THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE SOUTH AMERICAN REPUBLICS
Other Books by the Same Author :
THE LAST AMERICAN FRONTIER (1910) THE CIVIL WAR (1911) THE NEW NATION (1915)
GUIDE TO THE MATERIALS IN LONDON ARCHIVES FOR THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES SINCE 1783 (1914, with C. O. Paullin)
The Independence of The South American Republics
A STUDY IN RECOGNITION AND FOREIGN POLICY
Second Edition
BY
FREDERIC L. PAXSON
Professor of American History in the University of Wisconsin and sometime Harrison Fellow in the University of Pennsylvania
FERRIS & LEACH
29 South Seventh Street 1916
Copyright, 1903, by FREDERIC L PAXSON
PKEFACE TO SECOND EDITION
In the twelve years that have elapsed since this book appeared, it has been in demand so contin- uously that a revision and reprinting are necessary. New materials on recognition have appeared, while guides prepared under the direction of the Carnegie Institution have opened up the archives of London, Madrid, Mexico and Washington as never before. I have not re-written the text, but I have revised and re-arranged the notes for this edition, and I have added to the notes references to the more im- portant new materials. Both recognition and neu- trality, its parent, have acquired new precedents since 1903; and in the cases of the Panama Repub- lic and the War of 1914 it has again been made clear that international law advances most rapidly in the hands of disinterested nations.
FBEDERIC L. PAXSON.
Madison, Wis., February, 1916.
PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION
The great subject of South American history has been so little exploited that it must be approached with modesty and care, for it is not to be expected that initial studies will, either in breadth or in in- tensity, reach its confines. Its bibliography has not been worked out. Facts of biography are difficult to
6 South American Independence
obtain, and materials relating to it have not yet been systematically collected or sifted.
Yet, if the character of the South American re- publics is to be understood, and if they are to be dealt with by the other nations of the world in a rational and honest manner, it is necessary that their history be narrated and considered. With their antecedents before us, certain conditions now prevalent in the Latin republics are, if not justified, at least explained. From a careful examination of these antecedents it may not be impossible to arrive at the causes of the evil conditions, which will be the first step towards correcting them.
This little book is a study in a single period and a single phase. For the greater part it is based upon unpublished original manuscript; while none of its material, printed or not, has hitherto been used to any considerable extent. Some care has been taken to make the sources here used more available for future students.
I have the honor to acknowledge my great indebt- edness to my masters, Albert Bushnell Hart and John Bach McMaster, and to Hubert Hall, Pendle- ton King and Charles Francis Adams, who gave me their time and care that I might reach the archives in their charge. FEEDEEIC L. PAXSOH.
Philadelphia, June, 1903.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTBODUCTION
Doctrine of recognition 17
Neutrality in seventeenth century 18
Theory of classical writers 19
Neutrality in American revolution 20
Silas Deane and France 20
Instructions of Deane 21
American theory of recognition 22
Policy of France 23
Motive of Louis XVI, in recognition 24
The French treaties 25
French intervention, not recognition 26
The Dutch recognition 27
Mission of William Lee 28
Holland declares war on England 29
Value of French and Dutch precedents 30
The Swedish recognition 32
Recognition by Spain 33
Recognition by Prussia 34
The French revolution 35
Conduct of Gouverneur Morris 36
Attitude of British minister in Paris 36
Morris remains in Paris 38
New French government and Morris 39
Disinterested situation of United States 40
8 South American Independence
Washington recognizes the French government 41
War between England and France 41
The proclamation of neutrality, April 22nd, 1793 42
Influence of American precedents 43
CHAPTER I The South American Wars of Liberation
Spanish colonial system 44
Colonial population 45
San Martin, Bolivar and Miranda 46
Miranda's filibustering expedition 47
Popham's attack on Buenos Ayres 48
Whitelocke expedition fails 49
Spanish-American revolts, Buenos Ayres 50
Chile, New Granada and Venezuela 51
Growth of English trade 52
Effect of foreign commerce on South America 53
Situation of Buenos Ayres 54
Turbulence in Buenos Ayres 55
Declaration of independence 57
San Martin at Mendoza 58
Chile and the brothers Carrera 59
Growth of San Martin's army 60
He moves across at Uspallata 61
Chacabuca and Talca 62
Maypu and the independence of Chile 63
Preparations to invade Peru 63
Arrival of Lord Cochrane 64
Capture of Valdavia k 66
Liberating squadron leaves Chile 67
Table of Contents 9
Pledges of San Martin 68
The Work of Arenales 68
La Serna replaces Pezuela as viceroy 69
Spanish forces evacuate Lima 70
Independence of Peru declared 71
San Martin assumes Protectorship 71
His disputes with Cochrane 72
Reinforcement and evacuation of Callao 74
San Martin goes to Guayaquil 75
Torre Tagle and Monteagudo 75
Meeting of Bolivar and San Martin 76
San Martin abdicates and retires 77
Beginning of career of Bolivar 78
Surrender of Miranda to Spain 79
Geography of Venezuela and New Granada 79
Bolivar in New Granada 80
The " War to the Death " 80
Bolivar becomes Dictator 81
Spain sends out Morillo in 1815 82
He re-takes New Granada 83
Bolivar erects capital at Angostura 84
The Foreign Legions 85
Campaign of 1819 85
Tunja and Boyaca 86
Union of Venezuela and New Granada 87
Armistice of 1820 88
Bolivar ends armistice of Truxillo 89
Constituent congress at Cucuta 89
Battle of Carabobo, June 24th, 1821 90
Capital moved to Santa F6 de Bogota 91
Meeting of liberating armies in Ecuador 92
Sucre wins at Bompono and Pichincha 92
10 South American Independence
The meeting at Guayaquil 93
Ecuador annexed to Colombia 94
Spanish victory at lea 95
Revolt at Lima 96
Bolivar summoned to Peru 97
Rive-Aguero deposed 97
Bolivar enters Lima, September 1st, 1823 97
Spanish strength in Upper Peru 98
Quarrels between Olaneta and Canterac 99
Bolivar becomes Dictator of Peru 99
He marches inland 100
Spanish forces defeated at Junin 101
And at Ayacucho 102
Miller finishes work at Potosi 103
Independence of Bolivia 103
Bolivar returns to Colombia . . 104
CHAPTER II South American Policy of the United States
Traditional attitude of the United States 105
Sympathy with filibusters 106
Petition of the Miranda men 107
Randolph's theory of recognition 108
The Poinsett mission 109
Instructions of Poinsett 110
Other agents in South America 113
Status of the agents in South America 114
Nature of their reports 115
Mendez and Thompson in United States 116
Protests of deOnis . . 117
Table of Contents 11
Flaws in United States neutrality laws 118
South American privateers 119
Public opinion in 1816 120
Foray th introduces new neutrality act 121
Further news from South America 122
Poinsett offered a second mission 123
The three commissioners sail 124
Their instructions 124
Beginning of factious opposition 127
Newspaper rumors in summer of 1817 128
Letters of "Lautaro" 128
Reply of " Phocion " 129
Attitude of Monroe and Adams 129
Nature of the opposition 130
Monroe transmits correspondence 131
Clay's great speech 132
Debate on his motion 134
Reply of Forsyth 134
Reports of South American commissioners 135
Superficial and discordant character 136
Their evidence as to political instability 136
Clay's attitude in session of 1818-1819 137
Delicate relations with Spain 138
Message of May 9th, 1820 139
day brings up his motion 141
It passes in the House 141
Session of 1820-1821 142
Triumph of Clay 144
Its barren nature 146
Position of Adams in the cabinet 146
His letter to Alex. H. Everett 146
Jealousy of Spain 149
12 South American Independence
Adams and the European powers 150
Adams' theory of neutrality 151
He foresees the British policy 152
Embarrassments caused by agents 153
Aguirre and the privateers 154
Devereux, Worthington and Halsey 155
Yielding policy of Monroe 156
Courts of Europe sounded 156
Action at Aix-la-Chapelle 157
American policy of inaction !58
Question of the exequaturs 159
Instructions of January 1st, 1819 160
Influence of the Florida negotiations 161
Recognition postponed for two years 162
Difficulties of Adams's position 162
Forbes's mission to Buenos Ayres 164
His instructions 164
Buenos Ayres in 1820 165
His treatment and attitude 166
Rivadavia, Garcia and reform 168
Victories of San Martin and Bolivar 169
Successes of 1821 169
De facto independence achieved 170
Adams prepares for recognition 171
Message of March 8th, 1822 172
Its calm reception 174
Attitude of the newspapers 174
Comment of the Journal des Dtoats 176
Recognition 178
Table of Contents 13
CHAPTER III British Relations with South America
Two phases of British attitude 180
Policy after 1811 181
Liverpool ministry and commercial demands 182
Popular sympathy in Great Britain 184
Agitation for recognition begins 184
Weapons of the opposition 185
Services of British officers in South America 186
Proclamations by the Prince Regent 187
Inadequacy of neutrality laws 188
New foreign enlistment act 188
Tierney and Mackintosh oppose 190
Attitude of ministry 190
Petitions from merchants 191
Effect of the new act 192
Spain seeks intervention 193
Interests of the allied powers 193
Aix-la-Chapelle 194
The Spanish expedition of 1818-1819 195
Revolution of 1820 196
Invasion of Spain by France 196
British policy at Congress of Verona 197
Lushington and the commercial demands 198
Reports of the American commissioners 199
England and the American recognition 200
Growing importance of question with Canning 201
Zea circular 202
Renewed demands by merchants 203
And by Commons 203
Canning opposes French intervention in Spain 204
14 South American Independence
He determines to keep France out of America 205
Mission of Mackie to Mexico 206
Fall of Cadiz and action by Canning 207
Polignac-Canning conference, October 9th, 1823 208
Instructions to new consuls and commissioners 209
Special instructions for Mexico 213
Motive of Canning in sending consuls 216
Allies fail to act on South America 217
Canning's move wins 217
Speech from the Throne, February 3d, 1824 218
Sources of information on South America 219
Difficulties with Mackie in Mexico 220
Difficulties with Hervey, O'Gorman and Ward 221
The treaty of Morier and Ward 222
Hamilton and the Colombian Commission 223
Ordered to re-peruse his instructions 224
Campbell's reports 225
Parish and Buenos Ayres 225
Debate in Parliament, February, 1824 226
Polignac memorandum revealed 226
Lansdowne moves for recognition 227
Great Speech of Sir James Mackintosh, June 15th, 1824. . 228
His analysis of theory of recognition 229
Reception of Parish at Buenos Ayres 232
His work satisfies Canning 233
His report of June 25th, 1824 234
Canning's instructions to Parish, August 23d, 1824 235
Parish acts slowly upon them 237
Address of the Government of Buenos Ayres to the Con- gress 239
New Fundamental Law for Buenos Ayres 241
Parish signs a treaty, February 2nd, 1825 241
Table of Contents 15
Canning determines to recognize the republics 242
Spain once more refuses mediation 243
Canning announces recognition to Spain 244
Reply of Spain 245
Reception of British recognition by Europe 247
Protest of Esterhazy, for Vienna 248
Protest of Lieven, for St. Petersburg 249
Protest of Maltzahn, for Berlin 250
Summary of British policy 251
Opening of diplomatic relations 252
INTRODUCTION
Among the doctrines of international law which can hardly be said to have existed previous to the war of the American revolution, is that of recogni- tion.1 It is true that in some few cases before 1776 a new State had come into existence. Thus the United Netherlands had won their independence of Spain in the sixteenth century, to have it recognized by the powers of Europe in the seventeenth; thus Switzerland had broken off from the dominions of the Hapsburgs and maintained her separate exist- ence; thus Portugal had established itself as an inde- pendent monarchy at the expense of Spain. It is true also that in some cases a successful revolution
1 Neither recognition nor the recognition of the South American Bepublics had been discussed in detail prior to the appearance of the first edition of this work in 1903, although a few paragraphs on both subjects were to be found in the standard works on international law. There had been considerable contentious writing upon the recognition of the belligerency of the Confederate States and upon the power and expediency of acknowledging the independence of Cuba. But no one seems to have connected the theory of recognition with the doctrine of neutrality, or to have dissociated it from the idea of intervention, as is done here. Recently these ideas have been made the basis of a general treatise upon the subject, drawn exclusively from printed sources and covering comprehensively the experiences of the United States. Julius Goebel, Jr., The Recognition Policy of the United States (Columbia. University Studies, Vol. LXVI. 1915).
18 South American Independence
had erected a new and illegitimate government. In the most notable of these Cromwell had established the principle that internal changes do not affect the identity of a State, and had compelled his royal neigh- bors to extend to him every courtesy that the ex- pelled Stuarts could have demanded. But in none of these cases was there a discussion of a theory of recognition by which a community of people, upon attaining a defined territory, together with an inde- pendent government, permanently organized, has a right to demand treatment as a State by the pre-
istent nations of the world.
The absence of any well-developed theory of neu- trality until the United States came into existence to create one, prevented the establishment of a theory of recognition, for this latter is strictly de- pendent upon the former. The wars of the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries were generally Euro- pean in their scope. No nation strong enough to make its impartiality respected had been able to re- main neutral; while the petty States, if only for the sake of protection, were forced to seek alliance with one side or another. So it happened that when new States came into existence their recognition de- pended solely on the physical strength of their friends. Recognition by general European treaty at the end of a general European war could have no
Introduction 19
authority as a precedent in developing an abstract theory upon the subject.
Before a doctrine of recognition could be evolved there must be created a background of neutrality. The right of a State to participate in or abstain from a war must be freely admitted. Upon this condition alone could a newly-born State receive the theoretical treatment that would help to establish the conditions upon which such an organism has a right to be acknowledged, and would have a tendency to remove recognition from the opportunist realm of international politics to set it up as a permanent doctrine of international law.
Previous to the American revolution there were no neutrals, although there existed the foundations for a superstructure of neutrality. The classical writers on international law, from Grotius, with his idea that neutrality consists in not denying to one belligerent a right conceded to the other, to Vattel, who would not allow the neutral State to render aid to either party, all fail to understand the doctrine as it is understood to-day. The series of sixteenth and seventeenth century treaties, specifying that the contracting States shall not aid the enemy of each other in time of war, shows how far neutrality was from being looked upon as a regular and probable condition. Usage of nations as revealed by the wars
20 South American Independence
of the eighteenth century shows a general disregard of what are the commonplaces of neutral obligation to-day.
As there had been no neutrals before 1776, so in the wars of the American revolution no neutrals were created. France and Spain, during the period of their professed neutrality, were systematically ren- dering aid to one of the contestants. The far-famed Armed Neutrality of 1780 was nothing more than an alliance that introduced another party into the general war. The recognition of the independence of the United States by France was only the step that marked the advance of Louis XVI. from a state of overt hostility to one of open war.
The great aim of American diplomacy during the early years of the revolution was to secure sufficient aid from Europe to bring the war to a successful ter- mination. France, as the hereditary enemy of Eng- land, was the first resort. Thither in the spring of 1776 Silas Deane was sent, ostensibly as an India merchant to gratify his curiosity, actually to beg Vergennes to supply arms to his country and to pledge her commerce in return. Already France was hinting that no aid could be expected of her while the colonies remained colonies, and assuring the Americans that they had "the same protection and liberty as all other English to resort to France to ex-
Introduction 21
port thence merchandise, arms and munitions of war." 2 " That as to independency," wrote Deane to the Committee of Secret Correspondence, describing an interview with the French Minister and the words of the latter, " it was an event in the womb of time, and it would be highly improper from him to say anything on that subject until it had actually taken place." 3 Great Britain feared, as the United States hoped for, a French intervention in the war, and as- sisted Lord Stormont in his protests against the un- friendly acts of the French Government.
In the mind of the Americans, recognition was far from being an act of neutrality. Between it and par- ticipation on the side of England was a condition to which their commissioners were instructed to lead the powers of Europe if the latter could not be prevailed upon to take up the American cause. " You shall en- deavor ... to obtain from them a recognition of our independency and sovereignty, and to conclude treaties of peace, amity and commerce. ... If that cannot be effected, you shall to the utmost of your power prevent their taking part with Great Britain in the war which his Britannic majesty prosecutes
'Dumas to Com. of Secret Correspondence. Francis Wharton, The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States (6 vols., Washington, 1889), II: 91.
» Deane to Committee, August 18, 1776. Wharton, II: 112.
22 South American Independence
" against us, or entering into offensive alliances with that king." *
The value of an instance of recognition as a pre- cedent depends upon its non-partisan character. It " is a matter, which, from its nature precludes any equivalent whatsoever; — either there is a reason for it, and it ought to be demanded as a right, or it can- not be asked for, and to grant extraordinary conces- sions as the price of obtaining it, is to give them merely in return for the name, and to change the substance for the shadow." 5 But this view of the subject had not been taken in 1776. The United States had no hesitation in offering a price for what they truly considered an effective service, though it was concealed under the name of recognition.
" As the other princes of Europe, " ran the note of the three commissioners making their seductive offer to Vergennes, " are lending or hiring their troops to Britain against America, it is apprehended that France may, if she thinks fit, afford our inde- pendent States the same kind of aid, without giving England any first cause of complaint. . . .
" North America now offers to France and Spain her amity and commerce. She is also ready to guar-
4 Committee to Franklin, Deane, and Lee, October 16, 1776 Wharton,!!: 172.
8 Forbes to Garcia, Decembers, 1824 ; enclosed in Parish to Planta, February 18, 1825. Foreign Office MM.
Introduction 23
" anty in the firmest manner to those nations all her present possessions in the West Indies, as well as those they shall acquire from the enemy in a war that may be consequential of such assistance as she requests. The interests of the three nations are the same. The opportunity of cementing them and of securing all the advantages of that commerce, which in time will be immense, now presents itself. If neglected, it may never again return; and we can- not help suggesting that a considerable delay may be attended with fatal consequences." 6
The interest of the French government in the prosperity of the American cause was slight. There was in France a popular feeling that wished the in- surgents well, but the motive inspiring the ministry to action was that of hostility to England rather than anxiety for a republican member of the family of nations. Accordingly the French court resisted the popularity of Franklin and confined itself to ren- dering a surreptitious assistance to the rebels until the progress of the war forced upon it a change of policy. The surrender of Burgoyne was the deter- mining event in this change.
Both Vergennes and Franklin realized the prob- ability of British overtures for peace when the news of the surrender reached Paris on 4th December,
• January 5, 1777. Wharton, II : 245.
24 South American Independence
1777. The commissioners at once addressed a new demand for recognition to the French court and were accorded a meeting on 12th December. " On signifying to the ministry," they described the con- ference, " the importance it might be of at this junc- ture— when probably Britain would be making some propositions of accommodation — that the Congress should be informed explicitly what might be ex- pected from France and Spain, M. Gerard, one of the secretaries, came yesterday to inform us, by order of the king, that after long and full consideration of our affairs and propositions in council it was decided, and his majesty was determined, to acknowledge our independence, and make a treaty with us of amity and commerce." 7 Louis XVI. himself recorded the motive that inspired this step. He wrote to Charles III. of Spain on the 8th of January, 1778,8 of the policy he had followed during the three pre- ceding years : " The destruction of the army of Bur- goyne and the straitened condition of Howe have totally changed the face of things. America is tri- umphant, and England cast down, but the latter has still a great unbroken maritime force, and the hope of forming a beneficial alliance with her Colonies, ( the impossibility., of their being subdued by arms
7 December 18, 1777. Wharton, II : 452. fiWharton, II: 467.
Introduction 25
" bemg_now jemonstrated^ All the English parties ligree on this point. Lord North has himself an- nounced, in full Parliament, a plan of pacification for the first session, and all sides are assiduously employed upon it." Even King Louis did not yet know the extent of the " political somersault " which Lord North would turn when he introduced his meas- ure in February. " Thus," his letter continued, " it is the same to us whether this minister, or any other, be in power. From different motives they join against us, and do not forget our bad offices. They will fall upon us in as great strength as if the war had not existed. This being understood, and our grievances against England notorious, I have thought, after taking the advice of my council . . . and having consulted upon the propositions which the insurgents make, that it was just and necessary to begin to treat with them to prevent their reunion with the mother country."
According to the resolution of the king " to pre- vent their reunion with the mother country," treaties of alliance and commerce were signed at Paris on 6th February, 1778. In these is found the first recognition of the United States as independent. In the words of the French ambassador, as he announced these treaties to the Court of St. James, there is any * ' insolence so colossal as to be almost admirable. " In
26 South American Independence
" making this communication to the Court of London, the King is firmly persuaded, that it will find in it fresh Proofs of His Majesty's constant and sincere Dispositions for Peace; and that His Britannic Ma- jesty, animated by the same Sentiments, will equally avoid every Thing that may interrupt their Har- mony; and that He will take, in particular, effectual Measures to hinder the Commerce of His Majesty's Subjects with the United States of North America from being disturbed, and to cause to be observed in this Respect, the Usages received between trading Nations, and the Rules that may be deemed subsist- ing between the Crowns of France and Great Brit- ain." 9 But nothing was clearer in the minds of all concerned than that this recognition was an act of war, that the colonies, in spite of their declaration, were not in fact independent, and that it was the interest of France rather than regard for any rights of the insurgents that inspired the act. " I knew very well," wrote a French ambassador from Madrid, a few years later, " that one could not count on the gratitude of the United States, but that, however, repeated and recent favors formed ties which it would be at least difficult to break suddenly, and especially at the very period of their enjoyment." 10
• Common*' Journals, XXXVI : 832.
10 Montmorin to Vergennes, March 30, 1782. He was writing of later efforts to prevent a peace. Wharton, V : 287.
Introduction 27
The second formal recognition of the United States came from Holland, and is to be viewed less as an intervention like that of France than as an effort to get in ahead of England and secure a share of American commerce. News of the successful ter- mination of the Yorktown campaign and of the imminence of peace negotiations had reached Hol- land before she could induce herself to act.
From the beginning of the war the Dutch had watched with envious eyes the breakup of the Brit- ish Empire. Neutrality was their policy, enjoined upon them by many treaties with England, but an opportunity for the extension of commerce was not to be lightly disregarded. "I find they have the greatest inclination to serve us," wrote William Car- michael from Amsterdam, " and at the same time themselves, for no people see their interests clearer." But the events of the early years of the war were not such as to tempt a peace-loving nation to take up the cause of the Americans. Guided by " their fears that we shall be subdued," the Dutch avoided giving Great Britain cause for offense.11
Among the peripatetic agents appointed by Con- gress to the courts of Europe was William Lee, who was commissioned in the summer of 1777 to Vienna
« Carmichael to Committee, November 2, 1776. Wharton, II : 185.
28 South American Independence
and Berlin.12 Proceeding to the latter post, in spite of the protests of the Prussian minister in the fall of 1778, he was stopped by the outbreak of war be- tween Prussia and Austria. He retired to Frank- fort to await its outcome, and there amused himself by negotiating a treaty, unauthorized on his side and unconstitutional on theirs, with the pensionary and burgomasters of Amsterdam.18 It was an unfortu- nate transaction. His fellow commissioners at Paris snubbed him well for the assumption of authority;14 and the draft of the treaty captured at a later time among the papers of Henry Laurens 15 was made a casus belli by the English, notwithstanding every effort by the Dutch to disavow16 it. Holland, in spite of herself, was driven into the war.
" You say the Dutch are disturbed," commented John Adams upon the blustering tactics of Sir Jo- seph Yorke, the British Minister at Amsterdam. " Do you wonder at it ? They have been kicked by the English as no reasonable man would kick a dog. They have been whipped by them as no sober postilion would whip a hackney-coach horse." 1T
" President of Congress to William Lee, July 1, 1777. Wharton, II: 359.
» W. Lee to Com. For. Off., September 12, 1778. Wharton, II : 715. "Commissioners to W. Lee, September 26, 1778. Wharton, II: 744. 16 Dana to Jonathan Jackson, November 11,1780. Wharton, IV : 151. "Manifestoof States General, November 27,1780. Wharton, IV: 310. "Adams to W. Lee, March 21, 1780. Wharton, III: 564.
Introduction 29
On 12th March, 1781, the Dutch declared war on England, but even yet they refused to receive a let- ter from John Adams in his new official character of Minister Plenipotentiary.18 It was not until the end of the year, when the news of the surrender of Corn- wallis had reached them, that the provinces began to instruct their delegates in favor of a recognition. Then, in one day, five million guilders were sub- scribed to be lent to France for the use of the United States,19 and the cumbrous diplomatic machinery of the States General was put in motion. " If it was in any other country," wrote Adams, on 14th Janu- ary, 1782, " I should conclude from all appearances that an alliance with America and France at least would be finished in a few weeks; but I have been here long enough to know the nation better. The constitution of government is so complicated and so whimsical a thing, and the temper and character of the nation so peculiar, that this is considered every- where as the most difficult embassy in Europe. But at present it is more so than ever; the nation is more divided than usual, and they are afraid of every- body."20 And so he might well be content to be accorded his formal reception by the Prince of
18 Adams to Pres. Cong., May 7, 1781. Wharton, IV : 401. 19 Dumas to Pres. Cong., January 7/1782. Wharton, V : 86. 80 Adams to Pres. Cong., January 14, 1782. Wharton, V : 100.
30 South American Independence
Orange on 22d April. 21 On the twenty-third the French minister at Amsterdam gave a banquet to the diplomatic corps in honor of their new member. The treaty was concluded on October 8th. But the ministry of North had fallen, and British agents were at Paris discussing with Franklin the terms of peace before Holland had ventured upon her recog- nition.
The value of a precedent in recognition, it has been said, depends on its non-partisan character. It also depends to a considerable degree upon the atti- tude of the mother country. For it is only before the mother country has brought herself to acknowl- edge the independence of her former territory that there can be any question as to the propriety of the recognition. Between the time of the declaration of independence, which in the case of the United States was 4th July, 1776, and the recognition of the same by the parent State, which in the same case occurred at the signature of the preliminary articles on 30th November, 1782, the third power in granting recog- nition must consider two things; the fact of inde- pendence and the nature of its relations with the belligerents. If the former of these does not mani- festly exist, and in the case under discussion it did not, none can question the right, in a moral way, of
" Adams to Livingston, April 22, 1782. Wharton, V.: 320.
Introduction 31
the mother country to consider the recognition as premature and an act of war. Thus thf» recognition by France and in a less degree that by Holland, for she refrained from acting until Britain had shown her own hand, were interventions dictated by self- interest of one form or another. If the interests of the third power are of such a nature as not to be affected by the struggle, she is not likely to be led into a premature recognition, or into any recogni- tion, until the mother country by her own action has renounced her pretension to sovereignty over the new State by acknowledging its independence.
Cases of recognition will have great value in estab- lishing the international law upon the subject only when the mother country delays this renunciation beyond a reasonable time, so that third powers feel that they must recognize the fact of independence in justice to themselves and to the new State.
No valuable precedent in recognition occurred dur- ing the American revolution, or could have occurred, for Great Britain acted promptly herself and acknowledged the independence of her former colonies at a time when the fact of their independ- ence was not a matter beyond dispute, and when her own hopes were in no means destroyed, in spite of her loss of a considerable army. ~No recognition before 30th November, 1782, could have been other
32 South American Independence
than an intervention; none after that time can be considered as of importance save as an indication of European policy and commercial necessity. Before the administration of Washington began, only three other European States had seen fit to open formal and regular relations with the United States, and only two of them concluded treaties.
Sweden made a treaty of amity and commerce with the United States on the 3d of April, 1783. It was the first time, so the King took credit to himself, that an European power had solicited the friendship of the United States. There is reason to believe that the enormous prestige of Dr. Franklin was an in- spiration that accentuated his majesty's desire for commercial relations. Upon his general instructions Franklin entered readily upon the negotiations pro- posed by the Swedish ambassador, and before he had concluded them his special instructions for this treaty had arrived. He signed the final draft in almost the very words of the project, and at the end of the proceedings was complimented by a request for " young Mr. Franklin " as ambassador.22
The Spanish negotiations, long and tedious in their course, failed to terminate in a treaty within the period under consideration, although the opening of diplomatic relations was not deferred long after the
»Wharton,V: 512, VI: 133,163,276,483.
Introduction 33
recognition by England. Arthur Lee, Franklin and Jay were at various times during the war commis- sioned to the court of Spain, but they could accom- plish no open result. Spain advanced more or less material assistance to the colonies, but two reasons seem to have kept her from a formal recognition. The principle of independence was none too popular in a country with enormous colonial possessions of her own, while the demano} of the United States for free navigation of the Mississippi to its mouth was not to be admitted by a king who needed the whole Gulf of Mexico for himself. Even the offer made near the end of the war, to relinquish the demand for the free navigation, failed to induce Spain to treat. It was not until after the peace preliminaries with England had been signed that the Spanish minis- ter in Paris told Jay that Spain was ready to receive the latter in form. Even then a treaty was not to be had for more than a decade.
Frederick the Great, ruling in Prussia during the revolution, showed some solicitude for American commerce at an early period in the war, and amused himself with the American envoys throughout its length. But there was too little to be gained for him to compromise his country by a recognition, so he fought off the persistent attacks of the Lees until the war was over. Then, on the model of the Swe-
34 South American Independence
dish treaty, he allowed John Adams to negotiate a treaty with Prussia. Many of its articles revealed a " platonic philosophy " 23 that would scarcely have been admitted between two countries having any considerable intercourse.
Thus, by the end of 1785, the United States had formal diplomatic relations with six States of Eu- rope, France, Holland, Great Britain, Sweden, Spain and Prussia. In one case the recognition had marked a renunciation of sovereignty. In three more, subse- quent to this renunciation, it had indicated only a general friendly feeling now free to act. And, in two cases, it had come as an intervention, with differing degrees of flagrancy. In no case had there been any consideration of the question already asked, — whether there is a time in a revolution when the revolting people have a right to demand, or a neutral a right to accord, a recognition in spite of the hostile attitude of the mother country. As has been seen, the nature of the American revolution was such that that question could not have arisen. Some light was destined to be thrown upon the question, however, by the policy of the new republic whose own recog- nition has now been considered.
The most serious diplomatic problem that had yet
88 Adams to Thulemeier, February 13, 1785. John Adams, Works (10 vols., Boston, 1853), VIII: 225.
Introduction 35
presented itself to the administration of George Washington arose when the French revolution passed from the municipal stage into the international. The events of 1792, bringing down upon France the wrath of Europe, aroused in the United States a feeling of sympathy that might well have influenced a government to make more of its treaty obligations to the distressed country than the Washington government showed itself disposed to do. But Washington was profoundly impressed with the need of the United States for a long period of uneventful development. As the wars broke out he saw clearly how little they had to offer the United States and how greatly they would check her growth if she allowed herself to become involved in them. Realizing these dangers, he had little difficulty in convincing himself that the obligations of the treaty of 1778, with France, did not apply to the conditions of 1792, and that the duties of the United States coincided with her interests in prescribing a policy of strict neutrality.
While the French republic was coming into exist- ence, in the autumn of 1792, diplomats were decid- ing, as their interests prompted them, how it should be greeted. Upon Gouverneur Morris, minister pleni- potentiary from the United States, more than his share of the responsibility fell, for his distance from
36 South American Independence
Philadelphia and his lack of specific instructions applicable to the events of the tenth of August forced him to frame his policy for himself. " You will observe, sir/' he commented upon those events, " that matters are now brought to a simple question between an absolute monarchy and a republic: for all middle terms are done away.7' 2*
As representing a republican government, Morris could not well take offense at the adoption of a simi- lar government by France; nor could be proclaim a neutrality similar to that of Britain. The minister of the latter power demanded his passports on 20th August, presenting at the same time a threatening note to the effect " that Britain has determined on a strict neutrality, that she means to preserve it, and therefore as his letters of credence are to the king, now dethroned, he had best come away. To this is subjoined a hope that nothing will happen to the King or his family, because that would excite the indignation of all Europe. This despatch turned into plain English, is, shortly, that the British court resent what is already done, and will make war immediately, if the treatment of the King be such as to call for, or to justify, measures of extremity." 25
** Morris to Jefferson, August 16, 1792. American State Papers, Foreign Relations, 1 : 333. The folio State Papers are hereafter to be cited as A. S. P. F. R.
* Morris to Jefferson, August 22, 1792. A. S. P. F. R., 1 : 336.
