Alexandria gazette & advertiser. [volume] (Alexandria [D.C.]) 1822-1824, 1824-07-29
From the Boston Courier.
SOUTH AMERICA.

The following is the concluding
part of an excellent article in the last
North American Review, on South
America. 1t is said to be from the
pen of the accomplished editor, the
Rev. ]. Sparks.
eve have now finished our de-
sign of tracing a brief sketch of the
principles and operation of the Spa
nish colonial policy in South Ameri-
ca. An outline is all at which we
have aimed, and yet we have made
such demands on the patience OF our
readers, that we shall spare them
the task of listening 10 other re-
marks. which we had contemplated,
respecting the tendency OF this sys-
TEN to work It's own ruin, and hasten
Che day of change and retrlbution.
This ferbearance we exercise with
the less regret, inasmach as the re-
suits to which we had come must be
perfectly obvious to any person, who
looks at no other, THAI the Compara-
lively small number of facts record
ed in the preceding pages. BY no
one, not as much infatuated as were
the first conquerors of the New
World, or as much degraded as those
whom they oppressed, could it be
imagined, that such scheme of tor
ture, and tyranny, and plumber,
could become perpetual. When hu.
man nature shall be totally chang
ed, the principles of social union IN
yerted, the common ties OF affection
and fellow feeling broken and dis
solved, and the instructive desire OF
MISREPRESENTATION 4 happiness, which
is the basis of all government, shall
be eradicated, then, and not before,
may the patrons of SO barbarous an
engine of human suffering no!despair
of reducing under its unceasing &C
ton community of thinking, ra-
tional beings.
There have been attempts to pal
late the crimes perpetrated in the In.
dies, by hiding then in the bright
ness of the boasted wisdom and leni-
" of the laws. To US this would
seem only to increase their enormi.
Nv. 1t is acknowledged. that laws E.
nough, and more than enough, were
passed, and that royal DEGREES and
ordinances were sent out on all Oc-
casions, and with great formaIity. by
the Council Of the Indies, under pre-
t nee of restraining abuses in Anne
RIGA. But who does not know that
the abuses still continued? To pass
mild and humane laws, which no
one ever thought of executing, was
an insult to the oppressed, instead of
being an evidence of the magnanimi-
ty or mercy of the law makers
Whatever praise the Jaws may claim
for their abstract wisdom, and here
we would beg 10 be mere penurious
than prodigai, it is ohvisns that i'll
the same degree do they manifest the
hypocrisy and sinister motives of the
persons, whose duty it was not only
to frame laws, but to see them put in
execution. Doctor Fumes has said,
with perfect Justice, that the 'publici-
ty with which the robbers in Ameri-
ca made a display of their plumber
before the eyes of the peninsular go
yernment, and The largesses continu-
ally received by the members of that
government, are proofs incontestible
of their being accomplices.' The
more and milder the laws, the more
frequent were the opportunities of re-
.ceiving brides for the privileges of
transgressing them with impunity.
In short. the scheme of oppression
praetised in Old Spain on the COLO
MES in America, under the name ut
government, exhibits little else than
conspiracy of vice, power, and in
terest, against justice and good faith.
liberty and happiness. and almost
every other,right and principle which
give dignity to character, and value
to existence.
The influence of this power could
not but decay, from the radical and
incurable defects of the foundation on
which it was raised. The same pro-
cess was FASTENED by other causes,
nilu mt nf cincn,n