SOUTH AMERICAN EMANCIPATION,
AND TO THE COMMERCIAL INTERESTS OF GREAT BRITAIN,
THIS WORK
IS (BY PERMISSION) HUMBLY DEDICATED.
PREFACE.
The interest which the late successful revolution in Spanish America has awakened in Europe renders any genuine account of the new world so highly acceptable to the British nation, that it has become an almost imperative duty in those who may possess original matter to communicate it to the public; for it may be said, without the least exaggeration, that although the countries thus emancipated were discovered in the sixteenth century, they have remained almost unknown till the beginning of the nineteenth.
Fully convinced of these facts, and being urged by my friends, when I was on the eve of again crossing the Atlantic, to publish my collection of notes and memoranda—the gleanings of a twenty years' residence—in order to contribute my quota to the small stock of authentic matter already laid before an anxious public, I have been induced to postpone my voyage, and to embody my observations in the manner in which they now appear.