Introduction 37
The other courts of Europe, fearful with England of the effect of French pronunciamentos in the name of liberty, also withdrew their ministers from Paris, leaving Morris to constitute the whole diplomatic corps. On the last day of the year Lord Grenville formally refused to accredit the minister of the French republic. " You are not ignorant," he wrote to Chauvelin, " that since the unhappy events of the 10th of August, the king has thought proper to sus- pend all official communication with France. You are yourself no otherwise accredited to the king, than in the name of his most Christian majesty. The proposition of receiving a minister accredited by any other authority or power in France, would be a new question, which, whenever it should occur, the king would have the right to decide according to the inter- ests of his subjects, his own dignity, and the regard which he owes to his allies, and the general system of Europe. I am therefore to inform you, sir, that I acknowledge you in no other public character than that of minister from his most Christian majesty, and that consequently you cannot be admitted to treat with the king's ministers in the quality, and under the form stated in your note." 28
The attitude which Morris determined to take was
26 Grenville to Chauvelin, December 31, 1792. Annual Register t 1793, 116.
38 South American Independence
the opposite of this of England. He remained in Paris, and continued his relations with the ministry of Foreign Affairs with as little interruption as the course of events would allow. He remained, as he wrote home, " because, in the admitted case that my letters of credence are to the monarchy, and not to the republic of France, it becomes a matter of indif- ference whether I remain in this country, or go to England, during the time which may be needful to obtain your orders, or to produce a settlement of affairs here. Going hence, however, would look like taking part against the late revolution, and I am not only unauthorized in this respect, but I am bound to suppose that, if the great majority of the nation adhere to the new form, the United States will approve thereof, because, in the first place, we have no right to prescribe to this country the government they shall adopt, and next, because the basis of our own constitution is the indefeasible right of the peo- ple to establish it." 27
The new French Government itself almost drove Morris to leave Paris. Without specific instructions he declined to pay the instalments on the American debt to the republic as they came due, and a letter of Le Brun, insisting strongly on the identity of France, whatever her domestic form, induced him to demand
« Morris to Jefferson, August 22, 1792. A. 8. P. F. R., 1 : 336.
Introduction 39
his passports. This action evoked an explanatory note from the French minister, so that the demand was withdrawn. "As to my personal opinions," wrote Morris, consenting to remain, " they are unim- portant in an affair so serious, but you may be per- suaded that I have never doubted the right which every people have of forming, to themselves, such government as they please." 28 He was much re- lieved when Jefferson, on learning of the suspension of the French constitution, wrote him instructions that approved his actions. " During the time of this suspension, and while no legitimate government exists, we apprehend that we cannot continue the payments of our debt to France, because there is no one authorized to receive it and to give us an unob- jectionable acquittal." Until further orders Morris was directed to suspend payments, with the under- standing that "this suspension [shall not] be con- tinued one moment after we can see our way clear out of the difficulty into which their situation has thrown us." 29
The situation and interests of the United States were such that in this crisis she was enabled to fulfil in their strictness both the letter and the spirit of
38 Morris to LeBrun, September 17, 1792. A.S.P.F.JK., 1 : 340. » Jefferson to Morris, October 15, 1792. P. L. Ford, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, VI: 120.
40 South American Independence
the law. And where the indistinct law of neutrality was silent, she guided her actions by logical reason- ing, based upon the broad principles of honest impar- tiality and the consent of the governed. The conduct of Morris received the support of the administration. His new instructions, when they came, authorized him to continue the course he had started upon. " It accords with our principles," wrote Jefferson, stating the law of recognition of governments as it has come to be accepted to-day, " to acknowledge any Govern- ment to be rightful which is formed by the will of the nation, substantially declared. The late Govern- ment was of this kind, and was accordingly acknowl- edged by all the branches of ours; so any alteration of it which shall be made by the will of the nation, substantially declared, will doubtless be acknowl- eclged in like manner. With such a Government, every Icind of business may be done." 30 The situa- tion was such as has been insisted upon as essential for the development of a precedent in recognition; there was a change of government, the effect of it was being contested, a neutral party with no interest in a termination in either direction acted as seemed to it reasonable and right. It is well for the develop- ment of international law when the interest of States guides them into logical paths rather than selfish
30 Jefferson to Morris, November 7, 1792. Ford, Writings, VI: 131.
Introduction 41
ones. " The President receives, with great satisfac- tion," wrote Jefferson to the French minister in Philadelphia, acknowledging his notification of the change of government, " this attention of the Execu- tive Council and the desire they have manifested of making known to us the resolution entered into by the National Convention, even before a definite regulation of their new establishment could take place. Be assured, Sir, that the Government and the citizens of the United States view with the most sin- cere pleasure every advance of your nation towards its happiness, an object essentially connected with its liberty, and they consider the union of principles and pursuits between our two countries as a link which binds still closer their interests and affections." 31
The actual outbreak of war between France and England, in 1793, brought to this attitude of neu- trality the supreme test. France was at once the traditional friend of the United States, and the ex- ponent of a governmental system that could not fail to command the warmest admiration in America. She had rendered to the struggling States, fifteen years before, an assistance that at a later date in the war had become decisive; and it was by no means clear that the bond whereby she pledged her assist- ance did not entitle her to the aid of the United
«* Jefferson to Ternant, February 23, 1793. Ford, Writing*, VI : 189.
42 South American Independence
States in her own crisis. To resist a popular distrust of England, a sympathy with France and the obliga- tion of the treaty of 1778 was no easy task. By rather close reasoning on the changed situations in Europe, and the obligations of treaties, reinforced by a profound realization of the need of peace to the United States, Washington was led to take for his country an epoch-making attitude.
Summoning his cabinet to meet him,82 the Presi- dent hurried from Mt. Vernon to Philadelphia when news of the outbreak of the war reached him. To his advisers he propounded a series of thirteen per- tinent questions on neutrality and the French treaties,33 and with their approval, on 22d April, 1793, issued a proclamation that "has had greater influence in moulding international law than any sin- gle document of the last hundred years." 8* With the brief neutrality proclamation as a text, Jefferson, in his later correspondence with Genet, formulated " against France," and against his own inclination, it might be added, " broad principles of neutrality, to which time has added nothing." 85 A year later these principles of international law, now for the first
82 Circular to Cabinet, April 12, 1793. J. Sparks, Writing* of Wash- ington, X : 336.
88 Sparks, Writings of Washington, X : 533.
84 J. W. Foster, A Century of American Diplomacy (Boston, 1900), 154.
86 W. F. Reddoway, The Monroe Doctrine (Cambridge, 1898), 15.
Introduction 43
time laid down with authority, were enacted with fitting pains and penalties into a statute by the Con- gress of the United States.
This prompt recognition of the French republic, accompanied by a more thorough-going neutrality^ than had yet been seen, marks the entrance into European diplomacy of a new power, in whose guid- ance principles distinctly different from those of Europe would predominate. It may be conjectured that the development of international law since 1793 has been influenced more by this power than by any other, just because of the isolation of interests that forced it into a neutral attitude, from which it could act freely, as a logical international theory might dictate. From the action of the United States re- garding the French governments, for the Director- ate, the Consulate and the Empire were severally acknowledged as the Republic had been, and the French wars, it might be guessed with considerable accuracy what would be its action when the next great case for recognition should arise — when the American colonies of His Catholic Majesty should be driven by a Castilian stupidity, even greater than an eighteenth-century English stupidity, into a war for independence.
CHAPTEK I
THE SOUTH AMERICAN WAKS OF LIBERATION
The enterprise of the inhabitants of Spam's four American viceroyalties displayed itself in systematic and consistent smuggling rather than in any form of opposition to Spanish rule as such. Exploitation and repression were the essential features of the Spanish colonial system. If Buenos Ayres proved to be a competitor to the Spanish merchants, her olive trees must come down and her vines must come up by the roots, for it was clearly understood that Spain was to be protected, and that colonies existed only for the benefit of the mother country. It is hard to see how such a system could have been carried out honestly, or, if this were possible, how it could have been en- dured. But the administrators of Spain made the colonial system a means for recuperating distressed fortunes, while the colonists utilized the cupidity of their rulers to develop an extensive, illicit and profit- able foreign commerce.1
No community 'of interest could well exist in the
1E. G. Bourne, Spain in America (New York, 1906), gives a de- tailed account of the Spanish colonial system. He had already edited a chapter from Boscher, Kolonien, Kolonialpolitik und Auswanderung, under the title The Spanish Colonial System (New York, 1904), His analysis is more sympathetic than the one here given.
Wars of Liberation 45
population of the Spanish American colonies. Ex- cepting their American residence, and common dependence on a mother country, there are few generalizations that can be made regarding the peo- ple living in the southern Americas. Some families were Castilian, were insolently proud of their birth in the peninsula, and looked to a speedy return to civilization and Spain. At the other end of the social scale were negroes and Indians of unmixed blood. Between these was an immense population made up of Creoles on the one hand, and on the other of vari- ous degrees of mestizos and mulattos, for the Spanish settlers in America had amalgamated with the native and lower races as only peoples of Latin blood have done. Caste and class flourished in Latin America, and gave a clear promise of permanence to Spanish dominion which was the one unifying principle on the continent. Without the assistance of Spain no other common fact could come to exist, and no dangerous spirit of revolution could prevail without some other common facts.
South America, strange as it may seem, in spite of centuries of misgovernment and blindness on the part of the mother country, was patriotic during those early years of the last century, when patriotism was almost the only asset of the Spanish peoples. The colonial system had been atrocious, but, keeping
46 South American Independence
those at the bottom of the social scale in dense ignor- ance, and allowing those at the top to enrich them- selves by illicit means, it had been successful. The history of 1806 and 1807 proves this with reasonable conclusiveness.
Three great names stand forth in the history of South American Liberation.2 To Jose de San Martin and Simon Bolivar belongs the credit of accomplish- ing the emancipation; to Francisco de Miranda that of inaugurating the movement.3 The first liberator, Miranda, was a man of good family, a native of Caracas, in Venezuela, and a wanderer of much experience.4 Born in 1754, he had fought in the American revolution with the French allies, and had
* The history of the wars of liberation is yet to be written. They are the subject of a bulky Latin American literature, much of which is lowered in value by its partisan character and its lack of critical spirit. Little use has been made of this in the above chapter, although references to it are included in the foot-notes. The principal sources of the chapter are the memoirs and travels of foreigners in South America during the revolutionary period, the British and American foreign correspondence, and the original documents accompanying the files of the latter. Bulletins of the armies, pamphlet laws and con- stitutions, and the like, are preserved in great number in the archives.
8 W. S. Robertson, " Francisco de Miranda and the Revolutionizing of Spanish America," in Amer. Hist. Asso. Ann. Report, 1907, 1 : 189- 539, gives the best account of the inception of the movement for liber- ation, and describes in substantiated detail the caree'r here alluded to.
4 Documents on the revolutionary career of Miranda are in Alph. Comte O'Kelly de Galway, Francisco de Miranda: General de Division des Armees de la Rtpubliquc (1791-1794); Heros de V Indb- pendance Americaine ( 1756-1816) . (Paris, 1913. )
Wars of Liberation 47
there formed the resolution to repeat the process in his own land. Years of travel over all of Europe, broken into by service at the head of a French republican brigade, and by visits to London and con- ferences with British and American statesmen, had confirmed the resolution, and it was only a change in the conditions of Europe that kept Pitt from back- ing a filibustering expedition under his leadership in 1798. Another change of conditions brought the object of his ambitions within his reach, and in February, 1806, the Leander sailed from New York, under one Martin,5 who at sea turned into Miranda, the leader of a revolutionary expedition against Venezuela.6 After touching at a port of San Domingo, the Leander proceeded to the north coast of Venezuela, where a Spanish force drove it back. But Lord Cochrane, from the West Indian station, was induced to convoy the expedition to an easy landing in the neighborhood of Coro, whence he convoyed it once more to Trinidad and safety a few days later. The days at Coro had been spent in vigorous revolutionary propagandism, to no effect.
5 Annals of Congress, llth Cong., 1st Sess., 257.
•The diary and letters of Henry Ingersoll, who accompanied the Leander expedition as a printer, are given in Amer. Hist. Rev., Ill : 674.
48 South American Independence
The one thing essential to a revolution was lacking — the people of Venezuela would not revolt.7
The experience of Miranda with an apathetic and timorous population was duplicated in the same year by the experience of another filibustering expedition, this time directed against the viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres. While the British ministry was considering the plans of Miranda, in 1804, Sir Home Eiggs Pop- ham had been designated as commander of a possible British contingent, and had been placed in communi- cation with the South American adventurer.8 Thus Popham had come to consider the possibilities of South American independence. And when the capture of Cape Colony, in January, 1806, left him free to act with his fleet, he listened to the tales of
7 The History of Don Francisco de Miranda's Attempt to effect a Revolution in South America, in a Series of Letters, by a Gentleman who was an Officer under that General, to his Friend in the United States. To which are annexed Sketches of the Life of Miranda, and Geographical Notices of Caracas (Boston, 1808), 110; Annual Register, 1806, 239 ; A . S. P. F. R. , III : 256 ; Amer. Hist. Rev. , VI : 508; Annals of Congress, 11 Cong., 1 Sess., 257-315; J. H. Latane", The Diplomatic Relations of the United States and Spanish America (Baltimore, 1900), 21-29 ; Colombia, Being a geographical, statistical, agricultural, commercial, and political Account of that Country, adap- ted for the general Reader, the Merchant and the Colonist. (2 vols., London, 1822) II: 302, — perhaps by Zea, the Colombian agent since it is a tract in favor of Colombian loans and contains the documents on recognition by the United States.
8 C. W. Vane, ed., Correspondence, Despatches, and other Papers of Viscount Castlereagh, Second Marquess of Londonderry (12 vols., Lon- don, 1851- ), VII: 288.
Wars of Liberation 49
the captain of an American merchantman, borrowed Lord Beresford and twelve hundred men, and sailed west to free Montevideo and Buenos Ayres from the Spanish tyranny under which they groaned, and to open to British merchants their valuable commerce.9 The Spanish viceroy was so hopelessly incompetent that Buenos Ayres fell before Beresford's handful of troops, in July. But the groaning and oppressed people united under the lead of a French officer in the Spanish service, Liniers, and shortly made Beres- ford and his soldiers prisoners of war.10 So success- ful was their resistance that when General White- locke arrived with nine thousand reinforcements, and a commission as civil governor of the province, he was forced to give up hostilities and return to England to be court-martialed and cashiered.11
Thus the attempts to revolutionize South America under British auspices proved to be premature. With
»C. W. Vane, Castlereagh Corresp. VII: 302; W. M. Sloane, in Amer. Hist. Rev., IV : 449-453; see text of proclamations in S. H. Wilcocke, History of the Viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres; containing the most accurate Details relative to the Topography, History, Com- merce, Population, Government, etc., etc., of that valuable Colony (Lon- don, 1807), 356.
10 Joseph Andrews, Journey from Buenos Ayres, through the Prov- inces of Cordova, Tecuman, and Salta, to Potosi, thence by the Deserts Carauja to Arica, and subsequently, to Santiago de Chili and Coquimbo . . .in the years 1825-26 (2 vols., London, 1827), 1 : 34.
11 C. W. Vane, Castlereagh Corresp., VII: 314; LatanS, Dipl. ReL, 29-31 ; and Dictionary of National Biography.
50 South American Independence
all their grievances the colonists were not yet pre- pared for independence. And when at last the first step was taken that led to the ultimate separation, the motive was not love of freedom, but a patriotic desire to maintain Spanish authority in Spanish colonies.
When Napoleon established his brother on the throne of Spain he gave the signal for the erection of patriotic juntas throughout the peninsula. The inhabitants of Spanish- America were no less deter- mined than those of Ferdinand's European posses- sions not to submit to French rule. With some friction 12 caused by the desire of the regency of Cadiz to rule the colonies as well as Spain, they took matters into their own hands and set up independent local governments in the name of Ferdinand. At Buenos Ayres the viceroy Cisneros met with opposi- tion from the minute of his arrival, in May, 1809.13 A year later he was deposed by a movement inspired by a writer of pamphlets, Moreno, who became the soul of the new " junta gubernative " that succeeded him.14 Valparaiso followed the example of Buenos
w Colombia. . .Account, II: 320.
1$ J. R. Rengger, The Reign of Doctor Joseph Gaspard Roderick de Francia in Paraguay ; being an Account of a Six Years' Residence in that Republic, from July, 1819, to May, 1825 (London, 1827), In trod. xiv.
i* John Miller, Memoirs of General Miller, in the Service of the Republic of Peru (2 vol., London, 1828), I: 59. These memoirs of
Wars of Liberation 51
Ayres, in July, 1810, deposed the president Carrasco, and turned the municipal cabildo into a patriotic junta.15 Santiago did the same in September, and with a remarkable unanimity Chile determined no longer to form a captain-generalcy under the viceroy of Peru, and met in her first free congress in the spring of 181 1.18 In the northern viceroy alty of New Granada, Quito had set up the first junta in August, 1809.17 Caracas joined in the movement six months later, and abolished slavery, in addition to proclaiming Ferdinand and forming a federative government for Venezuela.18 Bogota acted in simi- lar manner in July, following this in December, 1810, with a congress and a " Eepublic of Cundina- marca " to be ruled by a president and vice-president in the name of the old King of Spain.19 And on 5th
the most successful foreign officer in the service of the liberating army form the most valuable single source on the history of the war. The military operations are particularly well treated.
15 W. B. Stevenson, A historical and descriptive Narrative of a Twenty Year*' Residence in South America (3 vol., London, 1825), III: 176.
" Miller, Memoirs, 1 : 105.
17 The Republic of Colombia : an Account of its Boundaries, Extent . . . and History. Printed from the Article in the Seventh Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (New York, 1836), 45-49.
"Simon de Schryver, Esquisse de la Vie Bolivar (Brussels, 1899), 13 ; Jonathan Elliott, The American Diplomatic Code (2 vols., Wash- ington, 1834) 1 : 14.
19 Bernard Moses, " Political Constitution of Colombia," in Ann. Amer. Acad. of Pol. and Soc. Science. Ill : 57.
52 South American Independence
July, 1811, the first motion of independence of Spain was adopted by the Congress of Venezuela.20 The widespread popular feeling which showed itself in the movements here described was founded on loyalty to Spain.21 Many of the leaders of the day were individually in favor of a complete inde- pendence, but there was as yet no public opinion to support them. Even so much as had been attained was soon lost, as throughout the greater part of South America the popular governments were sup- pressed, with varying degrees of difficulty. But the fact of independence was established. Although in name Spain continued to rule the Americas for several years to come, her rule had now ceased to be effectual, and the principle of commercial restriction upon which her colonial policy was founded ceased to be operative. The great English trade which came at once into existence made the restoration of the old system more impossible every day, and gave strength to the real movements for political inde- pendence which at once began. The overthrow of Ferdinand in Spain had established the economic independence of the colonies.
80 Republic of Colombia, 51; The Present State of Colombia; by an Officer, late in the Colombian Service (London, 1827), 29.
21 William Walton, An Expose of the Dissensions of Spanish Amer- ica . . . intended as a means to induce the mediatory Interference of Great Britain (London, 1814), 100.
Wars of Liberation 53
The overthrow of Spanish rule in America is the result of two simultaneous movements which origi- nated in local disturbances in Venezuela and Buenos Ayres, which spread gradually northward and south- ward along the western coast of the continent de- veloping leaders as they advanced, and which finally united within the limits of the present republic of Ecuador, to continue the advance together into the heights of upper Peru, until the attainment of a com- plete and perfect independence.22 The name of Simon Bolivar, who was the spirit of the northern movement, is better known than that of San Martin, who accomplished a greater work in the southern half of the continent.
When economic independence was forced upon the Spanish provinces, about the year 1810, and their ports were opened more widely than ever before to foreign commerce, there began an invasion of capital and commercial adventurers that had a permanent influence on the history of the colonies.23 There had
M A great calendar of documents bearing upon the liberation was published in 1912 by Pedro Torres Lanzas, Director of the General Archive of the Indies at Seville, under the title Independencia de America: Fuentes para, su Estudio. Catdlago de Documentos con- servados en el Archivo General de Indias de Sevilla. (6 vols., Madrid 1912). These volumes will be indispensable to the definitive historian of the movement.
88 A Five Years1 Residence in Buenos Ayres during the Years 1820 to 1825, containing Remarks on the Country and Inhabitants, and a Visit to Colonia del Sacramento. By an Englishman (2 ed., London, 1827), 33; Wilcocke, Viceroyalty, preface.
54 South American Independence
always been much foreign commerce in spite of Span- ish colonial system, but it had paid a heavy unofficial tax, and the goods were distributed through Spanish hands. Now began the establishment of commercial houses in the large cities and the permanent invest- ment of foreign capital, which was mostly English. It was not long before those houses and this capital were forced into politics, and, owing their life to the existence of an illegal condition, they necessarily fought to maintain that condition and enlisted heart- ily in the cause of independence. The materials are not yet collected to show how far Spanish American independence was due to the Liverpool and Man- chester merchants, but such as are available seem to show that commercial pressure was the great influ- ence in keeping the patriots patriotic. Particularly was this true in the chief port of entry for the southern provinces, Buenos Ayres.
The junta gubernative, which was set up in Buenos Ayres on the 25th of May, 1810,24 was the beginning of an independent regime that has endured in that territory, in one form or another, from that day to this. It was a doubtful period of political instability that followed the erection of this government for ten
84 T. C. Dawson, The South American Republics (2 vols., 1903, 1904, in " The Story of the Nations " ) , 1 : 90. Dawson gives an intelligent popular survey of South American affairs.
Wars of Liberation 55
years or more. War was almost constant on three parts of the frontier: Artigas dominated in the city of Montevideo, and declined to submit to the authority of Buenos Ayres; Dr. Francia shut him- self up in the city of Paraguay and maintained a permanent embargo on the inhabitants of the province under his control; and on the northern frontier of the viceroyalty the Spanish forces from upper Peru were constant in their depredations.
Meanwhile, within the frontiers thus harassed, partisan politics was doing its worst, and between the rivalries of revolutionary chieftains and the jeal- ousies existing between the rural districts and the city of Buenos Ayres the province had little domestic stability.25 Moreno, who led the attack on the vice- roy Cisneros, in 1810, dominating the junta that suc- ceeded him, seems to have been an honest man and too severe for his time.26 He died while on a forced mission to England. Saavedra, who drove him out, was himself forced to leave abruptly before the end
KAn account, historical, political and statistical, of the United Provinces of JRio de la Plata ; with an Appendix concerning the Usur- pation of Monte Video by the Portuguese and Brazilian Governments. Translated from the Spanish (London, 1825) 9, et seq., — this is a semi- official account, prepared at the request of the British agent, and con- tains an excellent map and numerous documents.
26 Miller, Memoirs, 1 : 60, et seq.; Don Vicente Pazos, Letters on the United Provinces of South America, addressed to the Hon. Henry Clay (New York and London, 1819), 49.
56 South American Independence
of 1811. And after an interregnum of several months Juan Martin Pueyrredon arrived from the army and took command at Buenos Ayres.27 In the last month of 1813 the position of Supreme Director was established, to be filled for the first time by Gervasio Antonio de Posadas. He was followed by General Alvear,28 later the victim of another revolu- tion, succeeded by Alvarez, pro temporej and by Pueyrredon, who was chosen Supreme Director in March, 1816, by the Congress of Tucuman.29
Throughout this period of strife Buenos Ayres was in an anomalous condition. She had revolted in the name of Ferdinand VII. She did not issue any declaration of independence until 1816. Spain was maintaining that her own sway was still unbroken: " the Laws of the Indias (which are still in force) do not permit any Foreign Vessel to approach or carry on commerce with " the port of Buenos Ayres. Yet when the British Foreign Office sent a consul to that city the junta declined to grant hini an exequa- tur, because in his commission the independence of Buenos Ayres was not acknowledged. The congress that met at Tucuman in 1816 ended this uncertainty. By this time negotiations entered into for the estab-
» Bland, in Annals of Congress, 15th Cong., 1st Sess., 2146. 88 Halsey to Secretary of State, May 5, 1815. State Dept. MM. » Bland, in Annals of Congress, 15th Cong., 1st Sess., 2149.
Wars of Liberation 57
lishment of a Spanish prince on the throne of Buenos Ayres had failed because of the unalterable deter- mination of Spain, after the restoration, to reconquer the colonies.30 So the representatives of the United Provinces of Rio de la Plata declared their inde- pendence at Tucuman on July 9th, 1816, and issued a manifesto of causes on the 25th of the following month.31
The series of military successes that was destined to lead to South American independence began at Tucuman in the fall of 1812, and at Salta on Febru- ary 20th, 1813.32 In these battles the Spanish forces from upper Peru were driven back as they crossed the frontier of Buenos Ayres, and at the latter the royalist general Tristan was decisively defeated by the patriot Belgrano. But on the 1st of October, of the same year, the royalists, violating their parole given after Salta, destroyed Belgrano's army at Vilcapujio. This was a distinct service to the patriots, for it placed in command of the remnants of Belgrano's force Jose de San Martin, just returned
80 Sir Woodbine Parish, Buenos Ayres and the Provinces of the Rio de la Plata : from their Discovery and Conquest by the Spaniards to the Establishment of their political Independence (2d ed. London, 1852), 75, 386.
81 Annals of Congress, 15th Cong., 1st Sess., 1877, 2045; Annual Register, 1816 [159] ; J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, IV : 30.
»2 North American Review, CLX V : 556 ; Miller, Memoirs 1 : 76.
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from twenty years of honorable service in the Spanish armies to aid his countrymen in their fight. San Martin recognized at once the futility of attacking Spain in the mountains of upper Peru, with more than four hundred leagues of impassable roads33 between his army and his base of supplies.34 He conceived the idea of forcing Spain to defend her own base at Lima and Callao, and to this purpose elaborated a plan for an invasion of Chile, a capture of Valparaiso, and a combined military and naval attack on the capital of Peru. To this end he will- ingly gave up the command of his northern army to General Alvear, taking for himself, in September, 1814, the governorship of the backwoods province of Cuyo, Mendoza the capital, at the eastern end of the Uspallata pass over the Andes.35
33 In 1908 and 1909 Hiram Bingham, of Yale University, in connec- tion with his visit to the First Pan-American Scientific Congress at Santiago, made the overland trip along the old road from Buenos Ayres to Bolivia and Peru. He describes and illustrates the supreme difficulties that would have impeded San Martin in an overland con- quest of Peru in Across South America, An Account of a Journey from Buenos Aires to Lima by Way of Potosi (Boston, 1911), 50, ff.
34 Peter Schmidtmeyer, Travels into Chile, over the Andes, in the Years 1820 and 1821 (London, 1824), 132, gives the distance from Buenos Ayres to Tucuman as 328 leagues, and to Salta 415 leagues.
35 J. H. Latane", DipL Eel., 37 ; Alexander Cadcleugh, Travels in South America during the Years 1819-20-21, containing An Account of the present State of Brazil, Buenos Ayres and Chile (2 vols., London, 1825), 1 : 293-297.
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A popular revolt had occurred in Chile a short time after the overthrow of the viceroy at Buenos Ayres, the cabildo of Valparaiso advancing the pre- text that the captain-general could not save the prov- ince for Ferdinand. Following a common line of development this revolt ripened into a popular con- gress in June, 1811, only to fall in December of the same year before " the unprincipled ambition " of three gifted brothers Carrera. Encouraged by the factions so soon developed in Chile, the viceroy of Peru seized the opportunity to send down an army in the early months of 1813. The Chilenos at once put aside their strife, met the invaders, and under the leadership, first of Jos6 Miguel Carrera, and then of Bernardo O'Higgins, extorted a truce at Talca on the 5th of May, 1814. By this truce the existing order in Chile was acknowledged. The truce was the signal for the renewal of partisan strife between O'Higgins and the Carreras, who had been forced to surrender to him the command of the patriot army. But once more they came to a forced recon- ciliation, when the news arrived that the viceroy repudiated the truce of Talca, and that General Osorio was on his way south with another royalist army. The patriots were hopelessly weakened by their domestic strife, however, so that a decisive victory at Kancagua, on 1st October, 1814, marked
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a complete restoration of Spanish authority in Chile.36 O'Higgins and a few of his officers escaped from the wreck of their army, crossed the Andes, and placed themselves under the command of San Martin, the new governor at Mendoza.37
San Martin settled down at Mendoza with a hand- ful of recruits — the number is stated at 160 — and a great plan. In a few weeks he was joined by another handful of Chilenos, who escaped destruction at Rancagua. Then he began the long task of building up a weak province, collecting and organizing an army, and educating the authorities of Buenos Ayres in the strategic necessities of the war. From the city he had chosen for his capital it was only a short journey to the coast cities of Chile. But the passage of the Andes was considered impossible for an army, and few stratagems were needed to close the eyes of the Spanish forces to the possibility of danger from this side.
His long experience in the Spanish army had given San Martin a thorough knowledge of the art of war.
86 Miller, Memoirs, 1 : 105-118 ; Stevenson, Narrative of Residence, III : 176-181 ; Maria Graham, Journal of a Residence in Chile during the Year 1822 ; and a Voyage from Chile to Brazil in 182S (London, 1824), 16. The history of this period is based on memoirs, the public records having been destroyed to keep them from the Spaniards. Graham, Introd., 3.
*T Samuel Haigh, Sketches of Ifuenos Ayres and Chile (London, 1829), 160.
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To this were added a character that inspired confi- dence, and a greater amount of industry than was common to Latin Americans. Eecruiting proceeded at Mendoza with considerable rapidity; constant drilling turned the raw recruits into first-rate sol- diers; from the foreign merchants at Buenos Ayres, whose confidence had early been gained, came a sup- ply of material 38 things that made the equipment of an army possible.
After two years of quiet organization the new army was ready to move, and notice to this effect was served in an indirect way on the Spanish authorities in Chile. Relying confidently on the insincerity of the native Indians, San Martin summoned them to a great conference and celebration in the fall of 1816. Here, under pledge of profound secrecy, he told the chiefs of his purpose, and marked out for them a line of march across the Andes that he had no intention of following.39 Having thus successfully misled his enemy, San Martin moved from Mendoza on the 17th of January, 1817, with a force of about 4,000 men. After a terrible journey over the Uspallata pass, four thousand feet higher than another more famous one, of St. Bernard, he descended the western slope
88 Miller, Memoirs, I: 88.
» Miller , Memoirs, I : 89-102; Graham, Journal, 29.
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of the Andes and fell upon the Spanish outpost at La Guardia, on 7th February.40
The liberation of Chile, the second step in San Martin's plan, of which the creation of an army at Mendoza was the first, was the work of fifteen months. Osorio, who had become captain-general of Chile after his victory at Rancagua, in 1814,41 had been suspecting danger as he watched the proceedings across the mountains, and soon had an army ready to be sacrificed before the invader at Chacabuca, on February 12th.42 Two days later the liberating army entered Santiago. During the succeeding months the patriot government in Chile was erected again. A congress met to offer the Supreme Directorship to San Martin, and then to O'Higgins, when the former refused it; while on the first day of the ensuing year the independence of Chile was proclaimed.43 Meanwhile the Spanish army, in its refuge at Talcuhuana, in the south of Chile, was gathering reinforcements from Peru. Then Osorio
*° C. R. Markham, A History of Peru ( Chicago, 1892) , 239 ; Miller, Memoirs, I: 120.
« Miller, Memoirs, 1 : 120.
» ** Stevenson, Narrative of Residence, 182 ; Journal of a Residence in Chile. By a Young American, detained in that Country during the revolutionary Scenes of 1817-18-19 (Boston, 1823), 1-17 ; Schmidtmeyer, Travels, 351.
43 Annual Register, 1818, 44.
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marched ** against the patriots with 8,000 men, and defeated them completely at Talca, 19th March, 18 18.45 But this was only the dark before dawn, for the patriots, who rallied under San Martin and O'Higgins, melted down their plate and sold their jewels, and in three weeks placed a new army in the field. On the 5th of April, 1818, the virtual inde- pendence of Chile was achieved on the plain of Maypu.46 Spain never again had any considerable force in the province.
With Chile cleared of Spanish troops, and with Valparaiso at his service for a base of supplies, San Martin was ready to enter upon the next stage of his work, the liberation of Peru. From this point in his career he is no longer to be considered as a general of Buenos Ayres. He is become the Liberator, with larger plans than the home faction that appointed him can comprehend. We are not at this place con- cerned with the internecine strife that continued in Buenos Ayres regardless of his successes, or with his summons by, disobedience to, and final rupture with the Buenos Ayrean authorities. San Martin realized
« Graham, Journal, 33 ; Miller, Memoirs, 1 : 179 ; Basil Hall, Extracts from a Journal written on the coasts of Chili, Peru and^ Mexico in the years 1820, 1821, 1822 (2 vol., Edinburgh, 1824), 1 : 58,' a valuable account by an outsider skilled in travel and observation.
45 Journal by a Young American, 40-71.
** Haigh, Sketches, 190-239 ; Cadcleugh, Travels, II : 31.
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that extinction of Spanish power was more important than local politics, and continued on the course he had mapped out in spite of the orders and pleadings that he come home and restore peace.*7
Another period of two years elapsed between the decisive victory at Maypu and the definitive invasion of Peru. It was a period, like that at Mendoza, filled with recruiting, organizing, drilling and educating. A series of proclamations prepared the Peruvians for their emancipation; the friendship and protection of the Liberator were promised them; while a treaty of alliance between Buenos Ayres and Chile guaranteed the independence of a new State to be erected by their joint army in Peru.48
At this time arrived in Valparaiso a most consid- erable addition to the patriot force in the person of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, later tenth Earl of Dun- donald. Cochrane, who was an energetic and able naval officer, had been thrown out of the British navy on a rather doubtful charge, and had been engaged, in 1817, by Alvarez, the Chilian agent in London,49 to go out and organize a naval force for
^'February, 1820. Miller, Memoirs, 1 : 258.
