Historical and descriptive narrative of twenty years' residence in South America (Vol 3 of 3) / Containing travels in Arauco, Chile, Peru, and Colombia; with an account of the revolution, its rise, progress, and results

by active 1803-1825 William Bennet Stevenson

"Spanish America, condemned for more than three centuries to exist only for the purpose of increasing the political preponderance of Spain, without the least influence in, or participation of her greatness, would, according to the order of events in which she had no other part than that of sufferance, have been the victim and the sacrifice of the disorder, corruption, and conquest, which have disorganized the nation her conqueror, if the instinct of self-preservation had not dictated to the Americans, that the moment of action had arrived, and that it was time to reap the fruits of three centuries of patience and forbearance.

"If the discovery of the new world was to the human race an occurrence highly interesting, the regeneration of this same world, degraded from that period by oppression and servitude, will not be less so. America, raising herself from the dust, and throwing off her chains without passing through the political gradations of other countries, will in her turn triumph over the world, without deluging it in blood, without enslaving it, without brutifying it. A revolution most useful to mankind will be that of America, when she shall constitute her own authorities and govern herself, opening her arms to receive those people of Europe who may be trampled on by policy, wish to fly from the evils of war, or escape the persecution and the fury of party. The inhabitants of one hemisphere will then cross the ocean to the other in search of peace and tranquillity; not with the lust nor perfidy of conquest, like the heroes of the sixteenth century—as friends, not as tyrants: as men willing to obey, not as lords to command—not to destroy, but to save—not as ravenous tigers, but as human beings, who, horror-struck at the account of our past misfortunes, were taught to estimate them by their own—who will not convert their reason into a spirit of blind persecution, nor wish to stain our annals with blood and misery. Then shall navigation, geography, astronomy, industry, and trade perfected by the discovery of America, though until now the source of her debasement, be converted into the means of accelerating, consolidating, and making more perfect the happiness of the two worlds.

"This is not a flattering dream, but the homage of reason to prudence, whose ineffable wisdom designed that one part of the human race should not groan under the tyranny of another; consequently, the great fiat of what should precede the dissolution of the world could not take place before one part of its inhabitants had enjoyed their inherent rights. Every thing has long been preparing for this epoch of felicity and consolation. In Europe the shock and the fermentation of opinions, the contempt and the inversion of the laws; the profanation of those bonds which ought to have held states together; the luxury of courts, the cessation of industry, the consequent unproductiveness of lands, the oppression of virtue, and the triumph of vice accelerated the progress of evil in one world, while the increase of population in America, of the wants of foreign countries dependent on her, the development of agriculture in a new and fertile soil, the germ of industry under a beneficent climate, the elements of science under a privileged organization, the means of a rich and prosperous trade, and the strength of a political adolescence, all, all contributed to accelerate the progress of good in the other.

"Such was the advantageous alternative that enslaved America presented to her mistress, Spain, on the other side of the ocean, when oppressed by the weight of every evil, and undermined by every principle destructive to society, America called upon her to ease her of her chains that she might fly to her succour. Fortunately prejudice triumphed, the genius of evil and disorder seized on the government, goaded pride usurped the seat of prudence; ambition triumphed over liberality, and substituting deceit and perfidy for generosity and integrity, those very arms were turned against us which we ourselves used when impelled by fidelity and good faith; we taught Spain herself the way to resist her enemies, under the banners of a presuming king, unfit to reign, and void of all title except the generous compassion of the people and his own misfortunes.

"Venezuela was the first in the new world to pledge to Spain that generous aid which she considered as a necessary homage; Venezuela was the first to pour the consoling balm of friendship and fraternity into her wounds when afflicted; Venezuela was the first that knew the disorders which threatened the destruction of Spain; she was the first to provide for her own safety, without severing the bonds that linked her to the mother country; the first to feel the effects of her ambitious ingratitude; she was the first on whom war was declared by her brethren; and she is now the first to recover and declare her independence and civil dignity in the new world. In order to justify this measure of necessity and of justice, she considers it an incumbent duty to present to the universe the reasons which have urged her to the same, that her honour and principles may not be doubted, nor endangered when she comes to fill the high rank which Providence restores her to.

