of a forsaken, but onoffending people. Yet still her object is not secure. She may, for a while, rivet and pro long the chains of despotism ; from her fortified places, the illusion may yet be maintained, and hairassing expeditions may be fitted out to carry discord and havoc amongst the per. severing natives. Spain may yet use further exertions, and send out more troops, till the whole country is wrapped in a wider, and still more bloody waste of anarchy and slaughter ; but in all, or either of these cases, does not the philanthropic mind stand appalled; does not human nature shudder at such devastations, murders, and enormities; and does not the united voice of humanity and of policy, call aloud for the cessation of such multiplied evils? The Spanish Americans, also, who have beheld all their efforts of redress treated with disdain ; who see the sacred rights they have inherited from their forefathers trampled to the ground; and their 'with &um covered with ruins, and deluged with the blood of its natives, who behold that very constitution the agents of Spain have been planting with the bayonet's point, now revokes and held up to public scorn ; who have before them, nothing but the prospect of a worse degradation, than that they before experienced; and who, in short, sec that they have only to trust to an incon sistent and faithless people, will consider that the Rubicon is passed, and conceiving that they are authorised by every law, human and divine, to persist in their enterprize, will render their insulted country a tomb to all Europeans; arming the coloured natives, and, as in Caracas, declaring a general death war, and rushing into dreadful retaliation, they will render their unfortunate country, a blot in the works of the creation. Nay, do we not already see, that the weapons of each arc sharpening for mutual slaughter, and that s general war-yell, resounds through the unfilled vallies and demolished towns of New Spain, Caracas, La Plata, Santa Fe, Chili, Quito, &c. and that it is soon likely to spread to Peru, Guayaquil, and Guatemala, the only points, where the Geslers and Verres of Spain, have been able to insure control. " Gradually, as the spirit of animosity has flamed wider, and as local wrongs and unheard-of outrages, have i pel le dto resistance and firm-set purposes, the Spanish Arne: icans have talien their stand ; and sooner than re turn► to their old degraded state ; sooner than again sutler their chains to be put on by those very hands which have torn to pieces their rights and charter;; which have so long rent the bosom of their country with anarchy and a mercenary civil war, and are, besides, crimsoned with the blood of so many of their fellow citizens and relations, they are resolved to perish in the sruggle, and, at least, transmit to their posterity, the records of those just en deavours, which ouOt to have insured theta the respect of even their enemies. Roused, as they are, to a sense of 4411‘1151 • 1.• _.-. - •: _ ~' I