48 Graham, Journal, 481 ; British and Foreign State Papers, XII : 811.
*» Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, from Spanish and Portuguese Domination (2 vols., London, 1859), I. This is one of
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Chile. His arrival in November, 1818, introduced at once an element of efficiency in the branch of the service on which San Martin was most dependent for success in Peru.50 But it also introduced feelings of jealousy among the native officers thus superseded that well nigh wrecked the whole enterprise.
An active naval warfare was at once begun against the Spanish forces, and before long reports began to come to Europe and the United States of the pirati- cal proceedings of insurgent cruisers in the Pacific, of seizures of neutrals, and of paper blockades.51 The first expedition of Cochrane anchored off Callao on 28th February, 1819, after a twelve days' voyage from Valparaiso.52 The following day a blockade of the Peruvian coast was instituted.53 But this attack accomplished nothing of consequence. With a fleet of eight vessels Cochrane sailed for a second time in
the best accounts of the war, but is violently prejudiced against San Martin. Cochrane also published The Autobiography of a Seaman (2 vols., London, 1860) ; which was completed in The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald (2 vol., London 1869), by the Eleventh Earl of Dundonald and H. R. Fox Bourne. On his earlier career, see J. B. Atlay, The Trial of Lord Cochrane before Lord Ellenborough (London, 1897), and The Guilt of Lord Cochrane, A Criticism (London, 1914), by Lord Ellenborough, grandson of the Lord Chief Justice.
50 Stevenson, Narrative of Residence, III : 147.
61 Nile* Register, XVII : 191.
52 Stevenson, Narrative of Residence, III : 139 ; Cochrane, Narra- tive, 1:5. s3 Annual Register, 1819, II : 154.
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September of this same year, only to find, when he met the enemy, that his rockets were filled with sand instead of powder. The Chilian authorities had frugally employed Spanish prisoners in the manu- facture of ammunition.54 In spite of this disap- pointment, however, Valdavia was captured by the fleet, and at once Spain was deprived of her best harbor in the Pacific, and San Martin was enabled to devote his whole attention to Peru.55 By this time the latter was ready to move his new army, and in August, 1820, a combined military and naval expedition departed from Valparaiso.
Peru, the stronghold of Spanish power in America, had undergone less violent revolutionary movements than any other part of the continent; and in August, 1820, was fully under the control of General Don Joaquin de la Pezuela, forty-fourth viceroy after Pizarro. But it was three years now since Pezuela had written home that he stood over a volcano liable to burst into action at any time.58 To understand San Martin's campaign against the viceroy, and his illegitimate successor, La Serna, we must remember that San Martin realized this condition and labored to produce an eruption of the volcano, to induce the Peruvians to free themselves,
M Miller, Memoirs, 1 : 220. M Miller, Memoirs, 1 : 246.
5«Markham, Peru, 237.
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On August 21st, 1820, the liberating squadron sailed from Valparaiso with San Martin, Cochrane arid some 4,500 troops on board. On 12th Septem- ber these were landed at the bay of Pisco, and two weeks later the viceroy concluded a truce at Mira- flores.57 This was the beginning of what seemed to Lord Cochrane to be a series of dilatory movements inspired by irresolution and incapacity, if not by actual cowardice. Cochrane was a strenuous leader, and could not understand a war conducted without fighting. All his life he had been engaged in con- flicts with his superiors in the navy, magistrates and committees. ISTow began the misunderstanding that led to an open rupture between the leaders, and finally induced the admiral to abandon a service where he considered himself ill-treated, to enter what he hoped would be a more congenial service in Brazil. The truce of Miraflores came to nothing, for Pezuela had no power to treat on the only basis San Martin would consider — that of independence. So hostilities were soon resumed. The campaign was one of education. " I come to fulfil the expecta- tions," proclaimed the Liberator, " of all those who wish to belong to the country that gave them birth, and who desire to be governed by their own laws. On that day when Peru shall freely pronounce as
M Hall, Extracts from Jowrnal, 1 : 70 ; Graham, Journal 67-69.
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to the form of her institutions, be they whatever they may, my functions shall cease, and I shall have the glory of announcing to the government of Chile, of which I am a subject, that their heroic efforts have at last received the consolation of having given liberty to Peru, and security to the neighboring States." 58 To a British officer on duty in South American waters, San Martin declared that he de- sired to convert thinking men, but had no ambition to figure as a conqueror.59
After a few weeks at Pisco the army was again placed on its transports and moved off Callao, where it remained long enough for Cochrane to cut out a Spanish frigate, the Esmeralda, which lay in the har- bor. Then it was moved to a bay some twenty-nine leagues north of Callao and disembarked at Huacho on 9th November. Here, " having shown sufficiently what his army and fleet were capable of," 60 San Martin settled for a period of six months, and con- tinued the dissemination of revolutionary principles.61
Colonel Arenales was perhaps the most efficient educator employed by the patriots. While the army lay at Pisco, he set out with 1,000 troops, crossed the Andes, marched north through the heart of the
68 October 13, 1820. Stevenson, Narrative of Residence, III: 286.
59 Hall, Extracts from Journal, 1 : 210.
60 Hall, Extracts from Journal, 1 : 83.
61 Miller, Memoirs, 1 : 270 ; Cochrane, Narrative, 1 : 82.
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Spanish territory, and rejoined the main body of the army at Huacho. As he marched around Lima, Arenales spread a feeling of independence among the inhabitants. Troops sent against him from Lima were defeated. A long line of revolutionized towns was left in his wake; while Spanish soldiers by the hundred deserted and marched over to the patriot army.62
Meanwhile the effects of war were being felt by the royalists in Lima. Cochrane was maintaining a rigorous blockade of Callao, and San Martin and Arenales were investing the city from the land. Faction and dissatisfaction prevailed, so that when General La Serna came down from Upper Peru, on his way to Spain, he went no further than the capital. Here he was promoted by the viceroy Pezuela to the command of the royalist armies; and by the favor of the army he deposed Pezuela and inaugurated him- self as viceroy in his place.63 This was on the 29th of January, 1821. No general actions occurred dur- ing the ensuing months. Miller, the only English officer who fought through the whole war, was en- gaged in an expedition similar to that of Arenales, when news came to him of the conclusion of another armistice on the 23d of May.64 La Serna, in the
" Stevenson, Narrative of Residence, III : 303.
68 Miller, Memoirs, 1 : 281. «* Miller, Memoirs, 1 : 284.
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negotiations which now occurred, was more pliable than Pezuela had been during the truce of Mira- flores. He was thoroughly convinced of the hope- lessness of his fight, and was ready to recognize the independence of Peru, and permit the establishment of a provisional government until a Bourbon prince could come out to take the throne. But his officers forced him to abandon those terms and end the truce. Spain made no terms with rebels; but her position in Lima had become untenable, and at daybreak on the 6th of July, 1821, she marched her army out of the city.65
With deliberation, San Martin moved his army into the capital thus evacuated. He had long since proclaimed that he did not come as a conqueror, and now he delayed his entry until the fiery Cochrane was almost blind with anger, and the cabildo sent a deputation of magnates to invite him to take pos- session.66 Even then he did not move his troops until he had thoroughly policed the town.
Although Lima was in his hands, the political edu- cation of the Peruvians was by no means completed, and harmony had ceased to exist in the ranks of the patriots. At the suggestion of the Liberator an as- sembly of eminent citizens, the cabildo, the arch-
66 Hall, Extracts from Journal, 1 : 217 ; Markham, Pert*, 249. w Markham, Peru, 250.
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bishop, the prelates and the nobles, met on the 15th of July and declared the independence of Peru, which was publicly proclaimed a little later: " Peru is from this moment free and independent, by the general vote of the people, and by the justice of her cause, which God defend! " 67 This act ac- complished, the erection of a government was the next problem to be solved. It " was necessary that an authority should be created capable of restoring the movement of this grand machine, by preparing it to receive new forms and modifications. Im- perious circumstances pointed out the person on whom the supreme power was to fall." Accord- ingly, on 3d August San Martin issued a proclama- tion assuming the supreme power, giving himself the title of Protector, and promising to surrender the government to the people as soon as Peru should be free.69 It was a curious paper, wrote Basil Hall, "it has little of the wonted bombast of such docu- ments, and though not sparing of self-praise, is manly
67 British and Foreign State Papers, IX : 393 ; Stevenson, Narra- tive of Residence, III : 341.
68 Bernardo Monteagudo, Peruvian Pamphlet : Being an Exposition of the administrative Labours of the Peruvian Government, from the Time of Its Formation, till the 15th of July, 1822; Presented to the Council by the Minister of State and Foreign Relations, . . .in Con- formity with a protectorial Decree of the 18th of January (London. 1823), 12. Monteagudo's work is partisan in character, but as a confi- dential agent of San Martin he was in a position to know his facts.
* British and Foreign State Papers, VIII : 1271.
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" and decided; and, as I believe, from a number of collateral circumstances, perfectly sincere." 70 But by this time the controversy between the Protector and the Admiral had become so bitter that there was no longer hope of reconciliation, and the former had to order the latter, with his fleet, to leave the coast of Peru. " It now became evident to me," is Coch- rane's story, " that the army had been kept inert for the purpose of preserving it entire to further the am- bitious views of the general, and that with the whole force now at Lima the inhabitants were completely at the mercy of their pretended liberator, but really their conqueror." 71 " It is almost unnecessary to say," complained one of his partisans, " how ill this self-constituted authority agrees with the promises made by the Supreme Director of Chile in his procla- mation to the Peruvians; and in that of General San Martin, issued after his arrival in Peru." 72 San Martin was not unmindful of the difficulties of his position when he reported to his superior, O'Higgins, that he would retain his authority " until the meet-
70 Hall, Extracts from Journal, I: 266.
71Cochrane, Narrative I'. 125.
72 Stevenson, Narrative of Residence, III: 352; John Miers, Travels in Chile and La Plata, including Accounts respecting the Geography Geology, Statistics, Government, Finances, Agriculture, Manners and Customs, and the mining Operations in Chile (2 vol., London, 1826), 64; Gilbert F. Mathison, Narrative of a Visit to Brazil, Chile, Peru, and the Sandwich Islands, during the Years 1821 and 1822 (London, 1825), 243.
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" ing of the sovereign congress, composed of repre- sentatives from all the districts, into which august body I will resign my command, and to which I will be answerable for what I may have done." 73
The wisdom of this assumption of power at this critical period of Peruvian history is hardly to be contested. These were the decisive campaigns of the war of liberation. The future of Buenos Ayres and Chile, of New Granada and Venezuela, of all the Spanish provinces, depended on the battles that were now to be fought in the mountains of Peru. For this was the royalist heart of South America. San Martin was not destined to fight these final bat- tles, but he has the honor of conceiving the plan of action, of executing it almost to the end, and of showing a moderation and modesty unparalleled among Latin American politicians.
The great popularity of the Liberator seems to have begun to wane shortly after this time. It is said on excellent authority that he always retained the affections of the common people, but jealousy and distrust had split his co-workers into hostile fac- tions. There was little plunder to be shared by the followers of San Martin; there was little military glory to be achieved, for his policy was never one of fighting. The greatest blow he sustained was per-
73 Monteagudo, Peruvian Pamphlet, App., 88, et seq.
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haps one that came a month after his accession of power. Spain, in evacuating Lima, had retained the port of Callao, and on 10th September, 1821, she marched reinforcements into the fort. San Martin, with what his apologist well calls the " prudence of real courage," declined to fight, and permitted the Spanish force to pass unmolested within sight of his army. The fact that in eleven days Callao was quietly evacuated, without loss of life, and with con- sequent discredit to the royalists, was as nothing in the minds of the general's detractors. As they told the story, habitual cowardice alone kept him out of action.'*
For a year San Martin remained in Peru. It was a year of great activity on his part, but of no per- manent result. His effective contribution had been made. The organization of a government was his first work; 75 a provisional constitution was promul-
7* Miller, Memoirs 1 : 336 ; Hall, Extracts from Journal, II : 69 ; Stevenson, Narrative of Residence, III : 374 ; D. Ger6nimo Espejo, Recuerdos histdricos : San Martin y Bolivar. Entrevista de Guaya- quil (18S2), . . . illustrada con dos retrados (Buenos Ayres, 1873), 12, contains an attack on Cochrane. Espejo was at Guayaquil during the interview; Monteagudo, Peruvian Pamphlet, 16, 30; Markham, Peru, 253.
75 " I never mentioned a wish to San Martin, or to Monteagudo, that was not granted, and granted immediately, in the most obliging man- ner. After their going away, I scarcely mentioned anything I wished done that was not refused." James Thomson, Letters on the moral and religious State of South America, written during a Residence of nearly seven Years in Buenos Ayres, Chile, Peru, and Colombia (London, 1827),
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gated; a committee was started on a general code; and a representative congress was summoned. In the meantime the northern movement, under the direction of Simon Bolivar, was approaching Peru, arriving at Guayaquil in the spring of 1822. The meeting of the two Liberators marks the end of San Martin's career. Appointing as Supremo Delegado the Marquis of Torre Tagle, a member of the old nobility, who had turned patriot, and leaving the actual administration of affairs in the hands of Bernardo Monteagudo, San Martin set sail for Guay- aquil in February, 1822.78 A change in Bolivar's plans making a meeting impossible at this time, he returned to Lima in a few weeks, but did not resume the government. This was unfortunate. Montea- gudo, whose ability was undoubted, was "a most zealous patriot," but, " besides being very unpopular in his manners, was a bitter enemy to the whole race of Spaniards." 7T His enemy tells us he was " of the lowest rank in society, of spurious offspring, and African genealogy." 78 Ultimately a mob at Lima re- warded his actions by taking his life in the streets. Under Monteagudo a series of proscriptions of
70. Thomson was an English missionary and teacher of the Lancas- trian school system. In his latter capacity he was employed by the revolutionary government.
76 Stevenson, Narrative of Residence, III : 432.
"Hall, Extracts from Journal, II: 85.
78 Stevenson, Narrative of Residence, III : 281.
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Spaniards took place that brought the administration into great disfavor.78 An incompetent general lost a whole division of the liberating army.80 And when San Martin, for the second time, went to Guayaquil, in July, the city rose in revolt.
Various accounts, and none of them authentic, have recorded the meeting of the two leaders at Guayaquil, on the 26th of July, 1822. According to Lord Cochrane, Bolivar " bitterly taunted San Mar- tin with the folly and cruelty of his conduct towards the Limenos; to such an extent, indeed, that the lat- ter, fearing designs upon his person, precipitately left Guayaquil and returned to Callao." 81 Such taunts would not have come well from the lips of Bolivar. More reasonable and more in harmony with prece- dent and subsequent facts is the conclusion of Sir Clements E. Markham: " General Bolivar came to the port of Guayaquil flushed with victory, and full of ambition to add to the lustre of his name by the liberation of Peru. General San Martin was a pure patriot,82 with little personal ambition. He saw clearly that there could be no room for himself and Bolivar in the same sphere of action, and it was necessary for the welfare of the common cause that
n Hall, Extracts from Journal, II: 86; Mathison, Narrative of Visit, 234.
80 Monteagudo, Peruvian Pamphlet, 33 ; Miller, Memoirs, 1 : 350.
81 Cochrane, Narrative 1 : 235. 8a Thomson, Letters, 52.
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one of them should retire. He did not hesitate to make the sacrifice." 83 And so, after a conference of a single day, San Martin returned to the revolted city of Lima. Here he remained for a short time restor- ing order and preparing for an expedition into upper Peru;8* then upon the meeting of the first Peruvian Congress, he " resigned the supreme authority he had assumed a year before,"85 accepted the honorary title of Generalissimo and a pension,86 issued a proc- lamation of farewell, and returned to Chile. A few months later he passes out of history, causing a mild flutter at the Foreign Office as he came from Buenos Ayres to London, bringing his little daughter to be educated.87
It is now necessary to take up the other chain of events of the war of liberation, to bring it down to the point reached by San Martin, and to carry it on to the successful termination of the struggle.
We have already seen how the premature attempt of Miranda to revolutionize South America met with failure in 1806, and how in 1810 the patriotic wave established at Caracas and Bogota juntas ruling in the name of Ferdinand VII.88 Simon Bolivar, who,
88 Markham, Peru, 254. M Monteagudo, Peruvian Pamphlet, App. 63. 83 Hall, Extracts from Journal,!!: 88. *« Cochra,ne,Narrativet I: 226. 87 Parish to Canning, April 25, 1824. F. O. Mss. MJos6 Gil Fortoul, Historia Constitutional de Venezuela (2vol., Berlin, 1907, 1909), is described by H. Bingham as " a most interesting
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like Miranda and San Martin, came of an honorable American family, at once placed his services at the disposition of the Venezuelan junta.89 Miranda ar- rived a few months later; and in March, 1811, the first congress met. This body, after four months of deliberation, abandoned the policy with which the revolution had started and proclaimed the independ- ence of Venezuela.90
The movement which had thus fallen into the hands of the extremists advanced rapidly. The con-* gress framed a liberal constitution and presented it to the people of Venezuela for approval.91 But the patriot cause was literally shattered by an unfortu- nate earthquake that occurred on Holy Thursday of 1812, and gave the clergy of the province a chance to preach the wickedness of insurrection and the terrors of divine vengeance.92 This moral blow was closely followed by a series of military successes on the part of Spain. Dissensions arose among the leaders. Bolivar deserted Porto Cabello, Miranda and the in-
and satisfactory account" by "a really notable historian." Amer. Hist. Rev., XV : 907. 89 De Schryver, Bolivar, 13.
^Present State of Colombia, 29. ^Republic of Colombia Account, 53.
92 For an account of the destruction which left Caracas in ruins and reduced Cucuta from 12,000 to 3,000, see Letters written from Colombia during a Journey from Caracas to Bogota, and thence to Santa Martha in 182S (London, 1824), 76 ; B. Bache, Notes on Colombia, taken in the Years 1822-S. With an Itinerary of the Route from Caracas to Bogota ; and an Appendix. By an Officer in the United States Army (Philadel- phia, 1827), 38.
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surgent army leaving them to the mercy of the Spaniards, who promptly took the city. Miranda himself was captured as he attempted to escape, and his partisans maintain that the deliberate desertion of Bolivar was the cause of his being surrendered to the Spanish general Monteverde. While that general, beginning a policy that became common among roy- alist officers, coolly violated the pledge of safety he had given to his prisoner, and sent him to Spain, where he speedily died in prison.93
The valley of the Orinoco, extending east and west across three-fourths of the continent, is the backbone of Venezuela. It is separated by the high mountain wall of the Andes from the north and south valley of the Magdalena, which similarly is the backbone of New Granada. The wall is so solid that the two provinces were practically isolated, the one land route of importance being a road running from Caracas to the southwest, crossing the Andes between Barinas and Merida, and continuing its course up the valley of the Magdalena from San Rosario de Cucuta, through the city of Tunja, to Santa Fe de Bogota, in the district of Cundinamarca.94 But the
93 Republic of Colombia Account, 58 ; Markham, Peru, 267.
M Partly for the purpose of studying the difficulties overcome by Bolivar, Hiram Bingham has made the journey which he has recorded in The Journal of an Expedition Across Venezuela and Colombia, 1906-07 (New Haven, 1909).
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road was long and the journey one of many weeks, so that land communication between the capitals was considered out of question for large bodies of troops. The situation was similar to that of Buenos Ayres and Chile, which were thought to have no military communication by land until San Martin did the im- possible and crossed at Uspallata.
The elimination of Miranda gave Simon Bolivar full sway in the military and political councils of the northern provinces. His vigor and activity were equal to the opportunity. When the disastrous re- sults 95 of the spring of 1812 destroyed the insurgents in Venezuela, and gave their cities into the hands of the royalists, he crossed into New Granada for the time. There he found no powerful Spanish force in the upper country; but, instead, the patriots them- selves were quarreling over the principle of federa- tion, the City of Bogota standing out in determined resistance against the Congress of New Granada.98 In the fall of the year, under authority of this Con- gress, Bolivar was able to open the mouth of the Magdalena to the patriots. A little later, with six hundred men, he struck the Spanish at Cucuta, passed through Merida and over the Andes to Barinas, proclaiming " War to the Death." On the 4th of August, 1813, he entered Caracas once
w Colombia Account, II : 334. » Colombia Account, II : 337.
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more.97 Here the Dictatorial career of the Liberator began. Disregarding his orders from the Congress of New Granada, to reassemble the Congress of Venezuela, Bolivar called an assembly of notables in Caracas, told them what he had done, confided to them his plans, and resigned into their hands his au- thority. As was to be expected, his notables at once reinvested him with Dictatorial power, to last until a union between Venezuela and New Granada should come.98 With a promising beginning, 1814 came to a disastrous end. Royalist successes drove the Lib- erator out of Venezuela. Returning to New Granada, the Congress, then sitting at Tunja sent him against the stubborn city of Bogota, which he re- duced to membership in the federation." As a re- ward, the Congress made him Captain-General of its armies, arousing thereby a feeling of discontent among its officers that defeated all his plans. Even darker days were to follow.
The restoration of Ferdinand VII. to the throne of Spain was the beginning of an absolutist reaction in the peninsula, and of a determined attempt at recon- quest in the colonies. By this time the movements
97 Colombia Account, II : 345. Republic of Colombia Account, 61.
w January 2, 1814. Present State of Colombia, 35; Colombia Account, II : 351 ; Republic of Colombia Account, 64.
WG. Mollien, Travels in the Republic of Colombia, in the Years 1822 and 1823. Translated from the French (London, 1824), 136.
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that had started in favor of the monarchy had devel- oped into struggles for political independence. Spain showed no disposition to conciliate the provinces, failed to recognize the changes that a decade of economic independence had wrought, and by her own fatuous policy made her rehabilitation as an Ameri- can power impossible. For a time, however, she had the appearance of success in all her provinces but Buenos Ayres.
In the spring of 1815 it was announced that an extensive armament was preparing for the subjuga- tion of South America. In July General Morillo, as skillful and experienced a soldier as Spain possessed, arrived off Carthagena with two ships of the line, six frigates, seventy transports and twelve thousand veteran troops.100 For a time the patriot forces re- pulsed Morillo from this city, but the latter settled down before it with so rigorous an investment that after six months' siege an evacuation took place, and the insurgent troops departed for Aux Cayes.101 At the end of the year the Spanish general made the pre- mature but significant boast that he had not " left alive, in the kingdom of New Granada, a single indi- vidual of sufficient influence or talents to conduct
100 Annual Register, 1815, [127] ; Mollien, Travels, 141.
101 December 6, 1815. Annual Register, 1816, [157].
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" the revolution." 102 After another period of six months the boast might have been well founded, for in June, 1816, the invading army completed its march up the Magdalena and entered the capital city of Bogota in triumph.103
With the arrival of Morillo in the Yermillion Sea, Bolivar abandoned the continent, went to Jamaica, and thence to the island of St. Domingo. Then at Aux Cayes he was joined by the garrison at Cartha- gena, and in May, 1816, he started an expedition to Venezuela. No permanent success rewarded this attempt. In a few weeks the Liberator was back in Aux Cayes preparing a second expedition, which was able to possess itself of the island of Margarita in December.104 Co-operating with Sir Gregor M'Gregor who had taken Caracas for the patriots in October, Bolivar advanced from Margarita to the mainland and set up his government at Barcelona, some two hundred miles east of Caracas. But Morillo had moved his army to Margarita, after the capture of Bogota in June, 1816, and now opposed himself to the Liberator in Venezuela.105 In April, 3817, the royalists took Barcelona. Bolivar moved
102 Present State of Colombia, 40, quoting Cadiz Journal of January 6, 1816. m Annual Register, 1816, [158].
** Annual Register, 1816, [158] ; Colombia Account, II : 367. 1(» Annual Register, 1818, 18.
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his capital to the lower valley of the Orinoco, where he placed it in the city of St. Thomas de Angostura. The campaign of 1818 was undecisive. Morillo held the valley of the Magdalena and the cities of New Granada with almost uncontested authority, while he was well established, also, on the northern coast of Venezuela, in the vicinity of Caracas. Bolivar was at Angostura organizing his government and worrying the enemy. In February he shut up the Spaniard within the walls of Calaboza, and later forced him to withdraw hurriedly to the north. In the fall he established a Council for Foreign Rela- tions at Angostura, and issued writs for an assembly to meet in 1819.106 The second Congress of Vene- zuela convened at Angostura on 15th February, 1819, pursuant to the call of the Liberator. Before this body Bolivar made a long and eloquent speech, and again resigned his Dictatorial authority, only to be elected to the same position once more.107 Mean- while, in July and August of the previous year, most important reinforcements to the patriot cause had arrived at Margarita, in the shape of various Irish
108 Republic of Colombia Account, 81.
107 Colombia Account, II : 376 ; Republic of Colombia Account, 88 ; Simon Bolivar, South American Independence ! The Speech of His Excellency \ Gen. Bolivar, on the Act of Installation of the Second National Congress of Venezuela, on the 15th day of February, 1819. . . . With an accurate Account of the Proceedings on that interesting Occasion (London, 1819).
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and Albion brigades, forming a Foreign Legion, and recruited in Great Britain from the discharged veterans of the Napoleonic wars.108 With the aid of these disciplined adventurers Bolivar was pre- pared to make significant advances in 1819.
In the spring of 1819 Morillo advanced from Caracas inland towards the Orinoco with ten thou- sand men. Bolivar, from Angostura, sent Santan- dar west to head off Spanish reinforcements coming down the New Granada road, sent Marino north to head off Morillo's left wing at Barcelona, established his foreign auxiliaries on Margarita to move as di- rected, and, with Paez, marched himself against the main column of Morillo.109 The strategy of the campaign was completely successful. Barcelona fell before the combined attack of Marino and the Eng-
108 Recollections of a Service of three Years during the War-of- Extermination in the Republics of Venezuela and Colombia. By an Officer of the Colombian Navy (2 vol., London, 1828), I: 6-19; James Hackett, First Lieutenant of the late Venezuelan Artillery Brigade, Narrative of the Expedition which sailed from England in 1817 to join the South American Patriots, comprising every Particular concerned with its Formation, History and Fate; with Observations and authentic Information elucidating the real Character of the Contest, Mode of Warfare, State of the Armies, etc., (London, 1818) ; George Laval Chesterton, late Captain and Judge Advocate of the British Legion, raised for the Service of the Republic of Venezuela, A Narrative of Proceedings in Venezuela in South America, in the Years 1819 and 1820 ; with general Observations on the Country and People; the Character of the Republican Government, and its leading Members (London, 1820). ™ Annual Register, 1819, [241].
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lish.11( Santandar checked his opponent in the west. And the Liberator left Paez to drive Morillo into a corner at the mouth of Lake Maracaibo, while he himself joined Santandar's wing,111 made an unex- pected crossing of the Andes, struck the Spaniards at Tunja 112 on the 25th of July, and won the decis- ive battle of Boyaca 113 on the 7th August. The following day the liberating army marched into Santa Fe de Bogota.114
The battle of Boyaca was decisive in the affairs of New Granada. The Spanish army was wrecked, its general was a prisoner, and the viceroy was a fugi- tive. From this time Spain never had an effective force in the upper valley of the Magdalena, and her forts at the mouth of the river were soon lost. The Liberator lingered in New Granada for some weeks; then he made a quick trip back across the Andes and down into Angostura, where he reported his successes to the Venezuelan Congress.115 It speaks well for this influence over that body, that on the day after his arrival it promulgated a Fundamental Law for
110 Chesterton, Proceedings in Venezuela, 29.
111 Colombia, Account, II : 418 ; Charles Stewart Cochrane, Journal of Residence and Travels in Colombia during the Years 182S and 18%4 (2 vols., London, 1825), 1 : 477.
112 Republic of Colombia Account, 90 ; Recollections of a Service, I: 21.
113 Present State of Colombia, 45 ; Letters from Colombia, 137.
114 Niles Register, XVII : 328 ; Annual Register, 1819, 245. W Recollections of a Service, II : 28.
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the union of New Granada and Venezuela as the Republic of Colombia,116 and but little later sum- moned a general Congress of two houses, represent- ing both provinces, to meet at the city of Rosario de Cucuta, on the eastern frontier of 'New Granada. The law was issued December 17, 1819; the Con- gress met in May, 1821. Meanwhile the last steps in the liberation of Colombia had been taken.
During the year 1820 there was no fighting of consequence in Venezuela. It was a period rather of negotiation, tentative on the part of the Spanish officials, definite on the part of Bolivar. Morillo opened the correspondence, addressing the Congress of Angostura in June, calling the patriots brothers, summoning them to peace on a constitutional basis, and announcing the beginning of negotiations for an armistice preliminary to a reconciliation.117 This was an act under orders, for Ferdinand VII. had ex- perienced a change of heart in the spring of 1820. He had accepted a revolution, and with it a constitu- tion for the Spanish monarchy. On this basis he sought a peace. " Vanquished, expelled, or rather effaced from the American soil," wrote the Abbe de Pradt, "impotent to re-establish herself, and tor-
116 British and Foreign State Papers, IX : 407 ; Colombia Account, II : 439 ; Moses, Const. Colombia, 13.
117 Niles Register, XVII : 463 ; Cochrane, Residence in Colombia I: 506.
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" merited by the two-fold feeling of this impotency and the greatness of a loss, the sorrowful weight of which was exaggerated in her eyes by the want of re- flection, Spain has, since the period of the last revolu- tion, adopted various expedients in order to neutral- ize the consequences of a position, which a secret in- stinct informed her she could not escape." 118 This expedient, however, was wasted, for the Congress of Angostura, meeting in a special session, promptly re- plied to General Morillo that they would hear with pleasure any proposals based on an " absolute ac- knowledgment of the entire sovereignty and inde- pendence of the Eepublic of Colombia," 119 and no others whatsoever. Later in the year pacific over- tures were more successful, and Bolivar signed an armistice with the royalist leaders at Truxillo on the 25th of November.120
The truce had not been on for many weeks before Bolivar realized that it was a mistake on his part. He had met the royalist leaders at Truxillo, had em- braced and eaten and drunk with them, and had joined in fervent protestations of undying frater-
118 Abb6 de Pradt, Europe and America in 1821 ; with an Examin- ation of the Plan laid before the Cortes of Spain for the Recognition of the Independence of South America. Translated from the French . . . by J. G.Williams (2 vols., London, 1822) II: app.t 11.
119 Niles Register, XVII : 463.
120 British and Foreign State Papers, VIII : 1225.
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nity. But no results came.121 Instead, as the months went on, and the time passed when a reply from Spain could have been expected, his troops dwindled and suffered. It was almost impossible to hold a patriotic army together except by the imme- diate prospect of fighting. And so, in March, 1821, he took advantage of a clause providing for renewal of hostilities on forty days' notice, and declared the truce at end.122 La Torre was now in command of the Spanish armies, for Morillo had seized the oppor- tunity afforded by the truce to return to Spain, where he played a great part in the domestic revolution.
The final campaign in the Colombian war now fol- lowed. As it went on, there was sitting in the sacristy of the parish church at Rosario de Cucuta the first general congress of Colombia.123 Here the Act of Union of Angostura and the principle of cen- tralization were debated for three months. Here, on 12th July, it was declared that " We, the Representa- tives of the People of New Granada and Venezuela, in General Congress assembled " do decree that these same provinces " shall remain united, in one single National Body," forever to be independent
131 Recollections of a Service, II : 109.
128 Annual Register, 1821 [261] ; British and Foreign State Papers, VIII: 1233.
128 Moses, Const. Colombia, 16 ; Letters from Colombia, 106 ; British and Foreign State Papers, IX: 410.
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and a republic.124 And here, on the 30th of August, was promulgated a constitution in which the princi- ple of centralization prevailed over that of federa- tion.125
The last important battle had been fought before the constitution was proclaimed. The truce expired on 28th April, with the Spanish under La Torre and Morales concentrated around Valencia. Caracas changed hands several times in the early weeks. Bermudez took this city for the patriots in May, only to be driven out in twelve days.126 In another month he re-entered, to be driven out again just be- fore the decisive battle. These were skirmishes. The armies met on June 24th at Carabobo, where Paez, Sedeno, and Mackintosh with his English brigade, led the patriots to a complete victory that virtually ended the war in the north.127 Bolivar marched into Caracas at once.128 La Guayra and
m British and Foreign State Papers, IX : 696.
125 British and Foreign State Papers, IX: 698; Republic of Colombia Account, 105.
186 Annual Register, 1821, 262 ; Republic of Colombia Account, 103.
™Niles Register, XXI: 15; Annual Register, 1821, [262]; Recollections of a Service, II : 196 ; Bache, Notes on Colombia, 144 ; H. L. V. Decoudray-Holstein, Memoirs of Simon Bolivar, President Liberator of the Republic of Colombia ; and of his principal Generals; secret History of the Revolution, and of the Events which preceded it, from 1807 to the present Time (Boston, 1829) 281, gives an adverse view, by Bolivar's former chief of staff.