"All those persons who are aware of our determinations know what was our fate previous to the late inversion of things, which alone dissolved our engagements with Spain, even granting that these were legal and equitable. It would be superfluous to present again to impartial Europe the misfortunes and vexations she has so often had cause to lament, at a time when we were not allowed to do so; neither is it necessary to assert the injustice of our dependence and degradation, when every nation has viewed as an insult to political equity, that Spain unpeopled, corrupted, and plunged into a state of sloth and indolence by the measures of a despotic government, should have exclusively usurped from the industry and activity of the rest of the continent, the precious and incalculable resources of a world constituted in the fief and monopoly of a small portion of the other.

"The interest of Europe cannot oppose the liberty of one quarter of the globe, which now discovers itself to the interest of the other three; yet a mere peninsula is found to oppose the interests of its government to those of its nation, in order to raise the old hemisphere against the new one, since the impossibility of oppressing it alone for any longer period is now visible. In opposition to these endeavours, more fatal to our tranquillity than to our prosperity, we will disclose to the world the causes which operated on our conduct on the fifteenth of July, 1808, and the acts that have wrested from us the resolutions of the nineteenth of April, 1810, and of the fifth of July, 1811. These three epochs will form the first period of the glories of regenerated Venezuela, when the impartial pen of history shall record the first lines of the political existence of South America.

"Our manifests and public papers testified almost all the reasons that influenced our resolutions, as well as our designs, and all the just and decorous means that were employed to realize them; it might be supposed that an exact and impartial comparison of our conduct with that of the late governments of Spain would of itself suffice to justify not only our moderation, not only our measures of security, not only our independence, but also even the declaration of an irreconcilable enmity to those who directly or indirectly have contributed to the unnatural system now adopted against us. Nothing in truth should we have to do if good faith had been the spring of action, used by the partisans of oppression against liberty; but, as the last analysis of our misfortunes, we cannot extricate ourselves from the condition of slaves without being branded with the disgraceful epithets of ungrateful rebels. Let those therefore listen and judge us who have no part in our misfortunes, and who are now desirous of having none in our disputes, in order not to augment the prejudices of our enemies, and let them not lose sight of the solemn act of our just, necessary, and modest emancipation.

"Caracas was apprised of the scandalous scenes which took place at the Escurial and Aranjues at a time when she was already convinced of what were her rights, and the state in which they were placed by those extraordinary occurrences; but the habit of obedience on the one hand, the apathy that despotism had produced on the other, and in fine our fidelity and good faith, were at that moment paramount to every other feeling. After the communication of Murat, the kingly substitute of Joseph Bonaparte, had reached the capital of the monarchy, the authorities did not even hesitate respecting the reception of it, the people only thought of being faithful, consistent, and generous, without premeditating on the evils to which this noble and gallant conduct would expose them. Without any other view than that of honour, Venezuela refused to follow the opinions of the leading characters in Madrid, some of whom, in support of the orders of the French Regent of the kingdom, exacted of us the oath of allegiance to the new king; others declared and published that Spain had received a new existence since her old authorities abandoned her, since the cession made by the Bourbons and the entrance of the new dynasty; that they had recovered their absolute independence and liberty, and that they offered the same alluring terms to the Americans, who by the same means might procure the same rights. But the first step we took for our own security convinced the junta central that there was something in us besides habits and prejudices, and they began to change their tune respecting liberality and sincerity; they perfidiously adopted the talisman Ferdinand at first practised in good faith; they suppressed, but with cunning and suavity, the plain and legal project of Caracas in 1808 to form a junta, and to imitate the representative system of the governments of Spain; and they began to set up a new species of despotism under the factitious name of a king, acknowledged only from a principle of generosity, and destined to oppress and tyrannise us by those who had usurped the sovereignty.