128 Decoudray-Holstein, Bolivar, 286.
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Carthagena yielded to the insurgents, and at the end of the year Spain held only Porto Cabello and Panama. On the 3d of October, 1821, the Libera- tor once more, and for the third time, was induced, under pressure, to take the oath of office as President of the Republic.129 With plans of larger conquest in mind he soon moved the capital from Cucuta up the valley of the Magdalena to Santa Fe de Bogota. San Martin had just entered the city of Lima.
It has already been seen how Jose de San Martin fathered a series of patriotic successes, extending from the city of Mendoza, in the viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres, to the city of Lima, in the viceroyalty of Peru. In the summer of 1821 the two liberating armies were drawing close together, with only the territory known to-day as Ecuador lying between them. To gain this territory, and complete the de- liverance of South America from the hands of her master, was the patriotic aim of both the Liberator of Colombia and the Protector of Peru. The for- mer, however, had the easier task and the better chance to reach the goal, for the Spanish armies still existing in South America were massed, not in the territory intervening between the patriot forces, but in the mountains around and to the southward of Lima. Bolivar had less to fear from royalist move-
129 Annual Register, 1821, [264] ; British and Foreign State Papers, IX: 414.
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ments than San Martin, who was in danger of ex- tinction by an army of upper Peru at any time.
The city of Guayaquil, the chief port of Ecuador, lying at the head of the Gulf whose name it bears, erected a junta and declared its independence in the fall of 1820.130 This act, it is said, convinced Gen- eral Morillo of the utter hopelessness of all efforts at reconquest, and caused him to return to Spain to in- sist upon a peace.131 The patriots helped the new junta when they could. Cochrane, with his fleet, called at Guayaquil from time to time, while San Martin sent a division of his army as soon as he was established at Lima.132 It was left for Bolivar to take the really effective action. After his victory at Carabobo the Liberator left Paez to hold Morales in check along the seacoast, and returned himself to the capital of Colombia, which he soon moved up the river to Bogota. From this city, in the spring of 1822, he marched on up the valley towards the city of Quito. At Bompono, on 7th March, he destroyed a considerable Spanish force; 133 while his right hand, Sucre, who had been sent on ahead won a more de- cisive battle at Pichincha, on 24th May. The narra- tives of the battle tell us that a dash of Colombian cavalry decided the day after its burden and heat had
180 Espejo, Recuerdas, 26. m Republic of Colombia Account, 100.
182 Espejo Recuerdas, 87 : Stevenson, Narrative of Residence, III :
414. 13S De Schryver Bolivar, 260.
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been borne by the Peruvian division and the English battalion.134 Quito, a league from Pichincha, fell at once, and four days later an assembly of its promi- nent men agreed upon an act of union with Vene- zuela and New Granada.135 The idea of the Liberator of a grand federation of American republics, under his guidance, was one step nearer attainment.
From Quito, over the mountains to Guayaquil, was the next move. San Martin's enemies say that now the Limenos were secretly begging the Liberator to advance even to Peru and free them at once " from the Protector and the Spaniards," 136 and that Sucre was now hurried on to the coast to make sure that Guayaquil might not fall into Peruvian hands. Certain it is that Bolivar, following up the victories of his lieutenant, made his triumphal entry into Quito on the 16th of June; on the very day, could he but have known it, that Don Manuel Torres was informed by John Quincy Adams that the President of the United States was ready to receive him as Charge d' Affaires from the Eepublic of Colom- bia.137 The occupation of Guayaquil was peaceful.
134 Espejo, Eecuerdas, 55 ; Republic of Colombia Account, 109 ; Miller, Memoirs, 1 : 353.
135 De Schryver, Bolivar, 261.
186 Cochrane, Narrative, 1 : 219 ; Miers, Travels in Chile, II : 80. »7 J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, VI : 23.
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The Peruvian division, needed at home, and no longer of use in Ecuador, was embarked on its trans- ports in July, while the Liberator offered to lend San Martin some regiments of Colombian troops for service in Peru.138 At the same time treaties of union, league and confederation, were signed at Lima for the preservation of South American inde- pendence and the gathering of a pan- American Con- gress at Panama.139 A week later a proclamation of the Liberator annexed Guayaquil to Colombia.140 On the 26th of July, 1822, San Martin disem- barked at Guayaquil; on the 28th he left that port for Callao.141 What occurred at the meeting of the generals, as has been seen, is not really known, but the result is clear. Up to this day there are two dominant forces to be considered in the war; after this day Bolivar becomes the one center of activity, and under his leadership, along the lines mapped out by San Martin, the final blows are struck and the final peace is attained. We have no occasion here to enter into the controversy waged over the merits of
1M Espejo, Recuerdas, 57.
iwjuly 6, 1822. British and Foreign State Papers, XI: 105; Annual Register, 1823, 204,* [247].
140 Espejo, Recuerdas, 75 ; Miller, Memoirs, 1 : 304.
141 Espejo, Recuerdas, 94.
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these men.143 The steps in the achievement of actual independence alone concern us.
Had the Protector been sincere, cried his oppo- nents, who had cried loudly at his assumption of supreme authority the year before, he would not have abandoned Peru at this critical period.143 In April, Canterac, one of the ablest and boldest of Spain's generals in America, had surprised and routed completely a whole division of the patriot army at lea. During the last two months of his protectorship, San Martin worked to repair this loss, with the result that at his departure he left an army of eight thousand, under Alverado and Arenales, for the protection of the country. But the new govern- ment failed to make effective use of this force. The provisional junta kept half the army idle, and sent the other half down to Arica, and thence up into the country, where, at Moquegua, at the beginning of the next year Canterac again destroyed a republican army.144 The Congress meanwhile busied itself with
142 J. P. Hamilton, Travels through the interior Provinces of Colom- bia (2 vols., London, 1827), 1 : 229. Hamilton, who was British com- missioner in Colombia, gives a friendly view of Bolivar.
1<3 Stevenson, Narrative of Residence, III : 458.
144 Annual Register, 1823, [248] ; Robert Proctor, Narrative of a Journey across the Cordillera of the Andes, and of a Residence in Lima and other Parts of Peru, in the Years 18SS and 1824 (London, 1825), 126.
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treaties of alliance and bases for constitutions.145 As the fragments of the dismembered army drifted into Lima, the Congress, with its three-headed junta, be- came unpopular, was declared unfit to govern, the army mutinied, " and the people of Lima rose and deposed them, & placed a popular leader of the name of Riva-Aguero at the head of affairs." 146
With Don Jos6 de la Rive-Aguero as president, the Peruvian revolution was for the first time, and last, in the hands of native Peruvians. Santa Cruz was put in command of the troops, and his activity was at once reflected in their higher discipline. The foreign1 merchants were won over to the side of the government, while Bolivar was summoned to take up the work San Martin had dropped. Sucre had already appeared in Lima as his agent.147 In May Santa Cruz was sent to Arica with another army, to regain the ground lost by the defeat at Moquegua. Almost as he left, the army of Canterac approached Callao and occupied the capital148 on 16th June, 1823. The Congress at once lost its head and pre- pared for instant flight. Before it left, " after much
146 British and Foreign State Papers, IX: 919, X: XII: 813.
146 Robertson to Parish, May 7, 1823. F. 0. Mss.
UT Miller, Memoirs, II : 57 ; Proctor, across the Cordillera, 129.
148 Proctor, A cross the Cordillera, 148 ; Hall, Extracts from Journal, II: 93; MiUer, Memoirs, II : 63, says June 18.
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" boisterous discussion, Sucre was named supreme military chief, with powers little short of a dictator- ship, a step imperiously demanded by the critical situation of the patriots." 149 With the elevation of Sucre came the practical end of the career of Rive- Aguero. He was probably the victim of Colombian intrigues that induced Congress to put Sucre in his place until the arrival of Bolivar. He was allowed, however, to accompany the Congress in its flight to Truxillo, where he ran an isolated course * until Bolivar suppressed him in November.150 On the first day of September the Liberator entered the city of Lima, and received from the welcoming people the new title of Deliverer.
Early in June Santa Cruz sailed for Arica, whither Miller followed him with reinforcements in July.151 The march of the patriots into upper Peru was suc- cessfully accomplished. They passed by the bridge of the Inca, over the Desaguadero, on 25th July, and two weeks later entered the city of La Paz.152 On 25th August they marched out from that city to defeat Valdez, who had come up against them by a long and rapid march. But soon Valdez was joined by La Serna, the viceroy, and Olaneta brought further aid to the royalists, while the patriots began
149 Miller, Memoirs, II : 63. 15° Proctor, Across the Cordillera, 135. 151 Proctor, Across the Cordillera, 160. 132 Miller, Memoirs, II : 67.
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an inevitable retreat to the coast. With the royal- ists following, the retreat turned into a precipitate and shameless flight. A third army had been sacri- ficed. Sucre had marched to support Santa Cruz after the evacuation of Lima by the royalists [July 17th, 1823]. Now he returned to the capital.153
The task of Bolivar, to drive the Spanish forces from their almost impregnable situation in the mountains of Upper Peru, seemed great at the end of 1823. The defeat of the army of Santa Cruz, in September, had left them with as strong a hold as ever on Potosi, La Paz and the Desaguadero; while his own time had been frittered away in suppressing the ci-devant president, Rive-Aguero, and erecting a new Congress to continue the work of constitution making. But the Spaniards themselves came royally and unexpectedly to his assistance. Ferdinand VII., whose heart had become constitutional in 1820, experienced another change in 1823, when the Holy Allies lent him troops. The domestic troubles were reflected in the colonies. " We have pretty late accounts from the Interior of Peru," wrote one of the British merchants, " and they are at last, & in the least expected way truly favorable for the cause of the patriots. The Royalists have gone to Logger- heads among themselves ! Olaneta, the Commander-
«8 Miller, Memoirs, II: 76.
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" in-chief at Potosi, has declared for the absolute Ferdinand, and the Catholic religion, as 'twas an hundred years ago. La Serna & Canterac cry, Long live the Constitution, & down with the serviles ! and there seems little chance of a composition between these doughty Chiefs. Blood has already been shed in the quarrel; and the advocate of absolute power & blind obedience, & breathes nothing but vengeance & death to the Traitors & Innovators who would betray their Country. The Patriots could have hit upon no better plan than their own Enemies have done, to get rid of the whole of the latter." 154
The campaign of 1824 opened with a mutiny of patriot troops in the fortress of Callao that gave that place into the hands of the royalists and threatened serious injury to the Peruvian cause.151 The Con- gress, startled by the sudden danger, ceased its con- stitutional debates, " named General Bolivar dictator, and dissolved itself. Thus, at least, closing their political existence with an act of unquestionable wis- dom."156 With his accustomed professions of re- luctance the Liberator accepted the dictatorial
154 John Parish Robertson & Co., to Mr. Parish of Bath, March 10, 1824. F. 0. Mss.
155 Proctor, Across the Cordillera, 339 ; Miller, Memoirs, II: 98; Parish to Canning, No. 11, April 25, 1824. F. 0. Mss.
186 Miller, Memoirs, II: 102; British and Foreign State Papers, XI: 866.
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power and proceeded to justify his possession of it. He suppressed the mutiny. " By his firmness, activity, and seasonable severities, he checked further defections, and obtained the respect and entire confidence of every faithful patriot. There was a charm in the name of Bolivar, and he was looked up to as the only man capable of saving the republic." 15T Then, with the mutiny quelled, he abandoned Lima to the royalists, who had already obtained Callao, and marched against Canterac.
From Huaraz, on the coast, and sixty leagues north of Lima, the armies of Bolivar marched up into the country. A new discipline appeared in the regiments as the result of his activity. A new spirit of contentment prevailed, for he saw to it that the wages of the soldiers were paid to the soldiers.158 In June he crossed the Andes in three divisions,159 making long marches through the mountains that would have been impossible, perhaps, to any Euro- pean armies. In July he drew near to Pasco, where Arenales had won a noted victory as he marched around Lima at San Martin's command in 1820. In August he came up to Canterac, who marched con- fidently to meet him. Emboldened by their recent successes, the royalists had been content to leave
«T Miller, Memoirs, II: 106. 158 Miller, Memoirs, II : 113.
!5» Parish to Canning, No. 44, September 26, 1824. F. O. Mss.
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Valdez to struggle with Olaneta, the absolutist, in the mountains around Potosi. With some nine thou- sand men Canterac met the rebels on the plain of Junin, at the southern end of Lake Chinchaycocha, on the 6th of August, 1824, only to have his victory turned into an utter defeat by a despairing charge of the Peruvian lancers.160 Satisfied witE the work of the campaign, Bolivar left his army to go into cantonments for the rainy season, and returned to direct in person the operations around Lima.
The river valleys run from the plain of Junin up into the southeast for a hundred leagues to the ancient city of Cuzco; thence in the same direction a second hundred leagues extend beyond Lake Titicaca to the city of La Paz, at its southeast corner; a third hundred, bearing somewhat more to the south, covers the distance from La Paz to Potosi and Chuquisaca. At the southern end of this long chain of valleys Olaneta and Valdez were giving a death-blow to their own cause. La Paz and Cuzco were strong- holds of the royalist army. At Junin Sucre was in command of the patriots, at last victorious in Peru.
Sucre failed to put his troops into cantonments as Bolivar had expected, but spent two months manoeu- vering in the valleys, and watching the armies of La Serna and Canterac. On 3d December the viceroy
160 Miller, Memoirs, II : 127, gives map ; De Schry ver, Bolivar, 263.
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met the patriots and defeated them.161 On 9th December he came up with them again half way between Cuzco and Junin. The royalists were flushed with confidence, for they already had one victory to their credit in that week. The patriots were hungry, hard-pressed and discouraged. But when the eighty minutes of battle on the plain of Ayacu- cho were over, La Serna, the viceroy, was dead, and Canterac, a prisoner, signed a capitulation for his whole army.162 The war as such was ended. Ga- marra, with an advance guard of the patriots, entered Cuzco on Christmas day, with the rest of the army close behind him.163
Olaneta still held out for his master in Upper Peru. Although possessed of great mining estates, he resisted, even to the end, all overtures of the patriots to exchange his lost cause for his property. He kept up the warfare in this final stronghold of Spanish authority against the armies of Buenos Ayres, under the veteran Arenales, and against the armies of Peru, under the English veteran Miller. For fifteen years an active state of war had existed in the country between Salta and Potosi, the country which San Martin had wisely despaired of conquer-
in Annual Register, 1825, [209].
™*F. O. Mss. Buenos Ayres, Vol. VIII ; Nile* Register, XXVIII : 156; Annual Register, 1825, 148 .* 16S Miller, Memoirs II : 183.
Wars of Liberation 103
ing ten years before.164 On Christmas day, 1824, the patriots reached Cuzco; in March, 1825, they came to La Paz, whence Miller was sent on to end the struggle. At the close of March Olaneta was beaten, and his own troops slew him. Miller entered Potosi, April 25th.166
Bolivar had meanwhile reassembled the Peruvian Congress on 10th February, and had gone through the ceremony of resigning and accepting for another year his dictatorial authority.166 Then he had de- parted for a triumphal progress through the country. At Arequipa he confirmed a Congress for Upper Peru that Sucre had called; its proceedings were to be subject to the action of the Peruvian Congress of 1826, while Sucre himself should be the government for the intervening year.167 This Congress, meeting at Chuquisaca, later rebaptized Sucre, declared for the independence of Upper Peru, on August 6th, 1825, and five days later adopted the name of the Liberator for the new republic.168 Peru and Buenos Ayres joined in confirming the independence of
164 Andrews, Journey from Buenos Ayres, II: 252.
165 Miller, Memoirs, II: 200; Andrews, Journey from Buenos Ayres, 1 : 296 ; Parish to Canning, No. 10, February 10, 1825. F. 0. Mss.
1W British and Foreign State Papers, XII: 885; De Schryver, Bolivar, 267; Annual Register, 1825, [211].
167 Parish to Canning, No. 55, August 6, 1825. F. O. Mss.
168 British and Foreign State Papers, XII : 859.
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Bolivia in the following spring. The Spanish sur- rendered the port of Callao on 19th January, 1826. From this port, nine months later, the Liberator sailed for Guayaquil, never to return. From Guay- aquil he journeyed down to Bogota and reassumed his functions as President of Colombia.
CHAPTER II
SOUTH AMERICAN POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES
Liberty and independence have always been names to conjure with in the United States. Popular sym- pathy has always gone out to a party or a people struggling with these as their watchwords. Yet it is rarely that the government has allowed them to blind its eyes to its international duties or interests. The wave of feeling engendered by the French revo- lution threatened for a time to drive the country into an active foreign alliance, but its ultimate re- sult was only to bring about the enunciation of a system of neutral obligations that has endured to this day. The sufferings of the Greek patriots called forth the eloquence of Henry Clay and Daniel Web- ster and Edward Everett; called forth money by thousands from the pockets of liberty-loving citizens ; but failed to move for an instant the administration from its proper course. At a later time the misery of Cuba aroused the national emotion, but an entirely different cause precipitated a war. So it was in the South American struggle for independence.
Before the contest had really begun it had become evident that the events in South America would be
106 South American Independence
watched with a more eager interest than our semi- hostile relations with Spain could explain. When it came to the issue Jefferson was unwilling to impli- cate the country in movements hostile to Ferdinand, but the ease with which Miranda had secured audi- ence of the president and his secretaries, and had won over to his enterprise prominent federal officials of New York, indicated that few were unfriendly to a South American cause as such. And when some two years after the failure of his expedition the petition of thirty-six American citizens incarcerated in the fortress of Carthagena came before Congress a lively interest in their behalf was at once called forth.1 The story told by these young filibusters, with variations, had become a familiar tale: their expedition was the prototype of innumerable later expeditions, extending through the times of William Walker to the days of John D. Hart, the Three Friends and the Laurada; their career was the familiar one of great expectations veiled in alluring mystery, doubtful expedients, suspicion, and utter, hopeless failure; and now they came to Congress to find friends who should urge an intervention in their behalf.
For two weeks, in the beginning of June, 1809, weeks in which the South Americans were over-
*A.S.P.F.B.,III: 257.
Policy of the United States 107
throwing their viceroys and erecting juntas in the name of Ferdinand, the petition of the Miranda men was under consideration in the House of Repre- sentatives. It was accompanied by a favorable re- port from a special committee, and a resolution recommending that the President, if convinced that they were involuntarily drawn into the unlawful enterprise, should use every effort to obtain their release.2 The debate ran on for several days, re- viewing laws of neutrality and relations with France and Spain, until at last the Committee of the Whole, from sympathy and the underlying conviction that Spain had no rights in her colonies which a friend of liberty was bound to respect, passed the resolu- tion.3 Before the House, the opposition, with John Randolph at its head, became more insistent. Here the latter continued his heavy fire of sarcasm and vituperation that had already brought Pearson, of North Carolina, to offer him his blood, until the sentimental inclinations of the House were in a measure overcome. He alluded particularly to the rupture of relations with Spain, which had occurred upon the elevation of Joseph, raising for the first time the question of the recognition of the South American provinces. To accomplish the release of
9 A. S. P. F. R., Ill : 258 ; Annals of Congress, 11 Cong., 1 Sess., 257. 3 June 13, 1809. Annals of Congress, 11 Cong., 1 Sess., 283.
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the prisoners an agent must be sent to Caracas. But we cannot send this agent, declared Randolph, " without acknowledging the independence of the colonies of South America, and then involving our- selves in a war with France, or addressing ourselves, in the first instance, to the Government of France." 4 The truly American doctrine that a premature recognition is a cause for war, was thus declared. Later in the same day, by the vote of the Speaker, the resolution was defeated.5
Two years later this tendency of the House was revealed in connection with the President's message. In November, 1811, Madison alluded to the interest- ing scenes " developing themselves among the great communities which occupy the southern portion of our own hemisphere." 6 The special committee to which this portion of the message was referred read the declaration of independence of Venezuela and reported a resolution expressing a friendly solicitude in the welfare of these communities and a readiness, when they should have become nations " by a just exercise of their rights," to unite with the executive in establishing with them such relations as might
* Annals of Congress, 11 Cong., 1 Sees., 306.
5 June 14, 1809. Annals of Congress, 11 Cong., 1 Sess., 315.
• J. D. Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents I: 494.
Policy of the United States 109
become necessary.7 This was an indication of the sentiment of Congress. Evidently the sentiment might become more pronounced if events in South America should become more active.
President Madison realized the significance of the movements that took place throughout South America in 1809 and 1810. He saw clearly that they might in time call upon the United States for political action, and that already there were com- mercial interests to be protected and developed. As early as 1807 the State Department had been in- formed of the embarrassments under which Ameri- can commerce struggled at Buenos Ay res.8 The commerce was admittedly illegal, but it was toler- ated, and the need of an agent to protect it was avowed. The Jefferson administration took no action in this direction, but on 28th June, 1810, Secretary Smith instructed an agent to visit South America.
Joel Roberts Poinsett,9 of South Carolina, had
1A.S.P.F.R., Ill : 538 : Annals of Congress, 12 Cong., 1 Sess., 427.
8 David C. De Forest to James Madison, Oct. 4, 1807. State Dept. Mss.
*In the library of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania are the papers of Joel Roberts Poinsett, in some fourteen folio volumes. They contain not only duplicates of his correspondence with the State Depart- ment, but even many of the originals, for which search may be made in vain in Washington. A short " Life and Public Services of Joel R. Poinsett," by C. J. Stille" ia in Pa. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., XII: 129, 257.
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already seen much of the world when Madison appointed him to this new mission. Possessed of independent fortune, he had traveled over Europe, visited Siberia and the interior of Russia, and de- clined to enter the service of the Czar. Later he became a center of contention in Mexico and played a part in the emancipation of Greece. Now, as American agent, he journeyed into Buenos Ayres and Chile, and in the latter country led a brigade of the patriot army against the Spaniards.10 In spite of this lapse from duty — which went unblamed — he seems to have been one of the ablest and best representatives of the United States in South America. He seems not to have engaged in priva- teering or commerce. Some years later it is de- clared that there was not a single American in Buenos Ayres who was not interested in privateer- ing. The list is quite long of improper persons, English and American, who were sent to South America.
" As a crisis is approaching," " went Poinsett's instructions, " which must produce great changes in the situation of Spanish America, and may dissolve altogether its colonial relations to Europe, and as the geographical position of the United States and other
10 Graham, Journal, 23.
11 R. Smith to J. R. Poinsett, June 28, 1810. S. D. Mss.
Policy of the United States 111
" obvious considerations give them an intimate inter- est in whatever may affect the destiny of that part of tho American Continent, it is our duty to turn our attention to this important subject, and to take such steps not incompatible with the neutral character and honest policy of the United States, as the occasion renders proper. With this view you have been selected to proceed without delay to Buenos Ayres, and thence, if convenient, to Lima in Peru or Santiago in Chile or both. You will make it your object whenever it may be proper, to diffuse the im- pression that the United States cherish the sincerest good will towards the people of South America as neighbors, as belonging to the same portion of the globe, and as having a mutual interest in cultivating friendly intercourse; that this disposition will exist whatever may be their internal system or European relations, with respect to which no interference of any sort is pretended; and that in the event of a political separation from the parent country and of the establishment of an independent system of Na- tional Government, it will coincide with the senti- ments and policy of the United States to promote the most friendly relations and the most liberal intercourse between the inhabitants of this Hemis- phere, as having, all a common interest, and as lying under a common obligation to maintain that system
112 South American Independence
of peace, justice and good will, which is the only source of happiness for nations.
" Whilst you inculcate these as the principles and dispositions of the United States, it will be no less proper to ascertain those on the other side, not only towards the United States, but in reference to the great nations of Europe, as also to that of Brazil, and the Spanish branches of the Government there; and to the Commercial and other connections with them respectively, and generally to inquire into the State, the characteristics, intelligence and wealth of the several parties, the amount of the population, the extent and organization of the military force and the pecuniary resources of the country.
" The real as well as ostensible object of your mis- sion is to explain the mutual advantages of a com- merce with the United States, to promote liberal and stable regulations, and to transmit seasonable infor- mation on the subject." 12
12 Until about 1835 the State Department kept two series of letter- books, one containing copies of instructions to American ministers abroad, and the other all notes sent to the legations in Washington. In addition, two files were kept for each country, comprising, respec- tively, the despatches from the American minister and the notes re- ceived from the legations. After this date the consolidated letter-books were abandoned, and manuscripts in the State Department are most easily traced through C. H. Van Tyne and W. G. Leland, Guide to the Archives of the Government of the United States in Washington (Car- negie Institution, 1907).
Policy of the United States 113
With these objects in view, Poinsett was given the title of Agent for Seamen and Commerce in the Port of Buenos Ayres. Ten months later Louis Godde- froy was appointed " Consul for Buenos Ayres and the ports below it on the River Plate/' 13 and Poin- sett was raised to Consul General. " The instructions already given you," wrote Monroe,14 " are so full that there seems to be little cause to add to them at this time. Much solicitude is felt to hear from you on all the topics to which they relate — the dis- position shown by most of the Spanish provinces to separate from Europe and to erect themselves into independent States, excites great interest here. As Inhabitants of the same Hemisphere, as Neighbors, the United States cannot be unfeeling Spectators of so important a moment [movement?]. The destiny of these provinces must depend on themselves. Should such a revolution however take place, it can- not be doubted that our relation with them will be more intimate, and our friendship stronger than it can be while they are colonies of any European power."
For a period of six years the United States main- tained consuls or agents in South America. William R. Lowry was sent to Caracas as Poinsett was sent
M Monroe to Goddefroy, April 30, 1811. S. D. Mss. u Monroe to Poinsett, April 30, 1811. 8. D. Mss.
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to Buenos Ayres.15 But the representation in Vene- zuela was not kept up as steadily as that in the south of the continent, for the patriotic movements in that region were but spasmodic in the beginning and finally succumbed to the pressure of Morillo's armies. In the south representation, like the independent government, was maintained steadily after 1810. The status of the American agents, however, is not entirely clear. There existed no intent to recognize the governments at this time, and the administration was not sure that the juntas would give public recog- nition to United States consuls who could not give reciprocal recognition to them.16 So Poinsett went out as an unofficial but accredited agent for seamen and commerce with letters similar to those held by various agents in the West Indies. Yet in 1811 he was commissioned as consul-general and a consul was appointed under him while the State Department constantly addressed him and his successors by these titles. No trace has been found of an exequatur issued to any of these agents, but they speak in their despatches of being formally received.17 In March, 1812, the junta of Buenos Ayres definitely refused
» Smith to Lowry, November 6, 1810. 8. D. Mss. 16 Smith to Poinsett, August 7, 1810. S. £>. Mas. « Poinsett JfM./.Vol. I.
Policy of the United States 115
an exequatur to Robert Staples, British Consul, be- cause he could not acknowledge its independence.18 Through these agents the State Department kept itself informed on events in Spanish America. In their despatches can be found accounts of the fre- quent revolutions that made government in Buenos Ayres a hazardous and fascinating pastime. The military events on the frontiers are told with con- siderable exactness, and original bulletins of the junta and the liberating army are frequently en- closed. At times the agents themselves played a part in the local events. Poinsett went from Buenos Ayres into Chile, there to make friends with the Carreras and fight in their armies. He returned to Buenos Ayres just in time to escape the disasters of Rancagua that sent O'Higgins and his handful of survivors to swell the forces of San Martin at Men- doza.19 Thence, dodging the British cruisers, he returned to the United States to be congratulated by Monroe in the name of the President on the ability, zeal and success with which he had conducted his delicate mission.20 At a later day his successor, Devereux, guaranteed a loan, that snatched the existing government from the hands of its enemies.
18 Memorandum dated June 26, 1823. F. O. Mss.
19 Halsey to Sec. State, Feb. 11, 1815. 8. D. Mss.
20 Monroe to Poinsett, July 16, 1815. Poinsett Mss.
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Less successful than Poinsett, this agent was dis- avowed and dismissed.21
The South Americans were as eager to give infor- mation as the United States to receive it. Their Directors and Dictators constantly addressed the northern President with news of victory and requests for arms, accompanied by expressions of profound friendship. At the same time their agents appeared at Washington as well as at London. Venezuela sent Don Luis Lopez Mendez to the latter city in 18 II,22 having already sent Don T. Orea to the United States in 1810.23 In 1816 the first repre- sentative from Buenos Ayres appeared at Washing- ton with an apology for the delay and an assurance that a declaration of independence would soon be passed. " In the meantime," his credentials went on,24 " our deputy near your Excellency will not be invested with a public character, nor will he be dis- posed to exceed the object of his mission, without an understanding with your Excellency and your Ministers. That these views may be exactly fulfilled, I have selected a gentleman who, from his personal qualities, will not excite suspicion that he is sent by the Government invested with so serious and im-
21 Rush to Halsey, April 21, 1817. S. D. Mss.
22 Present State of Colombia, 86. 2S Aurora, October 29, 1817. 2* Annals of Congress, 15 Cong., 1 Sess., 1876.
Policy of the United States 117
"portant a commission. He is Colonel Martin Thomp- son. ... I hope your Excellency will give him full credit, and secure for him all the consideration which, in a like case, we would give and secure to the Ministers whom your Excellency may think proper to send to these provinces."
The Spanish minister in the United States, Don Luis de Onis, failed to view the development of these friendly, though unofficial, relations with equanim- ity. For six years in his informal capacity he had watched the growth of a sentiment in favor of South America. Arriving with credentials from the Regency of Cadiz, in the early days of Madison's first administration, he had been refused a reception on the ground of the uncertain character of that government. Madison never recognized the revolu- tionary and Napoleonic governments in Spain, so it was not until the restoration of Ferdinand VH. in 1815 that the Spanish minister was received in his official capacity. Thereupon the latter took up in a formal way the protests he had long been making informally.
The South American situation was at this time bound up with the aggressions of the United States in the Floridas and the piratical establishments in the Gulf of Mexico. In their broadest extent the de- mands of de Onis comprehended the complete exclu-
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sion of the various South American flags from the ports of the United States. To these pretentious the Secretary of State replied with proper dignity that the United States could pay no attention to the flags of vessels seeking admission to its harbors and obey- ing its laws.25
But Spain had reasonable grievances enough with- out resorting to preposterous demands.
The neutrality laws of the United States, although adequate in spirit, failed in their details to meet the situation created by the revolt of Spain's American provinces. Based upon the great proclamation of the first President, and enacted in 1794, the law con- templated wars between independent States. So far it was correct in spirit and formulated for the first time the principles of international law upon the sub- ject. But the law was difficult of execution, for no authority was given in it for the seizure of vessels suspected of intention to violate neutrality, and its provisions did not sufficiently cover acts done by aliens within the limits of the United States. At a later day the courts discovered that services in behalf of unrecognized governments were not un- neutral in the eye of the law, for this contemplated only offenses in behalf of sovereign States.26
15 Monroe to de Onis, January 19, 1815. National Intelligencer, November 12, 1817. *Gelston vs. Hoyt. Wheaton, III: 246.
Policy of the United States 119
Through these inadequacies in the law, the sym- pathies and commercial interests of the Americans had come to the support of the southern patriots. Blank commissions for privateers issued from the South American capitals in shoals, and from Balti- more the vessels thus equipped put out to prey upon Spanish commerce;27 too often upon any commerce that was not armed to protect itself. At times with scrupulous regard for the dictates of neutrality, the privateer would go to a port in South America be- fore commencing its cruise; too often, it was enough to have cleared from Baltimore or New Orleans for such a port. And when the cruise was ended, no privateer or ship of war hesitated to put into a United States port to refit and recruit, to restore or augment its armament. The issuing of commissions within the United States, the equipment of vessels to destroy the commerce of Spain, and the augmen- tation of their strength, were all manifest violations of neutrality. Against them the Spanish minister protested with propriety. When the prizes of South American privateers came within the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States, these examined into the antecedents of the captors, and did not hesitate
8T Adams to Halsey , January 22, 1818 ; Halsey to Adams, August 21, 1818. S. D. MSB. Halsey was dismissed for dealing in such com- missions. He defended himself by alluding to the notorious equipment of privateers in the United States.
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to restore the prize to the proper owners. But this possibility of redress had little effect upon the crime. And so, through the imperfections of the law, and the prevalence of a popular sympathy that made jury convictions well-nigh impossible, the Latin-Ameri- cans made the United States a base for their naval operations with impunity.
When the fourteenth Congress met, in the fall of 1816, for its last session, the question of the recogni- tion of the South American provinces did not exist. There was widespread sympathy for those provinces in their struggle, and a general, genuine interest in the events transpiring in their continent. Few would have disclaimed a hope in their ultimate inde- pendence and recognition, or a feeling that there is a real American community of interest; in spite of the scornful epigram of Mr. Adams, " As to an Ameri- can system, we have it; we constitute the whole of it." 28 But no person of consequence had so much as intimated that the time was ripe for an acknowledg-
88 J. Q. Adams, Memoirs (12 vols., Philadelphia, 1874-1877), V : 176. The archives of the Adams family, now deposited in the building of the Massachusetts Historical Society, are rich in materials on foreign affairs. Here are to be found duplicates of most of the correspondence of John Quincy Adams, while Secretary of State, as well as the manu- script of his journal and the papers of his father and his son. From this collection W. C. Ford has drawn materials for his various writings on the Monroe doctrine as well as for his edition of The Writings of John Quincy Adams (1913- ).
Policy of the United States 121
ment of the independence of these States. Indeed, all the States but Buenos Ayres had been extin- guished within the past year by the triumphant armies of the restored Ferdinand. Before the end of the session the South American question had been again reviewed and the customary expressions of friendship had been once more evoked.
On 14th January, 1817, Forsyth, from the House Committee on Foreign Kelations, reported a bill20 which came to be " called, and properly called, a bill for making peace between His Catholic Majesty and the town of Baltimore." 30 It was a revision of the neutrality act, that had been suggested by the President in a special message of 26th December.31 The debate on this new neutrality act extended over the rest of the session and did not end until the third of March. Much opposition was shown to strength- ening the legislation in the interests of Spain; an act which was felt to be hostile to the rebellious colonies. Some were almost ready for a positive intervention on the side of these. Henry Clay thought the existing acts went far enough, agreed that a professed neutrality must be maintained, but
29 Annals of Congress, 14 Cong., 2 Sess., 477.
80 By John Randolph, January 24,1817. Annals of Congress, 14 Cong., 2 Seas., 732.
sl Richardson, Messages, 1 : 682 , Annals of Congress, 14 Cong., 2
122 South American Independence
admitted a strong hope for the independence of the colonies. Even he was not insistent upon an imme- diate recognition. When the next Congress met, recognition had been made a question.
During the winter and spring of 1817 the news from South America indicated that affairs had taken a more hopeful appearance for the patriots. A new order seemed to have been born to Buenos Ayres, where a Congress of the provinces had come together at Tucuman, and issued, on 9th July, 1816, a decla- ration of independence in the name of the United Provinces of Rio de la Plata.32 Its manifesto re- minded the nations of the world that Buenos Ayres had maintained an uncontested independence for six years. The patriot armies too had begun to retrieve their losses. San Martin, in his province of Men- doza, had nearly completed the period of recruit- ing, and before the spring was far advanced the news reached Washington that he had broken camp, made a marvelous march across the Andes and de- feated the Spanish army at Chacabuco. With more results to feed upon, popular and governmental interests in South America took a new life. The President determined to learn the truth about the revolution, to be ready for any event. In the House
** Annals of Congress, 15 Cong., ISess., 1877; Annual Register, 1816 [159].
Policy of the United States 123
of Commons, Henry Brougham interrogated the ministry on the subject.33
In his efforts to find a suitable agent for this mis- sion, President Monroe turned once more to Joel R. Poinsett. On April 25th, 1817, he wrote him a personal note, asking him to make the trip to Buenos Ayres in a public ship, and offering him " liberal compensation." " The progress of the revolution in the Spanish Provinces," he wrote, " which has always been interesting to the U. States, is made much more so, by many causes, and particularly by a well-founded hope, that it will succeed." 34 But Poinsett had entered the Legislature of South Caro- lina and declined the appointment.35 Forced to give up this plan, the President settled upon a Commis- sion, invited Caesar A. Rodney, of Delaware, and John Graham to serve upon it, and departed from the capital for his tour through New England and the West,38 leaving Richard Rush as Secretary of State to carry out his designs. Through the months of July and August Rush labored zealously to carry out the wish of his superior, but without avail. One commissioner resigned. Rodney was detained at home by the illness of a son. And the secretary
"March 19, 1817. Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, XXXV: 1194.
* Monroe to Poinsett, April 25, 1817. 8. D. M&s. The original is in the Poinsett Mas. 85 PoinseU Mas.
* J. B. McMaster, Hi*t. of the People of the United States, IV: 377.
124 8outh American Independence
did not dare to send a single commissioner. As the President was out of communication with Washing- ton for several weeks the matter had to drop until his return in September. Then the business was re- sumed, with the result that on 4th December the frigate Congress sailed from Hampton Roads,37 carrying CaBsar A. Rodney, John Graham and Theodorick Bland as commissioners, and H. M. Brackenridge as secretary.38 At the same time John B. Prevost was sent to Chile and Peru on a similar mission, with the additional charge to take posses- sion of the Oregon country.39 There is considerable justice in the statement that " several " of the men chosen were known to be fanatics in the " cause of emancipation;" 40 Brackenridge, in particular, was a "mere enthusiast;" Judge Bland started out as one.41
In the instructions to the commissioners, Richard Rush stated the policy of the United States : " The contest beween Spain and the Spanish colonies in the southern parts of this continent has been, from
37 Eland's Report in Annals of Congress, 15 Cong., 1 Sess., 2106.
88 H. M. Brackenridge, Voyage to South America. Performed by Order of the American Government, in the years 1817 and 1818, in the Frigate Congress (2 vols., Baltimore, 1819). Brackenridge became a strong partisan of the South Americans.
39 Bush to Prevost, July 18, 1817 ; J. Q. Adams to Prevost, Septem- ber 29, 1817. 8. D. Mss. 40 W. F. Reddaway, Monroe Doctrine, 25.
« J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, IV: 156-388.
Policy of the United States 125
" its commencement, highly interesting, under many views, to the United States. As inhabitants of the same hemisphere, it was natural that we should feel a solicitude for the welfare of the colonists. It was nevertheless our duty to maintain the neutral char- acter with impartiality and allow of no privileges of any kind to one party which were not extended to the other. The government of Spain viewing the colonies as in a state of rebellion, had endeavored to impose upon foreign powers in their intercourse with them, the conditions applicable to such a state. This pretension has not been acceded to by this govern- ment, which has considered the contest in the light of a civil war, in which the parties were equal. An entire conviction exists that the view taken on this point has been correct, and that the United States have fully satisfied every just claim of Spain.
" In other respects we have been made to feel the progress of this contest. Our vessels have been seized and condemned, our citizens made captives and our lawful commerce, even at a distance from the theatre of the war, been interrupted. Acting with im- partiality towards the parties, we have endeavored to secure from each a just return. In whatever quarter the authority of Spain was abrogated and an independent government erected, it was essential to the security of our rights that we should enjoy its
126 South American Independence
" friendship. Spain could not impose conditions upon other powers incident to complete sovereignty in places where she did not maintain it. On this prin- ciple the United States have sent agents into the Spanish colonies; addressed to the existing authority, whether of Spain or of the colony, with instructions to cultivate its friendship and secure as far as practicable the faithful observance of our rights.
" The contest by the extension of the revolution- ary movement, and the greater stability which it appears to have acquired, becomes daily of more im- portance to the United States. It is by success that the colonies acquire new claims on other powers which it may comport neither with their interest nor duty to disregard. Several of the colonies having declared their independence and enjoyed it for some years, and the authority of Spain being shaken in others, it seems probable that, if the parties be left to themselves, the most permanent political changes will be effected. It therefore seems incumbent on the United States to watch the movement in its sub- sequent steps with particular attention, with a view to pursue such course as a just regard for all those considerations which they are bound to respect may dictate.
" Under these impressions, the President deems it a duty to obtain, in a manner more comprehen-
Policy of the United States 127
" sive than has heretofore been done, correct infor- mation of the actual state of affairs in those colonies. . . ." 42
By the time the commissioners bearing these in- structions sailed, in December, 1817, the whole question of recognition had assumed a new shape. It had become the subject of a factious opposition waged by Henry Clay. When Monroe became Presi- dent, the Speaker had set his heart on the position of Secretary of State, which had come to be that of heir-apparent. " In the government of the United States," said Simon Bolivar, in one of his addresses, " it has latterly been the practice to nominate the prime minister as successor to the president. Noth- ing can be more suitable to a republic than this method." 43 With his eye fixed upon the presidency, Clay was prepared to be disgusted ancl thrown into the opposition when Monroe looked over his head and recalled Adams from the Court of St. James to take the post.44 He declined the portfolio of war, as he had declined it in the previous year, when Madi- son had offered it. The British mission was, in his
42 Rush to Rodney and Graham, July 18, 1817. S. D. Mss. The commissioners' sailed in December with these instructions. Adams was then Secretary of State.
« Address to the Congress of Bolivia, May 25, 1826. British and Foreign State Papers, XII : 865-893 ; Miller, Memoirs, II : 409.
44 C. Schurz, Henry Clay, 1 : 126, 141 ; McMaster, Hist. People, IV: 376 ; J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, IV : 63.
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mind, no adequate substitute, and he returned to Congress eager for a subject upon which to fight. The question of the recognition of the Latin- American States that were waging such a stubborn war of liberation was an admirable theme for a romantic orator. As the friend of liberty he might force the hand of the administration, or perhaps overturn the succession at the end of Monroe's term. At any rate, he might force his enemies to appear the friends of Spain and the upholders of a heartless tyranny.45 The mutterings of the coming storm were heard during the recess of Congress.
During the summer of 18 IT news from South America occupied a prominent place in the news- papers. The progress of San Martin, in Chile, and the doings of Bolivar and his Congress of Angostura, were described in detail that grew more elaborate as the weeks advanced. In September the topic of im- mediate recognition was broached in the Richmond Enquirer. In a series of seven letters, which were immediately reprinted in the National Intelligencer, " Lautaro " addressed the Hon. Henry Clay.46 He
"Schurz, 1 : 146 et seq., thinks Clay's advocacy was due to sym- pathy and was not inspired by a desire to oppose the administration. He shows that Clay had expressed sympathy as early as 1816. There is a distinction, however, between active sympathy and a demand for immediate recognition. There is no doubt that in the former Clay was sincere. « National Intelligencer, September 30 to October 18, 1817.
Policy of the United States 129
traversed the whole subject and policy of the war of independence, concluding with a recommendation of recognition of Chile and Peru, as the most difficult of access to Spain of all her former provinces. Other writers elaborated and controverted various points of his argument. It is suspected that Mr. Adams him- self, over the name of " Phocion," entered the con- troversy in behalf of conservatism. Six weeks before the opening of Congress the editor of the Intelli- gencer announced that if the President should neglect to treat the matter adequately in his message, he was warranted in saying that it would be broached in the House of Representatives, where it would form a good theme for the display of oratorical abilities.47 Monroe saw the storm coming and questioned his cabinet on the subject. An immediate recognition would remove this fertile topic from the reach of Clay. But Mr. Adams, though realizing the essen- tial rivalry between himself and the Speaker, did not hesitate to avow " my opinion that it is not now ex- pedient for the President to acknowledge the Government of Buenos Ayres." 48 He continued the preparations begun by Mr. Eush for sending the commissioners to South America, determined not to act without real knowledge of the subject.
4T National Intelligencer, October 21, 1817. 48 J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, IV : 15.
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On 3d December, 1817, the day before the "Con- gress " sailed, Henry Clay rose in the House and offered an amendment instructing the Committee on the Message to inquire what was necessary to secure to the South Americans their rights as belligerents.49 The motion was accepted without opposition. The period of factious advocacy had begun.
The Secretary of State was by no means blind to the nature of the opposition. Before the first week of the session ended he wrote that Mr. Clay " had already mounted his South American great horse . . . [in his effort] to control or overthrow the Executive by swaying the House of Representa- tives," 50 and as the subsequent weeks passed he began to fear that his opponent might succeed.81 Clay did not force the fighting rapidly. One of his allies called for the papers relating to the independ- ence and condition of South America on December 5th.52 Three days later he himself directed the de- bate on Amelia Island and Galveston to a discussion of the hostility of the administration towards the revolting provinces.53 A little later he opposed in
« Annals of Congress, 15 Cong., 1 Sess., 401. MJ. Q.Adams, Memoirs, IV: 28. 61 J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, IV : 61.
52 Annals of Congress, 15 Cong., 1 Sess., 406.
53 Annals of Congress, 15 Cong., 1 Sess., 409, 1890, 1897 ; A. 8. P. F. R., IV: 173-183.
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vain an amendment to the neutrality act. At the same time, stirred up by the attitude of the opposi- tion, if not directly inspired by its members, the South American agents in Washington began their importunities for immediate recognition. None of them had presented credentials justifying demands of a diplomatic nature, but now one at least offered to conclude a treaty, without instructions. On 25th March, 1818, the President sent to Congress a mass of correspondence on South America, together with a critical report by Adams on the demands of the agents. The day before, Clay had come out with the beginning of his great speech. With the general appropriation bill under consideration, he had moved an item of eighteen thousand dollars to provide for a minister to the Provinces of Rio de la Plata.5*
Candid members of Congress, as their recorded votes show, realized that there was no pressing need for haste in recognizing countries that had not even sent ministers to demand it.55 Mr. Clay's devoted biographer finds in this " daring philanthropy " of his subject, better described as rancorous benevo- lence by Mr. Adams, " a law of instructions and authority for the president to act upon. It was a step — a large step in advance, not only of the coun-
**J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, IV: 67; Annals of Congress, 15 Cong., 1 Sess., 1469. w pg^ Jacksonian Epoch, 76.
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" try and of the government, but of the whole civil- ized world." 56 Clay himself later discovered that it was a " course exclusively American," opposed to the course desired by the President, who contemplated a simultaneous recognition with European powers.57 The speech was able, and seems to have been appre- ciated by the countries in whose behalf it was made. " We have learned from a gentleman who has traveled in South America, that the noble speeches, pronounced by Mr. Clay in support of his motion for the recognition of Colombian Independence, were printed and suspended in the Legislative Halls and Council Chambers of that country, and that his name was mentioned only to be blessed by the people whose cause he had so ably and so eloquently espoused." 58
For several hours on 25th March, 1818, Clay urged upon the House the claims of South America.59 He was as consistent as his position at the head of a factious opposition would permit. He disclaimed a desire for war with Spain, or for a departure from the customary course of neutrality, maintaining that a mere recogntion was no cause for hostilities. Yet
<* Calvin Colton, The Life and Times of Henry Clay (2 ed., 2 vols., New York, 1846), I: 216.
"Colton, Clay, I: 225. Speech of Clay at Lexington, June 7, 1820. "Littell, The Clay Minstrel, or National Songster, 43. » Annals of Congress, 15 Cong., 1 Sess ., 1474-1500.
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in the same breath he urged that Spain be pressed vigorously for redress for the wrongs she had done to the United States, and that pressure be brought not by the seizure of the Floridas, but by a recogni- tion of her provinces.
With the manifesto of the Congress of Tucuman in his hand, he drew an eloquent picture of an oppressed people, revolting not against " a mere theory of tyranny/' as the NorthAmerican colonies did, but against an actual tyranny of centuries, horri- ble, bloody and destructive. Playing on the sym- pathies of the House with one hand, with the other he played upon its greed, as he showed the extent of South American commerce, the value of its exports, and the deep and abiding interest of the United States therein. At the same time he calmed the fears of the timorous by showing that Spain was in no condition to enter into a war — for which he had already said she would have no just cause; that the allies had lost their principle of cohesion since Waterloo; that England, the only dangerous power of Europe, had a commercial interest in independ- ence even greater than our own.
As to recognition, he showed that the United States had already established a policy of acknowl- edging the de facto government without regard to its legitimacy. The recognition of the revolutionary
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governments of France, one after another, proved this conclusively. The refusal to recognize either government in Spain from 1808 to 1815 confirmed his contention. And so, he maintained, our duty to ourselves bound us to recognize the independence of la Plata, which possessed an organized government and an unmolested independence of eight years' duration.
In conclusion he urged the co-ordinate right of Congress in recognition, holding it proper for either Congress or President to take the initial step.
The debate on Clay's amendment continued for four days, revealing a general sympathy for the patriots that brought members from sick bed to speak in their behalf. The heart of the House was generous, but its head leaned strongly to expediency and propriety in spite of Clay's admonition that the former was the better guide. Even Forsyth, chair- man of the Committee on Foreign Kelations, and de- fender of the administration, expressed a strong, hopeful interest in the colonies, opposing the amend- ment on the grounds of its impropriety, — for he denied the fact of independence — its influence on other foreign relations, and the insincerity of its origin. " Notice had been given from this city, and was now ringing through the western country, that questions were to be brought in view, by whose de-
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" cision the people, would be able to discriminate be- tween those who were just and unjust to the patriotic cause — between the friends and the enemies of freedom." On the 28th of March the motion was lost by the decisive vote of 115 to 45.60
The first session of the fifteenth Congress closed with the issue of South American recognition well before the public, and with Henry Clay pledged as its advocate. When the Congress met for its second session, the commissioners, sent in December, 1817, had returned, and their reports were transmitted by the President. Unfortunately, no two of the com- missioners could agree in interpreting what they saw. Bland soon had lost confidence in the patriots; then Rodney, under the influence of their secretary, Brackenridge, perhaps, wrote an enthusiastic report, which Graham was unwilling to sign.61 Accordingly three reports by the commissioners were sent to Congress by the President in November and De- cember, 1818, together with a fourth by Joel R. Poinsett.62
No new facts of importance were given out in the
60 Annals of Congress, 15 Cong., 1 Sess., 1500-1522, 1646.
61 J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, IV: 156, 158.
63 Message of November 17, 1818, and reports of Rodney and Graham. A.S.P.F.R., IV: 217-348. Message of December 15, 1818, and reports of Bland and Poinsett. Annals of Congress, 15 Cong., 1 Sees., 2104-2316.
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reports of the commissioners. Traveling in a public ship and in an official capacity, the agents had caused some little flutter in South America. At Rio de Janeiro the Spanish minister had hastened to an- nounce that his master had petitioned the European allies to mediate between him and his rebellious sub- jects, and that Great Britain had responded favor- ably.63 At Buenos Ayres and Montevideo they had been received with every courtesy and honor that they would accept. On this their reports agree. But the very character of their mission made it difficult to go below the surface in the politics of South America. They were forced to accept such facts as were brought officially to their notice. Their generalizations upon these facts varied with their prejudices.
The reports told the same story that had run in the journals for eight years. It was the story of political instability. Buenos Ayres, since the erection of her junta, in 1809, had enjoyed independence of Spain, but nothing more. At no time had she possessed a central government whose authority was recognized throughout all the provinces of the old vice-royalty. Several times she had experienced revolutions. All the time she had been in danger, on her northern frontier, of attacks by the Spanish
•» Adams to Gallatin May 19, 1818. S. D. Mss.
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forces in upper Peru. On the east, Paraguay re- fused resolutely to deal with Buenos Ayres; while the Banda Oriental stood in continued revolt against her authority, under the lead of the partisan general, Artigas, and encouraged by Brazil, who claimed the province.
With this condition before him, Monroe was non- committal in his message.64 He could see no pros- pect of a " speedy termination " of the war. He de- scribed briefly the condition of the rebellious govern- ments. He expressed with satisfaction the conviction that the allies at Aix-la-Chapelle would confine themselves " to the expression of their sentiments, abstaining from the application of force." In- ferentially, the message declared to Congress and the world " the determination of the United States to stand neutral in the great contest between Spain and her colonies till success shall decide it." 65
Henry Clay failed to return to the attack in this session, although it would have been well for his future had he done so. Recognition and liberation were essentially popular topics. In a way they were a manifestation of the feeling towards Spain that showed itself in popular approval of General Jack- son's career in Florida. Instead of choosing a sub-
«* Richardson, Messages, II: 43,44; J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, IV: 166. « Annual Register, 1819, 233.
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ject for opposition in which, the people could be with him, Clay felt bound to attack the conduct of the " military hero." For several weeks of the session, which was the short one, he kept up the fight, to the exclusion of the safer question of recognition. To- wards the end of the session Monroe sent to Con- gress another collection of documents, bearing this time on his refusal to grant exequaturs to consuls from South America.66 Thereupon Clay arose and apologized for not speaking at length in favor of a recognition, pleaded illness and pressure of business as an excuse, declared that his conviction as to its propriety was unshaken, and promised to return to the subject when Congress should meet again.67
The administration was more than content not to have recognition pressed at this time. Relations with Spain were in a delicate condition; a treaty was in process of negotiation. Determined to support the acts of Jackson and to acquire Florida, it was well not to aggravate Spain needlessly on the score of her colonies. The treaty was signed 22d February, 1819. A revival of the recognition question in the follow- ing session well-nigh prevented its ratification by the King of Spain, and certainly postponed it.
The sixteenth Congress met to receive a message
<* A. S. P. F. K., IV : 412 ; J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, IV : 223. « February 10, 1819. Armals of Congress, 15 Cong., 1 Sess., 1148.
Policy of the United States 139
that marked an advance towards recognition. Mon- roe was moving as rapidly as events would allow and Adams would countenance. The latter had little confidence in the South Americans, was unwilling to allow a sentimental sympathy to compromise the government, and argued out of the message an invita- tion to France and Great Britain to act with the United States in a joint recognition.68 France and Russia were both exerting pressure to prevent the act. Accordingly the message confined itself to a strong expression of sympathy.
Clay remembered his promise of the last winter and renewed his attempt to hasten the steps of the administration.
During the winter of 1819-1820 the relations with Spain, already confused, became more complicated by the revolution in the peninsula and the acceptance of a new constitution by Ferdinand. The treaty had not yet been ratified. The Spanish minister had been instructed to get a pledge from Monroe that he would not recognize the colonies as a preliminary to ratifi- cation. On 9th May, 1820, the President stated the situation to Congress in a temperate message.69 He transmitted at this time correspondence with the envoy of his Catholic Majesty over the treaty of
M Richardson, Messages, II: 58; J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, IV: 461. 69 Richardson, Messages, II: 70.
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22d February, 1819. He commented upon the com- plaints of the latter respecting the hostility of the citizens and the unfriendly policy of the government of the United States towards the subjects and do- minions of Spain, maintaining that both were " utterly destitute of foundation. ... In regard to the stipulation proposed as the condition of the ratification of the treaty, that the United States shall abandon the right to recognize the revolution- ary colonies in South America, or to form other relations with them when in their judgment it may be just and expedient so to do, it is manifestly so repugnant to the honor and even to the independ- ence of the United States, that it has been impossi- ble to discuss it." But, considering the domestic troubles of Spain, he asked Congress, "Is this the time to make the pressure? If the United States were governed by views of ambition and aggrandize- ment, many strong reasons might be given in its favor; but they have no objects of that kind to accomplish, none which are not founded in justice and which can be injured by forbearance." In con- clusion, he urged Congress not to decide the ques- tion until the next session.
On the 4th of April, Clay had moved that it was expedient to provide outfit and salary for such min- isters to South America as the President might deem
Policy of the United States
it expedient to send.70 On the 10th of May, the day after the reception of the message, he brought up his motion in the House. Clay disliked the Spanish treaty. He was unwilling to compensate Spain for the Floridas, which we must at any rate ultimately obtain. He was strongly opposed to a southwestern boundary that left Texas outside the United States. Now he seized the opportunity at once to frighten Spain into a definite refusal to ratify the obnoxious treaty, and to attack the policy of the administra- tion. The speech contained little that was new. It was a defiance of Spain. Forgetting his maxim that recognition was no violation of neutrality, Clay re- gretted that the United States had not recognized the provinces two years before, when they really needed assistance. He urged the creation of an American system, with the United States as its center, in defiance of the despotisms of the Old World. And he deprecated the deference of the administration to the wishes of a Castlereagh and a Nesselrode. To his surprise, perhaps, and certainly to the surprise of the President, his motion passed the House. The next day Mr. Adams had the satis- faction of telling the French minister, de Neuville, that if Spain was vexed she had only herself to
*° Annals of Congress, 16 Cong., 1 Sess., 1781.
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thank; that the administration contemplated no change of policy.71
At the next session, second and last of the six- teenth Congress, Clay brought this motion up once more. The message of Monroe, as it referred to South America, had been short, friendly and, as usual, non-committal.72 This was Clay's last oppor- tunity, for he had declined a re-election that he might resume the practice of law and restore his private affairs to some sort of order. On 3d Febru- ary, 1821, he moved once more the resolution that had passed in the preceding May, and asked that it be referred to the Committee of the Whole.73 Here, three days later, he called it up to speak in its de- fence, a speech that has not been preserved. His colleague, Robertson, replied.
Eobertson discountenanced this method of forcing the hand of the President. He objected to the use of an abstract resolution of the House as an expres- sion of an overwhelming popular sentiment. Foreign affairs were the business of the executive, and in his conduct of these he should not be embarrassed. " I voted with my colleague last Winter, . . ." he de- clared,74 "because I was aiding him in that which
71 The vote was 80 to 75. Annals of Congress, 16 Cong. , 1 Sess. , 2223- 2229 ; Adams, Memoirs,^ : 108, 111. « Richardson, Messages, II : 77. w Annals of Congress, 16 Cong., 2 Sess., 1029. w Annals of Congress, 16 Cong., 2 Sess., 1042-1053.
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" was to him a splendid triumph, and one which was achieved without sacrifice of principle. I knew that he would soon leave us (which I regret), and I was anxious that he should retire with honor and applause; and, in regard to that retirement (which I hope will be only temporary), I thought it but due to his distinguished services that his country should say to him, as Jove did to Hector: —
" 'Yet live, I give thee one illustrious day, One blaze of glory, ere thou fad'st away.'
" Sir, the vote of last Winter, by giving success to his exertions for the Patriots, did crown him with laurels. I would not wither them, or pluck one leaf from the bright wreath. I wish they may flourish and be forever green. But I cannot water them with the vote I am about to give. I hoped that the sub- ject was buried last Winter, and that it should not be resuscitated. To carry the motion can confer no additional honor on the mover; to lose it, may dimin- ish the glory of the triumph he has won. If he would be content with an abstract expression of our feelings towards the Patriots, although it is unneces- sary and superfluous (having done this before), I would vote for it, because it will speak only what I feel in common with my constituents, and will not be liable to the principal objections which I have
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" to the proposition which he has made. And why would not such a resolution satisfy all his wishes? Why annoy the Executive, session after session, with our opinion and advice, when we know that he does not desire them, and will not conform to them? And why do this, too, when every legitimate and desirable object has been already achieved, and can be again effected if desired, as far as the Patriots are to be benefited, in the manner which I have just suggested ? "
This motion failed in the Committee of the Whole ; it was lost again when brought up in the House on February 9th. But Clay saw that its rejection was due to form rather than substance, and on the 10th offered a new resolution to the effect that the House joined with the people of the United States in their sympathy with the South Americans; that it was ready to support the President whenever he should think it expedient to recognize their governments. The question was divided on the insistence of one of the members, and the first part was carried by the overwhelming majority of 134 to 12. The second followed with 86 to 68. In the words of his eulogist, Mr. Clay " had fought and won, before the country, before the world — a pity to say, against his own government — one of the most brilliant battles for humanity, and for the rights of man, which history
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" records." 75 It was a fitting end to his period of factious opposition when " the triumph of Mr. Clay was signalized in the house of representatives by adopting the unusual course of appointing a special committee to wait on the president with a copy of the resolution, as a mode of advising him [sic] a result of their action in the case. The usual mode was to transmit a certified copy of the journals by the hand of an officer of the house. But on this occasion, in consideration of the importance of the transaction in the cause of freedom, of the notoriety which the debates on the subject had attained, of the growing interest of the public mind, which had been raised to an excitement, and, inasmuch as the whole transaction was avowedly designed for moral effect — it could have been no other — Mr. Clay thought proper to move for this Committee, which was promptly granted, and himself, as a mover, was of course placed at the head of it." For years he had been in a sort of " quasi opposition," which " the president did not think best openly to oppose." Mr. Monroe and his friends saw in the committee a studied insult, " but, of course, Mr. Clay per- formed his part with the greatest delicacy and courtesy toward the executive, though, after all
w Annals of Congress, 16 Cong., 2 Sess., 1055, 1071, 1081 ; Colton Clay, I: 239.
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" that had passed, it could hardly have been very de- sirable to that functionary." ™
With this session Clay retired into private life. His triumph had been a barren one. Save for em- phasizing his position and crowning his opposition, it stood for nothing. The executive, unmoved by the resolution, continued calmly on the course it had marked out for itself. Eecognition did not come a day earlier because of the advocacy of Henry Clay.
The departure of the South American commission- ers in December, 1817, marked the commencement at once of Clay's factious opposition and of a more active policy on the part of the administration. The inclination of Monroe to yield before the threats of the opposition was checked by John Quincy Adams. It was changed into a determination to learn the actual condition of the republics and to ascertain the attitude which the European powers would take towards recognition when it should come. For the administration, no less than Clay, sympathized with the struggle and contemplated recognition in the near future.
The sympathy of Mr. Adams was tempered with misgivings. " The mention of Buenos Ayres," he wrote in one of his political letters,77 " brings to my
wColton, Clay, I: 242, 243.
77 J. Q. Adams to Alexander H. Everett, December 29, 1817. Letter- book of J. Q. Adams, Private, No. 2. Adams Mas.
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" mind an Article that I have lately seen in the Bos- ton Patriot, and which I concluded was from your pen. Its tendency was to show the inexpediency and injustice there would be in our taking side with the South Americans in their present struggle against Spain ! It was an excellent article, and I should be glad to see the same train of thought further pur- sued. As for example by a discussion, ... by what right we could take side? and who in this state of civil war has constituted us the judges, which of the parties has the righteous cause ? then by an enquiry what the cause of the South Americans is, and whether it really be as their partisans here allege the same as our own cause in the War of our Revo- lution? Whether for instance if Buenos Ayres has formally offered to accept the Infant Don Carlos as the absolute Monarch upon condition of being politi- cally Independent of Spain, their cause is the same as ours was ? Whether if Bolivar, being at the head of the Eepublic of Venezuela, has solemnly pro- claimed the absolute and total emancipation of the Slaves, the cause of Venezuela is precisely the same as ours was? Whether in short there is any other feature of identity between their cause and ours, than that they are as we were Colonies fighting for Independence. In our Revolution there were two distinct Stages. In the first of which we contended
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" for our Civil Rights and in the second for our Political Independence. The second, as we solemnly declared to the World was imposed upon us as a means of necessity after every practicable effort had been made in vain to secure the first.
" In South America, Civil Eights if not entirely out of the question appear to have been equally dis- regarded and trampled upon by all parties. Buenos Ayres has no constitution; and its present ruling powers are establishing only by the entire banish- ment of their predecessors. Venezuela though it has emancipated all its slaves has been constantly alternating between an absolute Military Govern- ment, a Capitulation to Spanish Authority, and Guerillas, Black and White, of which every petty chief has acted for purposes of War and Rapine as an Independent Sovereign. There is finally in South America neither unity of cause nor unity of effort as there was in our Revolution.
" Neither was our revolution disgraced by that buccaneering and piratical Spirit which has lately appeared among the South Americans not of their own growth, but I am sorry to say chiefly from the contamination of their intercourse with us. Their Privateers have been for the most part fitted out and officered in our Ports and manned from the Sweep- ings of our Streets. . . . [yet] such is the propensity
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" of our people to sympathize with the South Ameri- cans, that no feeble exertion is now making to rouse a party in this Country against the Government of the Union, and against the President for having issued orders to put down this host of free-booters at our doors."
The attitude of the Powers toward South America seemed likely to undergo a change during 1818. Mr. Adams watched it with a jealous interest. The earliest despatches of the commissioners told how at Rio de Janeiro " the Spanish Minister, Count Casa- Flores, appears to have been so much alarmed by the suspicion that the object of the mission was the formal acknowledgment of the government of la Plata, that he thought it his duty to make to Mr. Sumter an official communication that he had re- ceived an official despatch from the Duke of San Carlos, the Spanish Ambassador at London, dated the 7th of November last, informing him, that the British Government had acceeded to the proposition made by the Spanish Government of a general media- tion of the powers to obtain the pacification of South America, the negotiation of which, it was on the point of being decided, whether it should be at London or Madrid." 78
On the receipt of this news, the Secretary of State
w Adams to Gallatin, May 19, 1818. 8. D. Mss.
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wrote to the American minister in Paris, Albert Gal- latin, complaining of the reserve with which the European powers treated the United States. He regretted at length that they had seen fit to conceal this proposed mediation. If its object " be any other than to promote the total independence political and commercial of South America, we are neither desir- ous of being invited to take a part in it, nor dis- posed to accept the invitation if given. Our policy in the contest between Spain and her colonies has been impartial neutrality. Is the proposed general mediation to be a departure from that line of neu- trality? If it is, which side of the contest are the allies to take? the side of Spain? on what principle and by what right ? As contesting parties in a civil war, the South Americans have rights, which the other powers are bound to respect as much as the rights of Spain; and after having by an avowed neu- trality, admitted the existence of those rights, upon what principle of justice can the allies consider them as forfeited, or themselves as justifiable in taking sides with Spain against them ?
" There is no discernible motive of justice or of interest which can induce the allied sovereigns to interpose for the restoration of the Spanish colonial dominion in South America. There is none even of policy; for if all the organized power of Europe is
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" combined to maintain the authority of each Sover- eign over his own people, it is hardly supposed that the sober senses of the allied cabinets will permit them to extend the application of this principle of union to the maintenance of colonial dominion be- yond the Atlantic and the Equator.
" By the usual principles of international law, the state of neutrality, recognizes the cause of both par- ties to the contest, as just — that is, it avoids all con- sideration of the merits of the contest. But when abandoning that neutrality, a nation takes one side, in a war of other parties, the first question to be settled is the justice of the cause to be assumed. If the European allies are to take side with Spain, to reduce the South American colonies to submission, we trust they will make some previous enquiry into the justice of the cause they are to undertake. As neutrals we are not required to decide the question of justice. We are sure we should not find it on the side of Spain."
These general principles Mr. Gallatin was in- structed to communicate informally to the French minister. He was to assure him " That it is our earnest desire to pursue a line of policy, at once just to both parties in that contest, and harmonious with that of the European allies. That we must know their system, in order to shape our own measures
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accordingly; but that we do not want to join them in any plan of interference to restore any part of the Spanish supremacy, in any of the South American Provinces." 79
In the same frame of mind, and in some of the same paragraphs, Adams wrote to Eichard Eush in London the following day.80 He conjectured wisely, in conclusion, that the British Cabinet "will soon discover the great interest of Great Britain in the total Independence of South America, and will pro- mote that event just as far as their obligations towards Spain will permit. The time is probably not far remote, when the acknowledgment of the South American Independence will be an act of friendship towards Spain herself — when it will be kindness to her to put an end to that self-delusion under which she is wasting all the remnant of her resources, in a war, infamous by the atrocities with which it is car- ried on, and utterly hopeless of success. It may be an interesting object of your attention to watch the moment when this idea will become prevalent in the British Councils, and to encourage any disposition which may consequently be manifested to a more perfect concert of measures between the United States and Great Britain towards that end; the total
79 Adams to Gallatin, May 19, 1818. 8. D. Mss. «° Adams to Rush, May 20, 1818. S. I>. Ms*.
Policy of the United States 153
" Independence of the Spanish South American Provinces." . . .
Thus in the spring of 1818 the policy of the United States was outlined in the instructions to Rush and Gallatin, and later to George W. Campbell at St. Petersburg.81 It was unmistakably the policy of John Quincy Adams. It was a policy distinctly friendly to South America, Mr. Clay to the contrary, notwithstanding. It watched with considerable apprehension the gathering of the sovereigns at Aix- la-Chapelle; but had a well-founded suspicion that the interests of these same sovereigns would confine their activities to their own side of the Atlantic. It took such shape that the Eussian minister in the autumn could express satisfaction " to see a navy growing up on the other side of the Atlantic, that might one day act as a ballance, as he expressed him- self to that on this side." 82 From broad principles of policy Mr. Adams now had to turn his attention to the doings of agents, North and South American.
The embarrassments caused to the administration by Henry Clay hardly exceeded those for which the agents of the patriots in the United States, or of the United States in the southern republics, were respon-
81 June 28,1818. S. D. Mss.
81 Q. W. Campbell to Adams, from St. Petersburg, October 7, 1818. S. D. MM.
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sible. These of the agents were not confined to ses- sions of Congress, like the former, but were peren- nial. Don Manuel Hermenegildo de Aguirre had arrived from Buenos Ayres in 1817, bearing a com- mission from the Supreme Director, Pueyrredon, accrediting him as " Agent of this Government near that of the United States of North America," and asking for him " all the protection and consideration required by his diplomatic rank and the actual state of our relations." 8S Once in the United States, he engaged in the patriotic work of equipping priva- teers. In odd moments he addressed the Secretary of State,84 to demand recognition and countenance, to complain of the injustice done his country by the neutrality acts, to explain the workings and describe the situation of his government, to emphasize the moderation of his demands, and to threaten the United States with severance of commercial rela- tions. Mr. Adams was not a timid man to be fright- ened into recognition nor was he a weak man to be driven into hostility to the patriots by their lack of consideration. He continued unmoved, though with some irritation, his friendly, conservative course. In the summer of 1818 he was forced to refuse com-
» Annals of Congress, 15 Cong., 1 Sess., 1879, 1880. w December 16, 24, 26 and 29, 1817 ; January 6 and 16, 1818. An- nals of Congress, 15 Cong., 1 Sess., 1877-1897.
Policy of the United States 155
pliance with the demands of one de Forrest to be granted an exequatur as Consul General for Buenos Ayres in the United States. Here he laid down the doctrine that the granting of an exequatur is a recog- nition. His own agents caused him the greatest trouble. In one of the revolts in Buenos Ayres, Devereux guaranteed a loan that saved the life of the existing government. For this he was dismissed in 1817 by the predecessor of Mr. Adams. His successors, Worthington and Halsey, did little better. The former, " swelling upon his agency " until he broke out " into a self-accredited Plenipotentiary," negotiated a commercial treaty on his own responsi- bility. The latter entered into privateering schemes and sent blank commissions to the United States. He was summarily removed. On the whole, the position of the Secretary of State was not a happy one. He was the great restraining influence; poli- ticians were shouting for recognition; agents of all sorts were embarrassing the government, and his own colleagues in the cabinet were discussing the expediency of sending a naval force into southern waters to encourage the insurgent states.85
President Monroe was ready to move more rapidly in the direction of recognition than was Mr. Adams.
» J. Q. Adams, Menwirs, IV : 70, 88, 91, 158. Rush to Halsey, April ». 1817: Adams to Halsey, January 22, 1818. 8. D. Ms*.
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In July, 1818, he wanted to propose to England a co-operation in behalf of the South Americans. If the journal of Mr. Adams, which is the only authority on the point, can be accepted, the President was in- fluenced by the eager demands of the Richmond En- quirer, and only the arguments of the Secretary of State restrained his benevolence.86 Evidently these arguments were effective, for the proposal was not made. In its place a circular was directed to the American ministers at London, Paris and St. Peters- burg in August, asking what part these governments "will take in the dispute between Spain and her colonies, and in what light they will view an acknowledgment of the Independence of the Colonies by the United States? Whether they will view it as an act of hostility to Spain, and in case Spain should declare war against us, in consequence, whether . . . [they] will take part with her in it ? " 8T When the responses to this circular began to come in, it was clear that Mr. Adams had not misjudged the attitude of the Powers. From London, Kush wrote in October that a recognition would certainly meet with popular approval in England, while the ministry, although " high-toned in its aristocracy,"
* J. Q. Adams, Memoirs IV : 118.
»' Adams to Rush, August 15, 1818; to Gallatin and Campbell, August 20, 1818. S.D.Mss.
Policy of the United States 157
would not be likely " to take Spain by the hand in a war against us." France, wrote Gallatin, would view a recognition with disfavor because of the peculiar nature of her family ties with Spain; but she would not fight over this cause. Russia would not fight alone, was Campbell's estimate of the situation at his court.88 She might uphold the rights of Spain in concert with the allies, but without them she would not move. A little later Rush intimated that the vigorous determination of the President to have nothing to do with any scheme for coercing the col- onies had helped to decide the Court of St. James in the matter.
The Congress at Aix-la-Chapelle adjourned with- out taking action acceptable to Spain. It recom- mended a mediation through the Duke of Welling- ton,89 which England accepted on the condition that in event of his failure to reconcile the combatants there should be no resort to coercion.
But before these responses reached Washington Congress had convened, and the President once more had been forced to decide upon a policy. By this time the discordant reports of the three South
88 Rush to Adams, October 12 and November 20, 1818 ; Gallatin to Adams, November 5, 1818 ; Campbell to Adams, December 22, 18181 S.D. Mss.
89 Campbell to Adams, February 18, 1819. 8. D. MM.
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American Commissioners were at hand. With the picture of political disorder revealed by these re- ports before his eyes, and with his mind uncertain as to the policy of the allies, Adams could have no hesitation in counselling delay.90 A year before Monroe had thought seriously of an immediate recognition; now he seems to have agreed with his Secretary. " From the view taken of this subject," he announced, " founded on all the information that we have been able to obtain, there is good cause to be satisfied with the course heretofore pursued by the United States in regard to this contest, and to conclude that it is proper to adhere to it, especially in the present state of affairs." 91
The session which began in November, 1818, the second of the fifteenth Congress, is the one in which Clay built up his opposition on Florida rather than on South America. Attacking the conduct of Jack- son with all his strength, he gave the administration opportunity to pursue its own policy unhampered. Mr. Adams was obliged, however, to develop the domestic portion of his policy to meet the demands of the South American agents. David C. De Forest from Buenos Ayres, and Don Lino de Clemente, from Venezuela, were at this time demanding recog-
WJ.Q. Adams, Jfewwrirs, IV: 166. 91 Richardson, Messages, II: 44.
Policy of the United States 159
nition as consuls from their respective republics. The latter was not given even a hearing, for the commis- sion of a privateer, with his signature annexed, had come to the hand of the State Department. The former was heard in full, but his solicitations met with no success, for Adams felt, as already stated, that granting an exequatur is tantamount to a recog- nition. De Forest did not rest easily upon his re- fusal, but protested bitterly. The House called for papers upon the applications, and received from the Secretary a careful report that described the sins of Clemente, the unauthorized treaty of Worthington and De Forest's petition based upon it, and the weak- ness of the latter's argument that granting an exequatur is not a recognition.92
Although not yet ready for a recognition at the end of 1818, Monroe felt that the time for it was rapidly approaching. As December passed away the prospect of European intervention in behalf of Spain grew less and less. At the beginning of January, 1819, the Secretary of State was ordered to draft a new instruction to the minister in London. The document bears date the 1st of January. It was
92 Adams to Clemente, December 16, 1818; De Forest to Adams, January 8, 1819. & D. Mas. ; J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, IV : 223 ; Annalt of Congress, 15 Cong., 2 Sess., 544, 1606, 1612.
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not despatched until the month was several days advanced.83
The policy of the United States towards the rebel- lious provinces of Spain, wrote Adams, in substance, has been one of rigid neutrality. We have not recog- nized them as independent, nor received their con- suls, which were an equivalent act. But we have considered it an obligation of our neutrality to give the parties as equal rights as possible; so we have always listened to the representations of their agents. Thus far our neutrality operates against Spain, as an inevitable consequence of the nature of the struggle. With the preponderating success of one of the parties to the civil war, this condition will cease, as it has done in Mexico and seems likely soon to do in Buenos Ayres. Spain has solicited the mediation of the allies to prevent this separation, but such mediation, as Great Britain clearly saw, would be a departure on their part from the line of neu- trality. We are opposed to a third-party interven- tion of any sort. We believe " that the contest can- not and ought not to terminate otherwise than by the total Independence of South America," but we desire to do our duty by Spain and maintain the
w Adams to Rush, January 1, 1819. S. D. Mss. The copy in the Adams Mss. is endorsed as being sent January 4 by Mr. Bagot's mes- senger.
Policy of the United States 161
good-will of the Powers, and so have taken no de- cisive step as yet. Now that we are convinced that the power of Spain cannot he restored, we desire Europe to consider how important it is that the new States should be recognized and held in their re- sponsibilities as independent bodies. We have it in contemplation ourselves to acknowledge the govern- ment of Buenos Ayres at no remote period unless something should occur to justify a further postpone- ment of the act. It would be gratifying should England see fit to adopt similar measures at the same time and in concert with the United States. " When adopted it will be a mere acknowledgment of the fact of Independence, and without deciding upon the ex- tent of their Territory, or upon their claims to sov- ereignty, in any part of the Provinces of La Plata, where it is not established and uncontested."
The unforeseen seems to have happened on the 3d of January, 1819, when it was learned that the success of the Florida negotiations would be endan- gered by a recognition. For more than two years, until the treaty was signed and safely ratified, recog- nition was postponed. Agitation did not cease during these two years; factious opposition did its worst; Don Manuel Torres, a new agent from Colombia, created a long series of entries in Mr. Adams's journal. There is no absolute evidence that fear of
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Spain was the inspiring motive of the administra- tion's conservatism. But Adams ceased to worry over the attitude of Europe during these years. He announced a policy of forbearance for the time to the Russian minister. There is abundant proof in the correspondence with Spain that recognition was a determining cause in the delay of the latter to ratify the treaty. And it is certain that recognition did not come until the winter of 1822.
The message of 1819, expurgated by the Secre- tary of State, until it was harmless, made some slight advance toward recognition. Mr. Adams felt that the less said about South America at this time the better it would be.94 Three months later he opposed in the Cabinet a tendency to grant arms to the Colombians, denouncing the scheme as dishonorable, unneutral, unconstitutional, and an act of war. At the same time, outside the Cabinet, he resisted the efforts of an " ambidexter personage," agent of Venezuela in Washington, to get himself appointed as agent of the United States to Venezuela.95 The whole burden of foreign policy seems to have been laid upon the broad shoulders of John Quincy Adams. To conciliate Spain and induce her to ratify a treaty forced upon him by the administration, he
94 J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, IV : 209, 379, 461. * J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, V : 45-51.
Policy of ike United States 163
had to fight at once the opposition of the Speaker of the House, the pretensions of the South Ameri- cans and the unneutral disposition of his own cabinet. When the President transmitted his mes- sage of 9th May, 1820, with its hard words for the demands of Spain, the first storm broke, and Clay, as has been seen, gained his first triumph.
The summer of 1820 saw more agents sent to South America, charged to protest against the acts of insurgent privateers and to acquire news. Charles S. Todd went as Agent for Seamen and Commerce to Colombia. " With regard to the formal recogni- tion by the Government of the U. S. of the Republic of Colombia," were his instructions, " should anything be said to you, the obvious reply will be that you have not been authorized to discuss the subject. As a reason for this reserve it may be alleged that besides the actual War still waged by Spain, during which the Independence of the other party could not be acknowledged without a depart- ure from our avowed and long-established system of neutrality, the changes still occurring will require some lapse of time to give to the Republic that char- acter of permanency which would justify the formal acknowledgment of it by foreign powers." 96
J. B. Prevost, agent at Lima, had been trans-
* Adams to Todd, June 5, 1820. S. D. Mss.
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f erred to Buenos Ayres in 1819 on the dismissal of Halsey and Worthington ; but his sphere of activity covered also Chile and Peru. Uncertain as to his location, Adams commissioned John M. Forbes to Chile or Buenos Ayres, as there should be a vacancy, in June, 1820. The instructions of Forbes are dated 5th July, 1820. Further and more significant instructions were issued to him after the arrival of a despatch from Prevost a week later.97 In these the Secretary reviewed recent upheavals in Buenos Ayres, warning Forbes, as Todd had been warned, not to discuss a recognition. Now that the old cen- tral government had been swept away, if we were " to recognize the single province of Buenos Ayres, the recognition upon reaching that city might prob- ably find it no longer independent.
" You will take occasion to remark whenever it may be proper that the Government of the United States have never intended to secure to themselves any advantage, commercial or otherwise, as an equiv- alent for acknowledging the Independence of any part of South America. They do not think it a proper subject for equivalent; and they have entire confidence that no exclusive privilege will be granted
91 Adams to Prevost, May 3, 1819 ; Adams to Forbes, July 12, 1820. S. D. Mas. Annals of Congress, 17 Cong., 1 Sess., 2059; British and Foreign State Papers, IX : 370.
Policy of the United States 165
" to any other nation to the prejudice of the U. S. They think themselves entitled to this, and con- sider it as essential to the Independence itself to be acknowledged — aware that no such privileges can be granted but by a sacrifice of the interests of the nation which grants them, they have never intended to ask them to the detriment of others, as they rely that they will not be conceded to others in detriment to them."
The early despatches of Forbes show a most dis- tracted condition prevailing in Buenos Ayres in 1821. The news from Prevost, dated 30th April, 1820, was of a successful revolt against the Congress and the Supreme Director Pueyrredon. The latter, with his faction, had been engaged in secret negotia- tions with France and Spain, having in view the establishment of a Bourbon dynasty in South America. A revolt overthrew him and started a prosecution of the leaders of his party for high treason, thus continuing a decade of turmoil. " Up to 1820 . . . the History of these Provinces com- prises little but a Series of Military Operations. . . . The Successes of their Armies have been splen- did and extraordinary, but a Review of their inter- nal Government for the first ten years presents
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"nothing but a Picture of Anarchy and Confu- sion." 98 This was the time when General San Mar- tin, engaged in Chile in his large projects against Peru, disobeyed the orders of his government to re- turn home and restore peace."
Pueyrredon went into exile in the early part of 1820. He was succeeded in quick succession of dic- tatorship by Aguirre, known in North America; Sarratea and Balcarce, until the affairs of the prov- inces became hopeless. As Forbes reached Rio de Janeiro on the way to his post, in September, 1820, he learned that " a kind of political Auction is to take place at which the rights of a distracted Coun- try are to be struck off to the highest bidder. — Eng- land will offer maritime protection and Commercial abundance and, notwithstanding that the most im- penetrable mystery covers everything here, it is inferred from the gaiety and good humor of the Spanish mission that the nature of the proposals they are about to make is not without charms and hope."
Preceded by rumors that he bore a formal recog- nition, Forbes was received by the local government at Buenos Ayres with distinguished honors. State coach and aide-de-camp were forced upon him; a
98Keport of Woodbine Parish, June 25, 1824. F. O. Mss. An Account . . . of the United Provinces of Rio de la Plata (London, 1825), 9, 20-24.
99 Sketch of Occurrences in Buenos Ayres, 1820. S. D. Mss.
Policy of the United States 167
public mansion was offered for his residence; while on the other hand, he was embarrassed by the evil rumors that he attributed to disgruntled South American agents who had returned from Washing- ton to justify their failure by attacking the United States. But Forbes could not be lured into partisan politics. He sat outside, watching the game of fac- tions, sometimes hazarding " the opinion that a per- manent and good government is very important."
The government at Buenos Ayres, by the end of the year, had become a " mere military police," liv- ing a precarious existence from day to day, and awaiting the action of a Congress of the provinces assembling at Cordova. It was a war between re- publicanism in the provinces and monarchical ten- dency at Buenos Ayres. The Congress gathered with true Castilian deliberation, to perform an enor- mous task. It " requires little short of Omnipo- tence," wrote Forbes, " to create order out of such utter Chaos as now exists." By the 1st of April, 1821, he was reduced to wish for a popular general and a victorious republican army, for the country seemed " in the most utter darkness of despair and without one ray of hope." On 20th April, Good Friday, Pueyrredon landed, having returned from exile at the call of the government. In two weeks more the clouds of anarchy had broken.
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About 1st May, 1821, there appeared in Buenos Ayres a new journal, edited by two patriots, Ber- nardo Rivadavia and Manuel Jose Garcia, of whom the former had once been at the head of the govern- ment, while both had just returned from an extended diplomatic mission in Europe. Before the end of the month it appeared to the American agent that the party of Pueyrredon was falling into disrepute. In July the administration fell, Rivadavia came in as Minister of State, while Garcia took the Treasury. This was the beginning of an orderly government in Buenos Ayres. Garcia at once inaugurated a policy " without example in the history of the Revolution," by paying the debts of the government, and paying them in gold. Rivadavia, after some correspondence with Forbes, issued a decree recalling all privateers sailing under the flag of Buenos Ayres and revoking their commissions. At the same time glad tidings came from across the mountains. " At the moment I am writing," wrote Forbes on 2d September, " a salvo of Artillery and the most extravagant demon- strations of joy through the streets, announce the capture of Lima by San Martin's besieging army. If this news be true, it puts the Seal to the Independ- ence of South America. The Spanish Royalty, driven from its last hope in these Provinces, and enlightened by a Representative Government, will, I
Policy of the United States 169
" think, within six months, acknowledge their Inde- pendence."
The news was true. Progress during the past months had not been confined to the limits of Buenos Ayres or to the leadership of Kivadavia and Garcia. We have already traced the steps of the armies of liberation. San Martin, in July, 1821, had really marched into the city of Lima, after a year's cam- paign of education in its vicinity. Bolivar had ended the truce with Morillo to defeat the royalists at Carabobo on 24th June. On 12th July his Congress at Cucuta had proclaimed the permanent union of Venezuela and New Granada; while on 30th August it had proclaimed a federative constitution for the new republic.
The year 1821 was marked by successes of the re- publican armies and by the erection of orderly gov- ernments in the most important of the South Ameri- can States, while on the other side of the Atlantic it seemed probable that Spain had come to her senses. The successful revolution of 1820, establish- ing Ferdinand VII. as constitutional monarch, was followed by an attempt to reconcile the colonies and the mother country. It could not be foreseen that an armed intervention would overthrow the con- stitution, while the Cortez would recall its pacific overtures.
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In Mexico, on 24th August, 1821, the Spanish General O'Donoju concluded a treaty of peace on the basis of independence. Later this was dis- avowed; " yet his private instructions found among his papers," it is said,100 " clearly proved beyond a possibility of doubt, that he was fully authorized to act as he did, and in the event of their Independence being declared, to make the most eligible terms he possibly could in favor of Old Spain. . . ." Morillo, too, had made a truce with his opponent, though Bolivar had terminated it before a treaty had been arranged. From Spain the news came that Mexican and Colombian commissioners were on hand, that they were demanding complete independence, that the Cortez was listening to their demands and petitioning the ministry to come to some conclu- sion.101
In other words, the South American provinces in 1821 had achieved their independence, and a recog- nition had become fully justifiable. The United States, relieved by the final ratification of the Span- ish treaty in February, 1821, of the necessity for
JMHis authority is doubtful. Mackie's Report, March 17, 1823. F. 0. Mss.
lo1 Thomas L. L. Brent to Adams, April 10, 1821. 8. D. Mss. British and Foreign State Papers, IX : 394.
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silence, came to this conclusion as the fall and winter advanced.
The seventeenth Congress met in December, 1821, Clay being out of it.102 With him had disap- peared the ardent desire for recognition. " It has long been manifest/' declared Monroe in his mess- age, " that it would be impossible for Spain to re- duce these colonies by force, and equally so that no conditions short of their independence would be satisfactory to them. It may therefore be pre- sumed, and it is earnestly hoped, that the Govern- ment of Spain, guided by enlightened and liberal councils, will find it to comport to its interests and due to its magnanimity to terminate this exhausting controversy on that basis. To promote this result by friendly counsel with the Government of Spain will be the object of the Government of the United States." 103
As the weeks ran on, the despatches of Forbes convinced the administration that the time had come. In January Adams replied to one of the
102 W. S. Robertson, "The United States and Spain in 1822," in Amer. Hist. Eev., XX: 781, adds much new information to our knowledge of the effect of recognition upon the relations of the United States and Spain, and upon those of Spain and the European allies : a phase of recognition not considered above. He has made extensive use of the archives at Washington and Madrid.
i<» Richardson, Messages, II: 105.
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frequent demands of the Colombian agent that the President had the matter of recognition under con- sideration. Ten days later he wrote to Todd, who had returned from Colombia, " It is probable that the formal recognition of the Republic of Colombia will ensue at no distant day." 10* Before the next month was over the chief clerk of the Department of State announced to Forbes the preparation of a report and documents in response to a call of the House. " I know not how the cat jumps in relation to this great question/' he wrote, " but am apt to believe that a discretionary power will be given to the President, to acknowledge, or not, according to his views of circumstances, the sovereignty and Inde- pendence of any or all of these Governments. That of Buenos Ayres has given a good moral Lesson to older and long-established States, in the formal sup- pression of Privateering under its flag."
On the 8th of March, 1822, responding to a call for documents of 30th January, President Monroe recommended that the independence of the South American republics be acknowledged.106 The Presi- dent sketched briefly the long struggle of the col-
104 Adams to Torres, January 18, 1822 ; Adams to Todd, January 28, 1822. 8. D. MSB. ; Annals of Congress, 17 Cong., 1 Sess., «* D. Brent to Forbes, February 19, 1822. 8. D. Mss. H» Richardson, Messages, II: 116.
Policy of the United States 173
onies, the sympathy of the people of the United States and the policy of neutrality that had checked that sympathy. Now he was compelled to conclude, from a review of the situation in South America, " that its fate is settled, and that the Provinces which have declared their independence and are in the enjoyment of it ought to be recognized." He presumed that Spain would soon become reconciled to the separation, though he admitted that he had received no recent information on the subject from Spain or from the other Powers. Some time since, it had been understood that these latter were not yet prepared for recognition. " The immense space between those powers, even those which border on the Atlantic, and these Provinces makes the move- ment an affair of less interest and excitement to them than to us. ...
" In proposing this measure it is not contemplated to change thereby in the slightest manner our friendly relations with either of the parties, but to observe, in all respects, as heretofore, should the war be continued, the most perfect neutrality be- tween them. Of this friendly disposition an assur- ance will be given to the Government of Spain, to whom it is presumed it will be, as it ought to be, satisfactory. The measure is proposed under a thorough conviction that it is in strict accord with
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" the law of nations, that it is just and right as to the parties, and that the United States owe it to their station and character in the world, as well as to their essential interests, to adopt it. Should Congress con- cur in the view herein presented, they will doubt- less see the propriety of making the necessary appro- priations for carrying it into effect."
With the departure of Henry Clay from the House of Representatives the .question of recogni- tion had fallen back to its proper place, the Depart- ment of State. In his absence there was no one whose interests impelled him to make use of a gener- ous popular sentiment to drag the foreign policy of the government into Congress. The sentiment con- tinued to exist, strong as ever, fed by the frequent columns of South American news in the papers. But the emotion was humanitarian rather than poli- tical. It was felt by Adams and Monroe as keenly as by Congress and the people. The purely factious nature of Clay's advocacy of recognition is shown by the fact that the seventeenth Congress felt no neces- sity to take the matter from the hands of the Presi- dent. Even after the call for documents in January, 1822, the papers paid no attention to the subject. The message of 8th March was received with calm- ness, though with general satisfaction. It does small credit to Clay's political wisdom that he spent four
Policy of the United States 175
years in advocacy of an assured cause, and that for all his efforts he could not hasten by a day the ad- vance of the government in the direction whither he was urging it.
The rest of the story can be quickly told : how the message was received at home; how it was received abroad; the actual steps in formal recognition.
During the weeks following the 8th of March, 1822, the message, with its accompanying docu- ments, was reprinted generally throughout the country. The information transmitted at this time was not new, and was received without general enthusiasm. The Aurora and the Enquirer, long the advocates of recognition, did their best by it, now it had come. The former expressed its satis- faction that the President had at last done justice to the South Americans and hailed him as a bene- factor of the republics.107 The Baltimore Patriot worked itself up to declare the message the most intrinsically important state paper it had seen. But South America had already gained its independence, so that recognition was an acknowledgment of a fact rather than a prop to a wavering cause. It came too late to be considered as an emotional appeal.
The Spanish minister in Washington, Don Joaquin
107 Aurora, March 11, March 12, March 15, 1822.
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de Anduaga, fired his " diplomatic blunderbuss " at the Secretary of State as soon as the message of Monroe reached him.108 His note was of the char- acter that was to be expected. Where is " the right of The United States," he demanded, "to sanction and declare legitimate a rebellion, without cause, and the event of which is not even decided ? " He denied the fact of independence, and in the lan- guage of injured, surprised innocence, registered a formal protest against the act of recognition, re- serving to Spain all her rights in the provinces de- spite the act. In his reply of a month later, Adams justified the action of the executive, admitted the reservation of Spain's rights, for recognition has no effect upon existing rights, and closed the contro- versy. !N~o other European power expressed formal disapprobation of the policy of the United States.
News of the message reached Paris at a time when Europe was excited over a threat of commercial dis- crimination by Colombia. " The United States, as we write," said the Journal des Debats™* " have probably recognized the independence of the Span- ish American governments. This resolution is not surprising from a government which has established
^Anduaga to Adams, March 9, 1822; Adams to Anduaga, April 9, 1822. British and Foreign State Papers, IX : 752, 754.
109 Journal des Debats, April 17, 1822.
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" as a maxim of public law ' thst when a province maintains itself victoriously in independence against the mother country it has a right to demand recog- nition as a sovereign state.' The president of the United States would have been wise not to talk of principle, EIGHT and LAW OF NATIONS: for suppose Boston with the five New England States should one day separate from the American Union. . . . Then England with his message in her hand could say amicably to Congress, c We do not wish to change any of our relations with the Union, but the five states east of the Hudson demand our recogni- tion, they have beaten your armies and you are abso- lutely incapable of subduing them; so according to the law of nations established by yourselves, they have a right to be recognized. So we shall recog- nize them without injuring you. Our ambassador at Washington is instructed to assure you of our sympathy and that we act from no motive of interest/ . . .
" The preliminary measures regarding the new governments have been skilfully conducted by the president of the United States. He sent agents or commissioners who after coasting slowly along South America submitted somewhat contradictory official reports. Thus the United States showed their regard for the new governments without injuring
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" Spain, and after three years of negotiation and pre- liminary measures came to a point where the Euro- pean situation is such that they can safely establish with their neighbors what relations they please. . . .
" Is it possible that the old governments of Europe cannot keep up with the march of the pru- dent young republic? We hope our statesmen will find means to conciliate the interests affected by this important question."
The formal steps in recognition occupied three months in the spring of 1822. The message of the President was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations, which on 19th March reported resolutions vigorously sustaining the policy of the administra- tion and instructing the Committee on Ways and Means to report a bill for the salaries of ministers to South America. Nine days later, after slight de- bate, the resolutions were adopted with but one dis- senting vote. On 10th April the debate on the bill for the missions was commenced;110 it was signed by the President some three weeks later, in spite of the unpleasant news that the Cortez had disavowed the concessions to the provinces and declared that the recognition of their independence by other powers would be considered as a violation of their treaties with Spain. On the 19th of June, 1822,
"o Annals of Congress, 17 Cong., 1 Sess., 1314, 1382, 1518.
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John Quincy Adams " presented Mr. Manuel Torres as Charge d' Affaires from the republic of Colombia to the President. This incident was chiefly interest- ing as being the first formal act of recognition of an independent South American Government." The next day the Secretary proposed to the President to offer the Colombian mission to Henry Clay.111
111 J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, V : 489, VI : 23, 26.
CHAPTEK III
BRITISH RELATIONS WITH SOUTH AMERICA
There seems to have been no connection between the interests that inspired Pitt to keep in touch with Francisco de Miranda in the last years of the eigh- teenth century and the early ones of the nineteenth, that impelled Sir Home Kiggs Popham to attack the Viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres on the broad grounds of commercial advantage and injury to Spain, and those later interests that developed a mercantile opposition in England to embarrass the ministry as Henry Clay's political opposition embarrassed the American administration of John Quincy Adams and his president, James Monroe. In England there is a distinct break between these periods. From an atti- tude of hostility to Spain in the earlier years, Great Britain passed through a stage of friendly protection that drove the French out of the peninsula, into an- other period of semi-hostility to the restored Ferdi- nand. During this last period, beginning roughly in 1815, the interests of Great Britain were divided. On the one hand an enormous trade with Latin America was threatened with destruction, should Spain's colonial policy come back with Spain's king.
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On the other, were the political interests of England in Europe, the body of treaties concluded during the wars against Napoleon, the newly-developed policy of joint action by the Powers. With the United States recognition was a question of American policy; with England it was merely one of the rami- fications of European politics. At no time was the British ministry in a position to treat it on its merits ; instead it struggled for a decade to avert action, to cherish at once the commerce with the colonies and the friendly relations with Spain. It was not until the clamorings of the merchants drowned the protests of the Bourbons that England recognized the South American republics.
Once an ally of Spain, the disposition of Eng- land to respect the rights of the former in her provinces became pronounced. In 1811 one Robert Staples was commissioned as consul to Buenos Ayres, but when the Eegency of Cadiz replied to Sir Henry Wellesley's request for an exequatur* that the " Laws of the Indias " were still in force, Perceval dropped the matter and the ministries thereafter disavowed the actions of Staples in South America.2 In 1814 a treaty was entered into with
1 Memorandum of June 26, 1823. F. 0. Mss.
* The archives of the British Foreign Office contain materials upon the South American wars of liberation, and on recognition, surpassing in interest those of the State Department. They are, so far as the
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Spain binding England to prevent her subjects from furnishing " arms, ammunition, or any other warlike article to the revolted in South America." For his Britannic Majesty was " anxious that the troubles and disturbances which unfortunately prevail in the Dominions of His Catholic Majesty in America should entirely cease, and the Subjects of those Provinces should return to their obedience to their lawful sovereign." 8
The attitude of the Liverpool ministry was by no means favorable to colonies struggling for independ- ence. The regent was narrow and aristocratic to the last degree; later, as George IV., he followed the course that could have been expected of him. He remembered with bitterness the day that marked the separation of her American colonies from Great
period here in question is concerned, preserved in the Public Records Office ; and are described in detail in C. O. Paullin and F. L. Paxson, Guide to the Materials in London Archives for the History of the United States since 1783 ( Carnegie Institution , 1914) . In the preparation of this Guide all of the Foreign Office volumes relating to the United States and many others relating to South America were handled. The search brought to light many new documents relating to recognition in addition to those referred to in the pages of the above chapter.
8 Hansard. Part. Debates, XXXV : 1200 ; British and Foreign State Papers, I : pt. 1, 292; Treaty of Madrid, July 5, 1814, and addi- tional articles, August 28, 1814. In return for this pledge, England was to receive a full share of the colonial trade if Spain should throw it open to any power. C. K. Webster, " Castlereagh and the Spanish Colonies, 1816-1818," in English Hist. Rev., XXVII: 78.
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Britain, and with such antecedents could with diffi- culty bring himself to countenance the separation of her own from Spain. The force that drove him to the final recognition was commercial, with George Canning as its prophet. That the latter " called a New World into existence to redress the balance of the old " 4 may well be doubted, for before he moved, another and a not uncertain voice had sounded from America. He guided his influence by the side of John Quincy Adams to maintain the new republics, less for their effect on old world politics or for the sake of the republics themselves, than that the com- merce of the British merchants might be protected and increased.5
Recognition became a subject of agitation in Great Britain as early as in the United States, but
4 This assertion was made near the end of the debate upon France, Spain and Portugal, in the House of Commons, December 12, 1826. Parl. Debates, New Series, XVI : 396.
5H. W. V. Temperley, "The Later American Policy of George Canning," in Amer. Hist. Rev., XI : 779, attempts " to show that the later American policy of George Canning was intended to defeat certain claims and pretensions of the Monroe doctrine." He presents various documents, some of them not used in the above chapter, to defend the substantial truth of Canning's rhetorical boast, but seems to give too little weight to the obvious fact that the new world was already clearly in existence before he acted. Ibid, 781. Doubtless a fear of United States hegemony in America was among his motives, but so far as this was the case it was the balance in the new world that he was attempting to redress. Compare with this E. M. Lloyd, " Canning and Spanish America," in Transactions of theRoyal Hist. Soc.t new Series, XVIII : 93.
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there is in the former country no trace of a purely factious opposition using a widespread popular emo- tion to embarrass an administration. The United States had little commerce with South American ports; its sympathies were almost entirely senti- mental. Great Britain also had a feeling for what it considered a struggle for liberty, but the feeling was buttressed up by considerations of a commerce that fed and clothed the southern patriots. Feel- ing the depredations of Spanish and insurgent privateers, Mackintosh and Brougham could with better grace than Henry Clay demand governmental intervention in their behalf.
Eleven years after their conclusion the treaties of 1814 rose to plague the Foreign Secretary, but in 1817 they constituted the foundation of his strength. Sir Henry Brougham, professionally a member of the opposition, and in all things liberal, interrogated the members of the ministerial bench on their South American program almost a year before the spec- tacular oratory of Henry Clay began, " The con- duct which this country followed with respect to these disputes," replied Lord Castlereagh, " was, that of adhering to a strict neutrality, and not that which the hon. and learned gentleman seemed to recommend — to assist the colonies against the native country, which would be in direct contraven-
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" tion to the treaties between Great Britain and Spain. . . . [The] events in the river Plate. . . . must be considered not as a mere South American question, but as an European question." 6
The war thus opened was continued with increas- ing energy as the English South American com- merce increased in volume. The ministry fought off recognition until of possible evils it was the least; until nothing was to be gained by further concilia- tion of Spain; until it was convinced that the prov- inces were independent and possessed of responsible governments. As it was hostile to the new republics, this conviction came with deliberate steps. At last the ministry yielded to the commercial influence, intensified by popular sympathy, and by its recogni- tion incurred the disapprobation of all of Europe.
The weapons of the opposition in England were much the same as in the United States. Speeches in House of Commons, demands of South American agents, equipment of South American armaments were all brought into use. Brougham, who had stirred up the ministry in March, 1817, returned to the attack in July in his speech on the State of the Nation. On the very day when Secretary Rush was pushing the preparations for the South American
• In House of CommonB,-March 19, 1817. Parl. Debates, XXXV: 1196.
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Commission, Brougham complained to the House of Commons that Great Britain had no system respect- ing that portion of the globe.7 In later months Don Bernardino Rivadavia, who was at a future time to play such a significant part in the development of Buenos Ayres, was passing through Europe, from capital to capital, making his representations and upholding the interests of his country. When Spain asked the mediation of the powers, he assured Lord Castlereagh that Buenos Ayres respected the other nations of the world and wanted peace, but that no peace would be admissible save on the basis, of abso- lute separation from the mother country. Six months later he announced that the mediation of Great Britain would be welcome if founded on no other motive than humanity. It was too late for Spain to seek to preserve her supremacy.8
The part played by British officers and men in the war of South American liberation has already been described. Lord Cochrane and General Miller are only the most notable names among those who fought with the armies of the south. Whole regi- ments are found with the armies of the north. The end of the Napoleonic wars, coinciding as it did with
* July 11, 1817. Part. Debates, XXXVI : 1384.
sBivadavia to Castlereagh, October 29, 1817, April 10, 1818, en- closed in Gallatin's NOF. 70 and 73, S. D. Mss.
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the beginning of the second period of the South American war, made it possible for the patriots to secure the services of many trained soldiers for their cause. Whole battalions are said to have listened to the glowing promises of Don Luis Lopez Mendez the agent of Bolivar in England, and been mustered out of the British army only to enlist immediately for South American service. Others flocked to the support of adventurers armed with stacks of blank commissions, and sailed for Mar- garita on the assurance that there they would re- ceive rank, expenses and increased remuneration. Only too often their hopes went the way of the funds of investors in high-rated South American stocks.
It was not without reason that the Prince Regent issued his proclamation in the fall of 1817 warning his subjects against participation in the war and holding before their eyes the penalties of felony pre- scribed by the old statutes of George II. Six ex- peditions are said to have been sent from London by Mendez before the year came to an end. Further proclamations in the summer of 1818 were equally necessary and unavailing. An instruction was issued by the Admiralty for the seizure of South American armed vessels guilty of aggressions on British com- merce,— pirates they were designated; and customs
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officials were ordered to check illegal preparations for South. American service in their ports.9 But all these efforts could not prevent an Irish and English brigade of two thousand, under one Colonel English, from sailing in June to reach the insurgent ports before the end of August.10 And other expeditions sailed for South America at will.
As in the United States, these expeditions re- vealed the inadequacy of the laws of neutrality. Strictly speaking, Great Britain had no law express- ing her duties as a neutral upon her statute books. The provisions of international law upon the subject were admittedly a part of her common law, but she had let the United States remain the first and only nation to embody these duties in a statute and pro- vide means and measures for their enforcement. When the latter, in 1818 and 1819, went further, and modified her laws to meet the situation created by the South American revolt, the British ministry was shamed into doing its duty by Spain and offered in the House of Commons a Foreign Enlistment Act. Thus they established a principle, later to vex them greatly, that neutrality demands more than an
9 November 27, 1817; June 8 and July 9, 1818. British and Foreign State Papers, IV : 488, V : 963, 1224 ; Present State of Colombia, 87.
M Recollections of a Service, I: 6-19; Chesterton, Proceedings in Venezuela.
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observance of existing laws; it demands that ade- quate laws shall exist.
The law which the Attorney-General asked leave to introduce on* 13th May, 18 19,11 was avowedly based on the recent neutrality act of the United States, but went beyond the requirements of inter- national law. It made it an offence not only to en- list in England for foreign service, but to enter the foreign service at all. As was to be expected, the opposition seized upon the measure as of political intent, and charged that it was an unneutral service in behalf of Spain itself. Sir James Mackintosh at once, amid loud cheers from his followers, attacked the bill, " which he considered in no other light than as an enactment to repress the rising liberty of the South Americans, and to enable Spain to reimpose that yoke of tyranny which they were unable to bear, which they had nobly shaken off, and from which, he trusted God they would finally be enabled to free themselves, whatever attempts were made by the ministers of this or any other country, to countenance or assist their oppressors." 12
The debate on the act ranged over the whole of foreign and commercial policy. " Independent of the sympathy which Great Britain, as a free country, must feel in every contest for liberty," complained
11 Parl. Debates, XL : 362. la Par/. Debate*, XL : 367, 368.
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George Tierney, member from Knaresborough and acknowledged leader of the opposition, " independ- ent of the ardor with which she would be inclined to aid the oppressed, it would not have been extra- ordinary if ministers, merely upon mercantile con- siderations, had looked towards South America as a vent for our trade. Yet they had not only done noth- ing, but they had done worse than nothing. They had done their utmost to prevent the success of those by whose triumph we might be benefited; for a bill was now depending, calculated to exasperate the whole mass of South Americans, and to destroy every hope of commercial advantage." 1S In answer to this complaint Canning sustained the policy of the ministry, characterizing an open interference on behalf of South America as mad as well as criminal. " No," he continued, " the British government had but one wise, as but one honest course to pursue in this contest. They have not interfered to assist either party; but have repeatedly offered their good offices with a view to reconcilement through an im- partial mediation. . . . Amicable intercourse has been kept up with every part of South America, to which our flag has access. . . .
" In one respect, his majesty's ministers are cer- tainly guilty of the charges brought against them.
"Par/. Debates, XL: 482.
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" In their transactions with South America, they have abstained from endeavoring, by a commercial treaty, to turn the troubles and distresses of a strug- gling people to the advantage of this country. The assistance which they did not think -it right to grant, they would not be tempted to sell." 14
It was a more difficult task to put the Foreign En- listment Act through Parliament than it had been to put its prototype through Congress, for it had in the former body to meet an opposition of longer standing, of more close amalgamation, and based upon a more sincere cause. The petitions from Brit- ish merchants that were offered in opposition of the act show how seriously it threatened to affect their commerce. One of them bore the signatures of seventeen hundred tradesmen from London alone. " We could not forget," cried one of the opposition, taking another line of attack, " that we first invited them to throw off the yoke which our government was now trying to reimpose, and that the birth of their independence took place under the protection of England." It is vain, declared another, to say that the act is only now introduced because the pro- posed mediation has failed and the struggle will proceed indefinitely. The conclusion of the Ameri- can negotiations with Spain by the cession of the
"Parl. Debates, XL: 534.
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Floridas is the true cause. And, " Although a sop has," added still another, " for the present, been given to Cerberus, by the cession of the Floridas to the United States, the policy of the government will not long be able to restrain the wishes of the people, but be compelled to join this popular and patriotic cause; an event which will at once con- summate the independence of South America." 15
The passage of the Foreign Enlistment Act seems to have had little effect upon the promotion of ex- peditions, for within a month General d' Evereux, after an elaborate public banquet in Dublin, took another expedition to South America.16
It was indeed too late for Tory ministers to check the progress of the revolt, or to restore the suprem- acy of Ferdinand in his colonial dominions. Even if it had been desired or possible to enforce the new law of neutrality in all its strictness, the nickering light of Spain would have continued only to nicker vainly until its ultimate extinction. The events of the past year in Europe had shown that Spain must stand alone in her struggle against the insurgent powers; in the peninsula they had shown that even her own power could not be relied upon to any great extent. At the time of the passage of the law there was impending an explosion that was within the next
w Part. Debates, XL : 373, 858, 888, 894. 16 Niles Register, XVII : 53.
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five years to make Spain herself, rather than Ultra- mar, a subject for the armed intervention of the allied powers of Europe.
In the spring of 1818, while Henry Clay was bringing up his motion for the recognition of her provinces, Spain, terrified at the possibility of Amer- ican intervention, was entreating the powers to take action in her behalf. Her petition was not received with enthusiasm, although nearly every court in Eu- rope was at heart in sympathy with his Catholic Majesty. France and, to a greater degree, Eussia might have been induced to enter an armed suppres- sion, euphoniously named mediation, of insurgents boasting of democratic principles. For they were in a position to take a theoretical attitude respecting Spain's American colonies. Neither possessed any South American commerce, while the rotten ships that the founder of the Holy Allies sold to Ferdi- nand gave the only profit that came to either from the revolution. But their philanthropic readiness to check the career of Ferdinand's subjects was itself held back, not by the real tendency of the British ministry, but by a feeling " out of doors " that warned Castlereagh to be careful of his commerce. The avowed disposition of the United States to dis- countenance armed intervention may also have had some weight in the mind of the British minister. It
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is my opinion, wrote Richard Rush, " that the cause of the South Americans gains upon the esteem of this country, and that should our government see fit to acknowledge their independence the measure would receive support in the approbation and popu- larity of extensive and powerful classes." 1T
No definite conclusion upon the application of Spain was reached for some months and when reached it was distasteful to the applicant. The gathering of the sovereigns at Aix-la-Chapelle, in the fall of 1818, had been watched with anxiety from both sides of the Atlantic. But at the confer- ence there was shown, as Rush had anticipated, " no serious intention on the part of any of the great sovereigns to take the cause of Ferdinand effectively in hand." Vague generalizations in behalf of peace, and a suggestion of a Wellington mediation that should have no ultimate resort to force failed to meet the situation.18 It was clear that Spain could at this time hope for little support from without.19
Early in the next year the decay of the Spanish empire began with the cession, practically forced upon her, of the Floridas to the United States. This
" Rush to Adams, October 12, 1818. 8. D. Ms*.
18 Rush to Adams, November 20, 1818 ; Campbell to Adams, Febru- ary 18, 1819. S.D.Mas.
»C. K.Webster, " Castlereagh and the Spanish Colonies, 1815-1818," in English. Hist. Rev., XXVII : 89.
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" sop to Cerberus/' as a jealous statesman called it, seems to have deferred recognition by the United States for more than two years. Direct testimony is wanting, but inference ifi powerful that Adams and Monroe feared to acknowledge the new republics lest Spain should decline to ratify her treaty. Certain it is that Spain herself, and France and Kussia in her behalf, tried to persuade the United States to pur- chase Florida by a renunciation of the right of recognition.
Throwing over the cargo failed to save the sinking ship of Spain's colonial system, for a mutiny of the crew made it impossible to navigate the vessel on its charted course. A great expedition had been sent to New Granada upon the restoration of Ferdinand, in 1815. In large measure it had been dissipated, and another extensive armament was preparing to take its place as Spain sought the aid of the allies in 1818. By the following year this was ready to sail. But the months that were required to make the Holy Ally's fleet of death-traps less unseaworthy weak- ened the discipline of the army until mutiny broke forth. Three thousand troops that were started for America promptly went over to the service of the insurgents at Buenos Ayres, Yellow fever de-
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stroyed the remainder at Cadiz. This was the last serious attempt of Spain to quell the insurrection.20
After the mutiny of the troops at Cadiz came the Spanish revolution, with its liberal constitution and its reconstructed Ferdinand. On top of this the doctrine of intervention received new elaboration as the congress of the powers met in session after ses- sion to deal with these manifestations of popular activities. The culmination of the concert is reached when a French army marches into Spain and restores for a second time Ferdinand and his absolute regime.
The attitude of the British ministry has already, been described. At heart it distrusted and feared the popular movements in South America, but it was constrained by a generous popular sympathy and a vivid popular realization of the necessities of South American trade, to refuse its sanction to any scheme for restoring the old order of affairs by force. It permitted a free trade with the colonies and allowed their flags to enter British ports, but it went no further. In Parliament it preached the duty of neutrality in much the same language as Forsyth preached it in the American Congress.
*>Niles Register, XVII: 143; Annual Register, 1819, 178; Spencer Walpole, A History of England from the Conclusion of the Great War in 1815, II : 299.
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The triumphant advance of the French army into Spain made a further step in development of British policy essential. It was well enough to let the contest between Ferdinand and his trans- Atlantic subjects run its course, for it had become evident that the former could never restore his authority. But, with the power of France behind his throne, and with the combined forces of the Holy Allies at the back of France, it was time once more to look to the interests of English commerce.
There is a distinct difference between the policy of the British ministry at the congresses of Trappau and Laybach, and that which was manifested to the mystification of Prince Metternich at the congress of Verona in 1822. At the former meetings the attitude of the British envoy was one of non-partici- pation, it is true, but the private assurances of the Duke of Wellington were that his ministry was not averse to the suppression of the revolt in Italy by the troops of Austria. Before Wellington set out for Vienna for the last of the meetings, for the Verona meeting commenced its sessions in Vienna, a change had taken place in the British cabinet that affected the whole European situation. Lord Castle- reagh, who had intended to take Wellington's place at the congress, had become insane, and killed him- self. In his stead, in September, 1822, George Can-
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ning had been made Secretary for Foreign Affairs. One of the last acts of Castlereagh had been to instruct himself to fight to the end any movement for a combined intervention in the affairs of Spain.
George Canning had no great love for the insur- gent republics of South America, but he failed to share the fear of their principles that animated the king and a portion of the cabinet. For years he had been opposing the South American agitators in the House of Commons. While denouncing recognition as an unneutral and impolitic act, he had come to see that the restoration of Spain's colonial system must be prevented and to believe that the surest way to accomplish this was to leave Spain and her sub- jects to themselves. So long as Spain remained without assistance nothing was to be feared from her.21
The commercial opposition that had made the en- actment of the law on foreign enlistments so difficult in 1819 was a constant quantity, though never vio- lent or unreasonable. In the summer of 1820 Dr. Lushington brought up the question once more by jailing upon the ministry for documents respecting
21 There is a good general account of Canning's influence upon the Liverpool Ministry in H. W. V. Temperley, Life of Canning (London, 1905), 127-191. With this should be compared the more recent George Canning and His Friends, containing hitherto unpublished Letters, Jetcx jy Esprit, etc. (London, 1909), edited by Captain Josceline Bagot.
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the proposition to seat the Prince of Lucca on the throne of Buenos Ayres — the proposition which had already driven Pueyrredon into a temporary exile. He asked the opinion of the ministers " as to the obligations of other governments to recognize the independence of those South American provinces which had emancipated themselves from the yoke of the mother country. His own opinion on the sub- ject was, that when colonies had once acquired independence for themselves, it was at the option of other governments either to acknowledge their inde- pendence or not, according to the views of policy which they might entertain. It was indeed a matter of pure necessity to make such an acknowledgment, on account of the great inconvenience and injustice that would otherwise attend the existence of an un- settled and unrecognized state." 22 One cause for the presenting of this motion at this time was the attitude of the United States. The reports of the South American Commissioners had been reprinted and edited as soon as they reached London in 1819.28
"Par/. Debates, N. S., II : 393 ; Annual Register, 1820, 113.
2S Rush to Adams, March 16, 1819. S. D. Mss. Messrs. Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, who printed much other South American literature, brought out those discordant reports as The Reports on the present State of the United Provinces of South America ; drawn up by Messrs. Rodney and Graham, Commissioners sent to Buenos Ayres by the Gov- ernment of North America, and laid before the Congress of the United States; with their accompanying Documents; occasional Notes by the
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They had been eagerly received by the commercial classes. The news that came in the spring of 1820 that Clay's resolution had at last passed the House inspired the opposition to keep pace with their American rivals. The moderate nature of the oppo- sition is shown by the withdrawal of this motion when Castlereagh stated that it would embarrass the ministry.
The year 1822 was a busy period in matters per- taining to South America. In Spain the constitu- tional government was considering the basis of inde- pendence. Monroe recommended recognition by the United States in March and consummated the act in June. The Colombian agent, in April, issued a threatening manifesto to such nations as should not acknowledge his country. British merchants took alarm and filled the mail of the foreign office with their petitions. Castlereagh died; there was an in- terregnum for a month, then Canning took his place.
" Great Britain of course likes it," wrote Gallatin from Paris, when he heard of the message of 8th March, " and will be glad of a pretence to do the same thing substantially, though probably not in
Editor; and an introductory Discourse, intended to present, with the Reports and Documents, a View of the present State of the Country, and of the Progress of the Independents. With a map.
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" the same fair and decisive way. The other lesser maritime powers have the same feelings. Russia has now other objects to engross her attention. The continental powers are indifferent about it." 2* In- deed the continental powers were too much occupied to take American action seriously to heart. Affairs in the peninsula and the Balkans were nearer home and engrossed their attention. " It seems that the cannibals of Europe," wrote one American ex-presi- dent to another, " are going to eating one another again. A war between Russia and Turkey is like the battle of the kite and the snake; whichever de- stroys the other, leaves a destroyer the less for the world." 26
But in the British foreign office the importance of the South American question could not be hidden or suppressed. " Every day convinces me more and more," declared Canning, " that in the present state of the world, in the present state of the Peninsula, and in the present state of this country, the Ameri- can questions are out of all proportion more im- portant to us than the European, and that if we do not seize and turn them to our advantage in time, we shall rue the loss of an opportunity never to be
"Gallatin to Adams, April 26, 1822. S. D. MM.
25 Jefferson to John Adams. Niks Register, XXIII : 247.
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" recovered." 26 The conditions upon which the Foreign Secretary based this opinion are patent. On 8th April, 1822, the Colombian agent in Paris, Zea by name, Minister Plenipotentiary by title, had issued a circular to the powers of Europe and asked for it a quick response.27 Stating the general and well-known incidents of the revolution, Zea declared that Colombia was an independent State, with a right as such to be recognized; that she desired to establish reciprocal relations of trade with all the world; that she was prepared to treat with any government regardless of the legitimacy of its origin; but, and here was the threat that disquieted the British merchants, that these other governments, as the condition of the establishment of commerce, must recognize the independence of Colombia. The news that the United States had determined to grant this recognition, coming close upon the publication of the Zea circular, increased the agitation and swelled the number of petitions. Later, the news that the Colombian government had disavowed a loan negotiated by Zea on 13th March, 1822, gave a new impetus to the movement, which the news that
* Canning to Wellington, November 8, 1822. Walpole, Hist. Eng- land, II: 856.
3T British and Foreign State Papers, IX: 851; Nile* Register, XXII : 247.
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his threatening circular also had been disavowed could not entirely check.28
As early as 23d April, 1822, meetings were held by London merchants with a view to maintaining commercial intercourse with the colonies " formerly under the dominion of Spain, a mode of expression which . . . has sprung into use since the President's message on the recognition, and seems already to have become as universal, as it was before un- known." 29 Similar meetings were held in the other commercial centers of Great Britain, and their reso- lutions fill the files of the foreign office. On the 9th of May the Liverpool Ship Owners' Association pre- sented its memorial; in June the Liverpool mer- chants followed suit in a petition to the Privy Coun- cil; in July sixty-one firms of Glasgow petitioned Canning for the recognition of the republics; and in the same month the merchants and shipowners of Liverpool begged the House of Commons for action in their behalf. Commons could not fail to notice the pressure thus brought, and Lord Liverpool had to defend the ministry on more than one occasion.
J8 Memorandum on loan of March 13, 1822, dated January 9, 1823, with a copy of contract and an original bond. F. 0. MSB. Colombia, vol. III. Gazette of July 7, 1822, with decree of June 1, 1822, by Santandar, Vice-President of Colombia ; report of Pedro Gual, Sec- retary for Foreign Affairs of Colombia, April 17, 1823, saying that he had disavowed the circular. F. O. Mss. ; British and Foreign State Papers, X : 740. ^Rush to Adams, May 6, 1822. S. D. MBS.
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" Every right of real value, as regarded their ships and their commerce especially, had been conceded to them," he declared on 23d July, when opposing a motion for the Zea correspondence.30 The question of recognition, he maintained, was purely a British question, unfettered by any treaties made at Aix-la- Chapelle, resting only on the law of nations and the generosity and prudence of Great Britain. His ministerial majority rejected the call for papers by an overwhelming vote. But the public din was in- creasing. " This voice will grow louder and louder, nor can it, I believe, be ultimately resisted by the government." The ministry could not permanently ward off the effect of the American precedent by pleading that it " stood upon a ground by itself, the United States having no European connections to look to when determining upon such a policy." S1
With these facts in mind, George Canning turned in the fall of 1822 to American affairs as more interesting than those of Europe, instructed Lord Wellington, as his predecessor had done, at Verona to oppose a general intervention in the affairs of Spain, and in Parliament himself expressed disap- proval of the invasion of the peninsula by the army of the Due d'Angouleme in the spring of 1823. At
so Parl. Debates, N. S., VII : 1731-1736. 81 Rush to Adams, July 24, 1822. S. D. MM.
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the same time, while protecting Spain at Verona, he took another step in the development of com- merce. Up to this time the colonial system of Spain was still theoretically in force, and from the few remaining ports held by Ferdinand in the Americas issued fleets of Spanish privateers to prey upon the commerce with the insurgent states. The constant seizures of British vessels by these cruisers had been borne with by the ministry for years, but in 1822 they became too great. In June of this year Parlia- ment passed a new navigation act to regulate the trade with South America, while in October Can- ning despatched Sir Thomas Hardy with a fleet to southern waters and announced to Spain that these seizures must stop.32 An indemnity, with a decree permitting commerce with South American ports resulted from this protest. With this Canning was temporarily content. He took no further action until the result of the war between France and Spain had been reached.
When the triumphant march of d'Angouleme to Cadiz revealed that France was to dominate in the affairs of Spain, Canning determined that that domination should not extend to Spanish America. He seems in vain to have tried to get a self-denying
"Walpole, Hist. England, II: 356.
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pledge from France.33 He sounded the American minister on the question of a joint defiance, and be- gan to collect in more systematic form than hereto- fore information on the conditions prevailing in the republics. Great Britain had not, like the United States, filled South America with consuls from the very beginning of the revolt. In December Canning had accepted the offer of one Patrick Mackie to go out to Mexico, on the public service, at his own ex* pense; had addressed the Lords Commissioners for Trade as to proper locations for consuls in South America, and the Lords of the Treasury for funds to pay them; and had asked the Colombian agent to prepare a report upon the condition of his country.84 The conditions that were decisive in determining the policy of both the United States and Great Brit- ain were those prevailing in Buenos Ayres and Colombia. Mexico seems to have had no weight in bringing either cabinet to a decision.85 But the instructions prepared for Dr. Mackie are significant,
»» W. C. Ford in Amer. Hist. -Rev., VII : 679.
84 Mackie to Canning, November 28, 1822 ; Planta to Lack, Secret, December 7, 1822 ; Lack to Planta, Secret, December 13, 1822 ; Can- ning to Mackie, December 21, 1822 ; Planta to Geo. Harrison, Secret, December 21, 1822 ; Revenga to Canning, January 22, 1823. F. 0. Mst.
K H. E. Bolton, in Amer. Hist. Rev., XVII : 640, has called atten- tion to the valuable and recent Documentos Histbricos Mexicanos: Obra Commemorativa del Primer Centenario de la Independcncia de Mexico (6 vols., Mexico, 1912), edited by Genaro Garcia.
England and South America 207
in spite of his destination, as showing the attitude of the foreign office at the end of 1822. They were simply instructions to acquire information : as to the probable stability of the government; as to the dis- position of the ruling class towards British com- merce; as to their disposition towards Spain and a return to a condition of dependence, and towards a mediation by Great Britain; as to the treatment they would accord commercial agents in their ports. You " will state on all occasions," concluded the instruc- tions, " with the utmost confidence your persuasion of the friendly disposition of this Govt.; of its determination to maintain, so long as Spain and her late colonies are at variance, a perfect & scrupu- lous neutrality, between the contending Parties, and of its desire to see the Contest brought to a Con- clusion on terms consistent with the Interests and Happiness of Both."36
On 3d October, 1823, French intervention in Spain was crowned by the capitulation of Cadiz; on the same day Canning instructed Sir William a Court, the British minister to Spain, to enter into no discussions on the subject of Spanish America whatever.87 He had decided that the time was come to act. The petitions that indicated the disposition
* December 21, 1822, F. O. Mss.
ST Canning to & Court, October 3, 1822, F. O. Mss.
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of the merchants in 1822 had continued to be pre- sented in 1823 to confirm the Foreign Secretary in his opinion that their interests must be paramount in his policy. Sir William Adams had presented a memorial to the foreign office on the 29th of June; 88 three weeks later " sundry British mer- chants " petitioned Mr. Canning; the Manchester Chamber of Commerce acted in August, as did a body of British merchants trading with Mexico; other petitions were presented in great numbers. Among the commercial class there seemed to be but one opinion upon the subject of recognition.
On the 9th of October, 1823, Mr. Canning had a conference with the French minister, Polignac, that has become famous among the historians of the Mon- roe Doctrine. In a way the memorandum that was prepared on this day is a British Monroe Doctrine, for the Foreign Secretary declared in explicit terms that Great Britain wanted none of the colonies of Spain, nor any special preference in their commerce ; that she would, however, make no special stipulation on the subject of recognition, for she could not agree to postpone it indefinitely; and that foreign inter- ference in the affairs of the colonies would be the
w This, and other memorials, are in F. O. Mss., Mexico, vol. 2, and Spanish America, vol. 283.
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signal for an immediate acknowledgment.39 With this declaration before their eyes, fortified by a veiled threat of war from the President of the United States, eight weeks later, the allies were con- tent to take no effective action upon the appeal of the newly-liberated Ferdinand that they carry their intervention across the Atlantic to the territories of the revolted in America. The day after the con- ference with Polignac, Canning instructed consuls for service in the ports of South America and com- missions of investigation to Colombia and Mexico.
The instructions to the Colombian Commissioners, drawn up before the conference with Polignac and the disclaimer of American ambitions which that minister had then made, are extremely significant. "The growing importance of the States of Spanish America," wrote Canning to Colonel Hamilton, the head of the mission,40 " and the unsatisfactory nature of the accounts, which are to be derived from accidental sources of intelligence, with respect to events that are passing on in that part of the world, have determined His Majesty's Government to send
89 British and Foreign State Papers, XI : 49.
40 October 10, 1823. F. 0. Mss. The Commission consisted of Col. Hamilton, Lieut.-Col. Campbell and a Mr. Henderson who was to be Consul-General. The same instructions, mutatis mutandis, were given to the Mexican Commissioners and to Parish at Buenos Ayres.
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" out a Special Commission, for the purpose of ascer- taining the actual state of affairs in Colombia.
" The apparent hopelessness of the recovery by Spain of her dominion over her late South American Provinces: the purpose of France (notorious to all the world) to support with arms every attempt of the Spanish Crown, to recover that dominion; and on the other hand, the public Acts of the Legislature of the United States of North America, empowering their President to recognize the independence of whatever Government the Spanish Colonies respec- tively may have erected, or may erect, for them- selves, present additional motives for sending out such a Commission. . . .
" Notice 41 has long ago been given to Spain of the intention of His Majesty to recognize whenever His Majesty shall think fit, the independence of such of the late Spanish Colonies as shall have formed to themselves a de facto Government, with a reasonable prospect of stability; — and the appointment of Con- sular Agents has been announced to Spain as a measure actually resolved upon, and one of which the execution could not long be delayed.
" If upon your arrival at [blank] you shall find that Events have induced the Government to direct
41 From this point the extract from the instructions given to Parish has been followed.
England and South America 211
"their thoughts towards a Union with Spain, you will bear in. mind that there is no desire on the part of Great Britain to interpose obstacles to the restora- tion of a lona fide understanding between the Colonies and the Mother Country: — But it must be with the Mother Country really independent; not in any shape subjected or subservient to [France, struck out in the original draft] any Foreign Power, nor employing the intervention of [French, struck out] Foreign arms to re-establish its supremacy in the Colonies. So far from interposing Obstacles to a beneficial arrangement between [blank] and old Spain on the principle of reconciliation and mutual advantage, you are authorized to receive and to transmit for the consideration of your Government any proposal to that effect which the ruling party in [blank] may be desirous of having communicated to Spain.
" Should their Government be established as inde- pendent, whether as a single State or as a federal System of States, but purely national and neither connected with Spain by subordination nor with any other Country by incorporation or federal union, — the decision of your Government as to the mode of dealing with such State or States would depend mainly on the following considerations; with respect
212 South American Independence
" to which you will therefore employ your best en- deavors to collect the most accurate information. —
" 1st. Has the Government so constituted, already notified, by a publick act, its determination to re- main independent of Spain, and to admit no terms of accommodation with the Mother Country?
" 2dly. Is it in military possession of the Country; and also in a respectable condition of military de- fence against any probable attack from Europe ?
" 3rdly. Does it appear to have acquired a reason- able degree of consistency, and to enjoy the confi- dence and good will of the several orders of the people ?
" 4thly. Has it abjured and abolished the Slave Trade?
" Should these enquiries all be answered in the afiirmative; and should it appear to your satisfac- tion, that there is a fair probability of things going on in the train in which you find them, You are to address yourself to the person exercising the Office of Secretary to the Government, and are to suggest the expediency of sending to England some individ- ual in the confidence of the [blank] Government, upon communication with whom as well as upon re- ceipt of your Reports, We may be enabled to de- termine whether the time is ripe for the Establish-
England and South America
" ment of an ostensible political relation with [blank] by the interchange of diplomatic Missions. . . .
" It may perhaps be unnecessary to state to you, but it is very material, that it should be understood by the persons with whom you communicate in [blank] that so far is Great Britain from looking to any more intimate connection with any of the late Spanish Provinces, than that of friendly political and commercial Intercourse, that His Majesty could not be induced, by any consideration to enter any engagement which might be considered as bringing them under His Dominion.
" Neither, on the other hand, would his Majesty consent to see them (in the event of their final separation from Spain) brought under the Dominion of any other Power."
So far the instructions to the two sets of Commis- sioners were the same even in wording. Beyond this point the peculiar monarchical tendencies which had been developed in Mexico demanded special treat- ment.42 " Among the possible Arrangements of the affairs of Mexico, which are contemplated in the Instructions already given to you for your guidance,
41 Further instructions to Mexican commissioners, October 10, 1818. F. 0. Mas. This commission consisted of Messrs. Hervey, O'Germaa and Ward ; the first to be minister upon a recognition, the second charge*, and the last consul-general. Dr. Mackie's commission was revoked.
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" one is not specified, of which, nevertheless there has been much question at former periods, and of which recent events may not improbably revive the consideration.
"I mean the settlement of that great Country under a monarchical form of Government, practi- cally independent of Spain, but with a Spanish Infante upon the Throne.
" This case was not included among those specified in your Instructions, because the condition of Spain at the time when those Instructions were drawn, while the duration and issue of the War were still uncertain, afforded no immediate probability that a Spanish Prince would be available for such destina- tion, otherwise than through the contrivance, and with the aid, and under the superintendence of France.
" The conclusion of the war brings back the possi- bility of such an arrangement with Spain, if there shall exist a disposition to it in Mexico.
"The constitution of Mexican society favors the notion of the existence of such a disposition. The great number of large Proprietors, the wealth and influence of the Clergy, and the long experience of a Vice-Kegal Establishment, invested with all Monarchical forms, afford many probabilities of a predilection for that mode of Government.
England and South America 215
"The experience of Iturbide's Keign will (as stated in your former Instructions) have shewn to the Mexican People the instability of an elective Monarchy, and will have taught any new General, who may find himself in possession of the confidence of the Army, that he would better entitle himself to the gratitude of his Country, by exerting his in- fluence for the purposes of a solid pacification, than for that of his own temporary and precarious aggrandizement.
" In this state of things, and in the present ex- haustion of the Mother Country, which, while it diminishes on one side the apprehension of forcible conquest, may perhaps create, on the other, a willing- ness for amicable compromise, it does not seem unlikely, that the views of the Mexicans should be turned, with pretty general concurrence, to the restoration of a Monarchy, in the person of one of the Princes of the Spanish race, but on the basis of Mexican Independence.
" To any proposal for your co-operation to bring about such a settlement, you will not hesitate to avow yourself ready to accede, with the certainty of obtaining the cordial approbation of your Govern- ment.
" I need not add, that, while you are to accept such a proposal, if submitted to you, you are not
216 South American Independence
" to attempt to prescribe to the Mexican Authorities this, or any particular course of action. Nor need I repeat, that, to your acceptance of the proposal, it is an essential and indispensable condition, that the Negotiation is to be carried on with Spain alone, and that no foreign force should be employed to conduct the Spanish Prince to Mexico."
The policy of George Canning, as indicated in these instructions to his Commissioners in the fall of 1823, is political only so far as his determination to maintain the commerce that had been developed with Latin-America during the years of turmoil forced him to use political means. The facts do not justify his famous boast. If it be true that he really did " call the new world into existence," which may well be controverted, it is still manifest that his motive, as has been said before, was not to " redress the balance of the old." Nor had regard for the rights of the belligerent communities any consider- able share in determining the steps of his policy. He took at this time the irrevocable step of sending consuls to South American ports to emphasize before the world the fact that Great Britain would be no party to a forcible rehabilitation of Spain's colonial system. In taking the step it was the interests of the Liverpool and Belfast and London merchants that he had at heart.
England and South America 217
The declaration to Polignac, coupled with the sending of consuls, which was made public on 17th October, had the desired effect of driving the Holy Allies into cover. Legitimist sympathies must have been powerful indeed to have moved in opposition to the wishes of Great Britain in a matter of mari- time significance. " With respect to the question of Spanish America," Canning was able to write to Sir William & Court at the end of the year,43 "I am happy to inform you that there appears now to be little prospect of any practical divergence between this Country and the Powers of the Continent. Of the opinions of Russia, indeed, I am not yet enabled to speak positively : There has not yet been time to hear from Petersburgh since the communication of the Memorandum of my conversation with The Prince de Polignac. You will probably have col- lected from General Pozzo di Borgo, all that could be known of those opinions up to the period at which that communication was made; but Russia can hardly act alone for the re-establishment of Spanish Supremacy in the Colonies. France has repeatedly and distinctly disclaimed any intention of engag- ing in such an enterprize:
" Austria and Prussia have severally declared their opinion that a Congress upon South American
*» December 29, 1843. F. O. Ms*.
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"Affairs would, in any case, have been a matter of very doubtful policy; and that is one which it would be idle to think of, when Great Britain declines being a party to it.
" It is not immaterial to add, that the Govern- ment of the United States has declared Its Senti- ments upon this subject in a manner wholly con- sonant with the declarations previously made by this Country; going indeed beyond us, in as much as, It has actually acknowledged the Independence of the Spanish American Provinces.
" A frank communication was made to the Ameri- can Minister some months ago of the course which Great Britain intended to pursue, which was no doubt reported by that Minister to his Govt. before the opening of the Session of Congress."
The sending of consuls to South American ports was in contemplation of a recognition at no distant date. The various Commissioners were instructed to gather information upon which to justify the same; for Great Britain was now definitely committed to the policy which Canning had anticipated in 1822, when he saw in America matters of more interest to his country than in Europe.
" As to any further Measures," announced the Speech from the Throne at the next session of Par- liament, "His Majesty has reserved to Himself an
England and South America 219
" unfettered Discretion, to be exercised as the Cir- cumstances of those Countries, and the Interests of His own People may appear to His majesty to re- quire." "
The collection of information upon South Ameri- can conditions was attended with embarrassing com- plications in Great Britain, as it had been six years before in the United States. In the case of the lat- ter, the files of consular despatches were rich mines of information: the official reports of the special Commissioners adding no new facts of consequence. But the Foreign Office had not this regular source of knowledge. Previous to the consular despatches that began to arrive in the end of 1823, the Foreign Secretary seems to have derived his information through a number of channels, none of which were official. The correspondence in the newspapers gave him all that was printed in America. Despatches of naval officers on duty in South American waters were turned over to him by the Admiralty in con- siderable numbers. South American agents in Lon- don wrote to him profusely. British commercial houses possessing branches in the republics fre- quently sent copies of letters from their agents for his edification. In all, little of importance that oc- curred in those regions could have failed to reach
** February 3, 1824. From an original pamphlet edition in F. O. Mss.
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the Foreign Office; but in the establishment of con- suls in October, 1823, is found the beginning of official channels of information.
The difficulties of South American diplomacy have been seen in a previous chapter. With an agent leading a division of the insurgent army, with another guaranteeing an insurgent loan, with a third engaging in the tempting game of privateers, the neutral course of Mr. Adams had been embarrassed. Canning did not fail to encounter similar distrac- tions.
The agents in Mexico were particularly hard to handle. Dr. Mackie, who had gone out on an in- formal mission, in 1822, had exceeded his instruc- tions from the first. On arriving at Vera Cruz he learned that the Mexicans were at the point of con- cluding a commercial treaty with Spain, giving marked advantages to the latter. "It therefore required/' he reported to Canning with compla- cency,45 " no little Address and Management to do away the proceedings which had taken place; but upon my assuring him [General Vittoria, the suc- cessor of Iturbide] of the friendly disposition of Great Britain I had the satisfaction, before I left him to annull a Treaty so inimical to the Policy & Commerce of the British Empire." The successors
« Mackie to Canning, July 14, 1823. F. O. MSB.
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of Mackie, — Hervey, O'Gorman and Ward, — were of course instructed to disavow this interposition of their predecessor and apologize to the government. But they themselves were no more willing than he to obey their orders. Arriving at the city of Mex- ico on the last day of the year, they were able, in eighteen days, to prepare an enthusiastic report upon the condition of the country, and were willing to send it home in the care of Mr. Ward just as a dangerous insurrection, known by the name of Lobato, was in progress. To this superficiality of investigation was added a more positive offence when the head of the Commission, Mr. Lionel Hervey, repeated Dev- ereux's action, and guaranteed a loan to sustain the existing government in a crisis. The reproaches of the Foreign Secretary, that the report was based on a "fortnight's, or three week's, experience," and despatched, not only " before you had allowed your- selves time to form a mature judgment," but at " a moment of publick disturbance," were followed, as news of the loan reached London, by the imperative recall of Hervey: the vessel bringing out his suc- cessor would wait to take him back.46 James Morier, the new Commissioner, went out ordered " That you are sent to ascertain the Fact of Mexican
46 Hervey to Canning, January 1, February 18 and 20, 1824; Can- ning to Hervey, April 23, July 20, 1824. F. O. Mas.
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" Independence, not actively to promote it ; , and to form and report an Opinion of the Stability of the Government, not to prescribe its form or attempt to influence its Councils." But even Morier and Ward, the latter as a subordinate having retained the confidence of the Ministry, were not impervious to Mexican influence. At the beginning of the next year they were instructed to conclude a treaty of commerce with Mexico : in the negotiations they al- lowed themselves to admit into the treaty clauses radically at variance with their instructions. It is not to be expected, wrote Canning with exasperation as he rejected the whole treaty and ordered the nego- tiation of a new one, that we will abandon " for the sake of this new connexion, principles which we never have conceded, in our intercourse with other States, whether of the Old World or the New, either to considerations of friendship, or to menaces of hos- tility." 4T
This investigation of the character of South American agents has carried the account somewhat beyond the limits of recognition. It reveals a ten- dency that prevailed in most of the negotiations. As in the case of Adams's envoys, many of Canning's
« Canning to Morier, July 30, 1824 ; to Ward and Morier, January 3, 1825 ; to Ward, September 9, 1825 ; Ward and Morier to Canning, No. I, April 10, 1825. F. 0. Mss.
England and South America 223
were little more than mere enthusiasts; if they were not often " fanatics in the cause of emancipa- tion," 48 they were almost always devotees of a more selfish interest— that of British commerce. The Colombian experiences of Canning hardly rival those of his Mexican negotiations.
The British Commissioners to Colombia reached Jamaica, on their way out, before the end of 1823, and on the 8th of the following March they were graciously received by the Vice-President, Sant- andar, at Bogota. Their reception, however, was in an unofficial capacity as Don Pedro Gual, Minister for Foreign Affairs, found himself unable to grant exequaturs to consuls who were commissioned to " provinces and dependencies " rather than to inde- pendent States. Four months after their arrival, Colonel Hamilton, the head of the mission, wrote a report in answer to the questions of his instructions, and announced that it expressed the unanimous opinion of the Commissioners.49 That he had never shown his instructions to his colleagues, and that he had not hesitated publicly to pledge the support of Great Britain in case of a forcible intervention in South America, seemed to him no deviation from
^Reddaway, Monroe Doctrine, 26.
« Hamilton to Canning, December 19, 1823, March 19, 1824, July 5, 1824; Gual to Hamilton, April 14, 1824. F. O.Mss. Annual Regis- ter, 1824
224 South American Independence
the line of duty. He was typical of his class of agents. Here, as in the Mexican business, Canning was angry and made little attempt to conceal his ir- ritation. He had already received a report on Colombian conditions from Hurtado, the London agent. Now he was forced to take other reports from Campbell, who had brought home that of Ham- ilton, and whose " unanimous opinion " had been pledged by his chief without his knowledge.50 Al- ready the Foreign Secretary had had Joseph Planta, his chief subordinate, write to Hamilton, that51 " Mr. Canning desires that you will take the trouble to reperuse your Instructions; and to compare them with the letters which you have written since your arrival at your place of destination; and with the language which you are represented by the Colom- bian Newspapers to have held at your presentation and other Publick Meetings.
" The unsatisfactory meagreness of your written communications to this office, falls as far below what was prescribed to you on the one hand, as the vague and unmeasured terms in which you have publickly pledged the opinions and intentions of your Govt. go beyond it on the other.
M Hurtado to Canning, July 16, 1824; Campbell to Canning, November 6 and December 10, 1824. F. 0. Mss.
si Planta to Hamilton, August 19, 1824. F. 0. Mss.
England and South America 225
" Both have exposed your Govt. to the greatest possible inconvenience.'7
Upon the arrival of Campbell, with his verbal accounts of the Chief Commissioner's policy, the lat- ter was censured for a second time, and by Canning himself. In words that were no less emphatic be- cause they were veiled in diplomatic phrases, he was ordered during the rest of his stay in Colombia to carry out the objects of his mission.52 From this point, so far as the Foreign Office was concerned, the Colombian negotiations progressed smoothly. It did not become necessary there, as in Mexico, actually to disavow any of the agents.
In Buenos Ayres alone, the most important of the three storm-centres of Spanish America, did the agents of Great Britain carry out the wishes of the Ministry in thoroughly satisfactory manner. Here the revolution had advanced to the furthest point, here the interests of English merchants were the greatest, and so upon the course of events here British policy depended. As the most important post in the republics, it received the ablest of the agents in the person of Woodbine Parish, later in life to become vice-president of the Royal Geograph- ical Society, and a knight, who went out as Consul- General at the beginning of 1824.
52 Canning to Hamilton, November 8, 1824. F. O. MSB.
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Before Woodbine Parish had had time to send home many despatches upon the condition of Buenos Ayres, there occurred in Parliament the last and most exhaustive debate that the subject of recogni- tion had yet received. To this day the speech of Sir James Mackintosh is the best statement of the theory and nature of recognition that has been made.
The announcement made in the speech from the Throne, on 3d February, 1824, that Great Britain would follow her own interests regarding South America, did not satisfy the representatives of the commercial classes, who had been preparing petitions for two years, and were now more anxious than ever for a formal recognition. Debate on the speech, be- ginning the night it was presented, was continued in Commons for two days, bringing Canning to his feet more than once to defend the Ministry against the attacks of Brougham, and to announce again the policy guiding it; that Spain might recover her colo- nies if she could, but that she must do it unaided.53 In both Houses notice was given within the next two weeks of general motions on South America in case the Ministry should so long hesitate to act. On 4th March, Canning proved his statements as to policy by laying before Parliament the Polignac memoran- dum of 9th October, 1823, and a correspondence
**Parl. Debates, N. S., X: 90.
England and South America 227
with Sir William a Court, British Minister to Spain, on the subject of the South American conference, invited by Ferdinand on his second restoration in the faU of that year."
In the House of Lords, Lansdowne, who had, a week before, shown interest in the action of Spain on Canning's last proposal of mediation, made an elaborate speech in behalf of a motion for an ad- dress to the King on the expediency of a recogni- tion.55 He thanked the Ministry for the papers of 4th March, begging at the same time for further steps and speedy ones. He proved to his complete satisfaction that the States of South America were de facto independent; that they could maintain their independence, so that Spain had no prospect of re- covering them; that their commerce with Britain was of exceeding great importance. In the year 1821, he declared, they bought from British mer- chants goods to the value of £3,227,560; in 1822 they increased their purchases; and now they con- sumed half as much as their neighboring republic in North America. By comparison with the United States, he showed that once independent their pur- chasing capacity would be much enhanced. To him
"Part. Debates, K. S., X: 105, 157, 708; British and Foreign State Papers, XI : 49.
*Parl. Debates, N. S., X : 777, 970-992.
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replied the Earl of Liverpool, in words that brought out a ministerial majority of 95 to 34 to veto the motion, saying "that what had been done was all that could have been done, embracing every practical advantage consistent with honor and good faith. A formal acknowledgment of independence could prop- erly be made only by the power who claimed do- minion over another; and, in a strict sense of the word, we had no right either to acknowledge or dis- pute their independence." 56
The Earl of Liverpool touched lightly upon a theory of recognition in his reply to Lansdowne : the subject received an exhaustive examination at the hands of Sir James Mackintosh, in the House of Commons, on 15th June, 1824. With a petition from 117 commercial houses of London in his hand as a text, he cleared away much of the confusion existing in the minds of both parties as to the mean- ing of recognition.
" I must go back for a moment," he explained,57 " to those elementary principles which are so grossly misunderstood. And first with respect to the term ' Kecognition/ the introduction of which into these
6« Annual Register, 1824 [23] ; Parl. Debates, N. S., X. : 992-1010.
67 Substance of a Speech of Sir James Mackintosh in the House of Commons, June 15, 1824, on presenting a Petition from the Merchants of London for the Recognition of the Independent States established in the Countries of America formerly subject to Spain (London, 1824), 5.
England and South America 229
" discussions has proved the principal occasion of darkness and error. It is a term which is used in two senses so different from each other as to have nothing very important in common. The first, which is the true and legitimate sense of the word ' Recognition/ as a technical term of international law, is that in which it denotes the explicit acknowledgment of the independence of a country by a State which formerly exercised sovereignty over it. Spain has been doomed to exhibit more examples of this species of recognition than any other European State, of which the most memorable cases are the acknowledgment of the independence of Portugal and Holland. This country also paid the penalty of evil councils in that hour of folly and infatuation which led to a hostile separation between the American colonies and their mother country. Such recognitions are renuncia- tions of sovereignty. They are a surrender of the power or of the claim to govern. They are of the utmost importance, as quieting possession and ex- tinguishing a foreign pretension to authority; they free a nation from the evils of a disputed sov- ereignty; they remove the only competitor who can with any colour of right contend against the actual Government, and they secure to a country the ad- vantage of an undisputed independence.
" But we, who are as foreign to the Spanish States
230 8outh American Independence
" in America as we are to Spain herself, who never had any more authority over them than over her, have in this case no claims to renounce, no power to abdicate, no sovereignty to resign, no legal rights to confer. They are as independent without our acknowledgment of their independence as with it. No act of ours can ever remove an obstacle which stands in the way of their independence, or with- draw any force which disturbs its exercise. What we have to do, is therefore not recognition in its first and most strictly proper sense. It is not by formal stipulations or solemn declarations that we are to recognize the American States; but by measures of practical policy, which imply that we acknowledge their independence. Our recognition is virtual. We are called upon to treat them as independent; to establish with them the same relations and the same intercourse which we are accustomed to maintain with other Governments; to deal with them in every respect as commonwealths entitled to admission into the great society of civilized States."
Here, for the first time, Mackintosh defined recog- nition in clear and precise terms. He went on to show, as John Quincy Adams had shown six years before, that it was no violation of neutrality. " It implies no guarantee/' he declared, " no alliance, no aid, no approbation of the successful revolt; no in-
England and South America 231
" timation of an opinion concerning the justice or in- justice of the means by which it has been accom- plished. . . . As a State, we can neither condemn nor justify revolutions which do not affect our safety and are not amenable to our laws. . . . The prin- ciple which requires such an intercourse is the same, whether the governments be old or new. Antiquity affords a presumption of stability, which, like all other presumptions, may and does fail in particular instances. But in itself it is nothing; and when it ceases to indicate stability, it ought to be regarded by a foreign country as of no account. . [When] Great Britain (I hope very soon) recog- nizes the States of Spanish America, it will not be as a concession to them, for they need no such recog- nition; but it will be for her own sake, to promote her own interest; to protect the trade and naviga- tion of her subjects; to acquire the best means of cultivating friendly relations with important coun- tries, and of composing by immediate negotiation those differences which might otherwise terminate in war."
From this legal analysis of the doctrine of recog- nition, Mackintosh returned to the customary trend of South American speeches. Once more he told the history of the revolt, and described the needs of his
232 South American Independence
commercial constituents. On subsequent days he presented more petitions to the House.
At the last sitting of the House of Lords, for Par- liament was prorogued on the 25th of June, 1824, the Earl of Liverpool replied to an interrogation from the Marquis of Lansdowne that every attempt to bring Spain to a recognition on her own account had failed; that the government held itself ready to recognize when it should become expedient.58 Dur- ing the ensuing recess the Ministry had time to meditate upon the attitude of Parliament and the reports of its South American Commissioners.
Woodbine Parish, Consul-General for Buenos Ayres, embarked on the ship Cambridge on 3d January, 1824. With him were the consuls for the region under his supervision, and in his despatch bag were the instructions of 10th October, 1823, that have already been examined, a copy of the Polignac memorandum, and three gold snuff boxes, bearing the portrait of his Majesty, George IV. The spirit of friendly conciliation that is implied by the pres- ence of the snuff boxes has been borne out by the examination of the more formal impedimenta of his mission. After a voyage of nearly three months, Parish landed in the city of Buenos Ayres. A month later, on 17th April, arrived The Countess of Chi-
**Parl. Debates, N. S., XI: 1479.
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Chester, the first of the line of British packets that the Admiralty had established at this time.59
The reception of the new agent was cordial, as was to be expected. Rivadavia, on the verge of retire- ment from the all-important post he had held for three years, was ready to enter into the negotiations proposed, with freedom. On the terms of a " pre- vious Recognition of the Independence of this State (which he said was a sine qua non) " wrote Parish, a few days after his arrival,60 " and, of Spain being placed with respect to her Commerce, upon the same footing with the Natives of the Country, they were sincerely disposed to enter into any arrangement with His Catholic Majesty's Government upon such terms as Great Britain would say were fair and rea- sonable."
In the performance of his duty, in the collection of information, Parish was in strong contrast to the agents in Colombia and Mexico. At his request a native of the country wrote an elaborate monograph on its conditions and resources;61 his despatches are full of details upon the subjects of British interest and local politics; and not a few South American gazettes, bulletins and pamphlets were enclosed in
«» Forbes to Adams, March 31, 1824. S. D. Mss. "April 15, 1824. F. O. Mss.
61 Ygnacio Nunez, An account, historical, political and statistical, of the United Provinces of Rio de la Plata (London, 1825).
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his mail to the Foreign Office. So assiduous was he in the work of conciliation that in two months he wrote to Planta for more snuff boxes, and intimated that a few framed portraits of the king would be highly useful.62
The report that was sent to England on 25th June, 1824, was highly favorable to the government exist- ing at Buenos Ayres. The value of the labors of Bivadavia and Garcia was as apparent to Parish now as it had been to Forbes, the American, three years before. There was no reason to believe that the new government of Las Heras, just come into existence, would prove less stable than its predecessor. The general congress, whose time of meeting was in sight, would probably complete the union of the provinces, for as yet Buenos Ayres conducted the foreign rela- tions only by tacit consent. There was no funda- mental law of union. " It is of importance to ob- serve," wrote General Alvear, their minister to the United States, then in London en route to his post, " that all the Provinces about to meet in Congress, have enjoyed for the last fourteen years, and up- wards, without interruption, their full Independence, that is to say, ever since the 25th of May, 1810." 6S
Before the exhaustive report of Parish reached
«' Parish to Planta, June 4, 1824. F. 0. Mas. « Alvear to Canning. July 24, 1824. F. O. Mss.
England and South America 235
London, Canning was ready for the final step towards recognition, and had convinced his reluctant Min- istry of its necessity. The debates of June had brought out as never before the importance of South American trade; and reports of the London agents, of Alvear, and of Parish himself, showed in good light the character of the new republic. On 23d August, he instructed Parish once more.
" Before His Majesty's Government," read the instruction, after commending Parish for his satis- factory despatches, " can take any decisive step for drawing closer to their relations with any of the new States of America, it is obviously necessary to ascer- tain,
" 1st. That any such State has renounced finally and irrevocably all political connection with Spain. 2ndly, That it has the power as well as the will to maintain the independence which it has established; and 3rdly, That the frame of its Government is such as to afford a reasonable security for the con- tinuance of its internal Peace, and for the good faith with which it would be enabled to maintain what- ever relations it might contract with other Powers.
" It is neither the right nor the intention of Great Britain to do anything to promote the separation of any one of the Spanish Colonies from Spain: But the fact of that Separation is an indispensable pre-
236 South American Independence
" liminary to any further proceedings or inquiries; and it is not till after that fact has been decisively ascertained, that a question can arise as to the ex- pediency of entering into .arrangements founded upon a recognition of it.
" The fact of Separation seems to be clearly estab- lished with respect to Buenos Ayres, by the length of time which has elapsed since its original Declaration of independence, and since a Spanish force has existed in its territory; and by the absence of any- thing like a Spanish party in the State.
"The competency of that State to enter into arrangements with other Countries does not appear liable to question. But there is one point upon which Your Eeport is not so clear as might be desired — I mean as to the power of the Government of Buenos Ayres to bind by its Stipulations with a Foreign State, all the Members of the Confederacy constitut- ing the United States of Rio de la Plata, . . .
" As however the General Congress was about to assemble when Your last Despatches came away, it is to be presumed that if the requisite Authority was not already formally acknowledged it will have been clearly and definitely established long before these Instructions, and the Full Power, which ac- companies them, can reach you.
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" The Full Power is drawn in that presumption : and would be inapplicable to any other case.
" Supposing then that case to exist, and supposing the general situation of affairs at Buenos Ayres to continue as favorable, as your last Despatches de- scribe it, You will, upon receipt of this Despatch, declare to the Minister with whom you are in the habit of communicating, that His Majesty has been graciously pleased to direct to be prepared, and trans- mitted to you, an Instrument of Full Power, author- izing you to treat with such Persons, as may be duly appointed on behalf of the United States of La Plata, for the negotiation of a Treaty which shall place on a regular and permanent footing the com- mercial intercourse that has so long subsisted be- tween His Majesty's Subjects and these States."
Upon the receipt of these instructions, Parish acted with self-restraint unparalleled in South American agents. Although in close sympathy with the patriots, and confident that their government was permanent, he obeyed his orders in the fullness of their spirit.
"From my preceding despatches," he replied to Canning, on 24th October, " you will have learnt that the General Congress of the Provinces of La Plata has not yet met, and that however united these Provinces are nominally, and to all appearances
238 South American Independence
" upon all General Points, they are as yet uncon- nected by any -precisely denned National Govern- ment.
"The Administration of Buenos Ayres has in- deed taken the lead upon all those National Points which under other Circumstances would have de- volved upon a General Government; a Course in which the rest of the Provinces have unanimously acquiesced, more especially in matters connected with their Foreign Relations; — but, the Authority so assumed, and so acquiesced in, does not appear to me to be sufficiently formal to justify me, under your Instructions, in entering with the Government of Buenos Ayres upon the very important matter en- trusted to me. Under such Circumstances I have considered that I should more properly fulfil the Spirit of those Instructions, by withholding any formal Communication of my being authorized to enter into a Negotiation with the United Provinces of La Plata, till such time as those Provinces shall have re-installed their National Government.
" I have had the less hesitation in coming to this determination, as the Meeting of the Congress, though frequently delayed, is now upon the point of taking place; and on the very morning I had the honor to receive your despatches, the first prelimi- nary meeting of the Deputies was held at the Resi- dence of the Governor of Buenos Ayres, when it was
England and South America 239
generally determined that they should commence their Public Proceedings on the 1st of January next at latest, or sooner, if possible.
" Under such circumstances I trust that I shall not have erred in the Course I have adopted."
Although not presenting his new credentials in an open manner, a course which Canning thoroughly approved,64 Parish informed Garcia that he pos- sessed them, and that the erection of a national gov- ernment was the one thing necessary to secure a recognition. With this condition in mind, the gov- ernment of Buenos Ayres presented its report on foreign relations to the General Congress in the middle of the month of December.65 While not re- miss in expressing its acknowledgments to the United States, who had " constituted Itself Guar- dian of the Field of Battle, in order to prevent any foreign assistance from being introduced in the aid of our Rival," the Government dwelt most at length upon the conditions of Europe. " The vac- illation of some of the great Powers of the Conti- nent of Europe, and the malevolence which they shew towards the new Republics of this part of the World proceed from the forced Position to which they are reduced by a Policy inconsistent with the
84 Canning to Parish, December 28, 1824. F. O. 3fss.
« Enclosed in Parish's N. 70, December 22, 1824. F. 0. Mss.
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" true state of things. Kings can have no force or Power but by those means which perfect social order affords. They are well aware of the extent and ad- vantage of those means; but alarmed by the move- ments they perceive around their thrones, they are endeavouring to recover their former passive state and to preserve the fruitful activity of human rea- son. They would wish that truth and error could be united in order to strengthen their Authority. From hence has arisen that inexplicable Dogma of Legitimacy which now disturbs the Nations of ancient Europe, and for the propagation of which the Holy Alliance has created itself. It is indeed a matter of difficulty for this Alliance to acknowledge as legitimate, Governments whose Origin is not ob- scure and whose authority is not supported by miracles, but merely by the simple and natural Rights of Nations. Nevertheless it can never be feared that the Soldiers of the Holy Alliance will come over to re-establish on this side of the Ocean the Odious Legitimacy of the Catholic King. Great Britain unfettered by the engagements of the Allies has adopted with respect to the States of America a Conduct noble and truly worthy of a Nation the most civilized, the most independent, and certainly the most powerful of Europe. The Solemn Recog- nition of the Independence of the new Republics
England and South America 241
"must be the Result of those Principles .which she has proclaimed; and you may believe Gentlemen, that this important Event with respect to the Prov- inces of Rio de la Plata principally depends on their appearing as a National Body, and capable of main- taining the excellent Institutions they already pos- sess."
The inspired hint contained in the last sentence of the message was soon acted upon by the General Congress. From day to day, in expectation of what should occur, Parish held the January packet at Buenos Ayres. Then on the 24th of January, 1825, he let her sail, bearing with her to England a copy of a fundamental law of the Congress, placing in a formal manner in the hands of Buenos Ayres those powers which she had already exercised for so many years. Nine days later he concluded, in the terms of his instructions, a treaty of amity, commerce and navigation with the United Provinces of Rio de la Plata.66
Before the Buenos Ayrean treaty was concluded, Canning had announced the final step in recognition from the Foreign Office. Fearful of a domination of France in Spanish policy, and determined to main- tain British trade, even at the cost of European hos-
M Parish to Canning, No. 6, January 24, 1825. F. O. Mas. British and Foreign State Papers, XII : 29.
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tility, Canning had persuaded his reluctant govern- ment to send consuls to South American ports in October, 1823. Thus pledged to the ultimate recog- nition of the provinces, the final act had become only a matter of time and means. But even Can- ning shared with his colleagues a reluctance to enter upon the establishment of formal diplomatic rela- tions. Once more, as the proposed conference on South America was under consideration, he gave Spain the opportunity to come to his rescue by recog- nizing her rebellious provinces herself. And once again he offered British mediation for the further- ance of that end. " The British government," he instructed Sir William a Court, at Madrid,67 " have no desire to anticipate Spain in that recognition. On the contrary, it is on every account their wish, that his Catholic majesty should have the grace and advantage of leading the way, in that recognition, among the Powers of Europe. But the Court of Madrid must be aware, that the discretion of his majesty in this respect cannot be indefinitely bound up in that of his Catholic majesty; and that even before many months elapse, the desire now sincerely felt by the British government, to leave this prece- dency to Spain, may be overborne by considerations of a more comprehensive nature, — considerations
•'January 30, 1824. Parl. Debates, N. S., X : 717.
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" regarding not only the essential interests of his majesty's subjects, but the relations of the old world with the new."
It has been seen that the cry for recognition was loud in Parliament in the spring of 1824, and that the Ministry was induced to justify its inaction in March by making public the Polignac memorandum and the a Court correspondence as showing a deter- mination to admit no European interference in the Spanish question. As the months advanced the op- position became more insistent in its demands for a formal recognition. Spain, at the same time, was content to acknowledge the receipt of Canning's offer of another mediation: but she took no action. The reports of Parish meanwhile, and of the other Commissioners, were beginning to come in with their accounts of a reasonable stability in some of the South American governments. There were two things which, in Canning's mind, were indispensable preliminaries to a recognition. The former was a promise of permanent independence. The latter was a less reasonable condition, and one which interna- tional law withdraws from the cognizance of out- side powers, but which could be insisted upon in this case with impunity. He was not content that a gov- ernment should exist capable of maintaining its in- ternational duties, but insisted that it should have
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the rare Latin-American quality of permanence. The reports of Parish led the Foreign Secretary to believe by August that these had been attained in Buenos Ayres.
And so, convinced that it was hopeless to await the co-operation of Spain, Canning conquered the prejudices of his colleagues and his king, risking thereby the resignation of the Duke of Wellington from the cabinet, and authorized Parish to conclude a commercial treaty in August.68
We do not expect Spain to be reconciled to this step, wrote Canning to George Bosanquet, at Mad- rid, on the last day of the year, but she must long have expected it, for our declarations have left no doubt that we should ultimately be called upon to take it. We have consistently informed her, and so late as 30th January last, that we should be guided by the reports of our agents and the interests of our subjects. Since then the consolidation and capacity of the republics have been advancing, commerce has increased in proportion, and Spain has once more refused to listen to our offers of mediation. We are convinced that her struggle is hopeless. Such ex- tensive portions of the world should not continue longer without a recognized existence, so we have
, Hist. England, II: 367; Report of Gen. Alvear, June 29, 1824, enclosed in Parish to Canning, November 6, 1824. F. O. Mss.
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sent instructions for a treaty to Buenos Ayres, and are preparing them for Colombia and Mexico. The effect of the treaties when ratified " will be a Diplo- matick Eecognition of the De facto Governments of those three countries."
On 3d January, 1825, the instructions for the Colombian and Mexican treaties were signed, and the determination of Great Britain was announced to the diplomatic corps in London.69
The reply of Francisco de Zea Bermudez, the Spanish Minister, to George Bosanquet, was filled with bitter complaint that Great Britain should take such action at a moment when — with Castilian hope- fulness— everything was favorable for a reconquest of the " rebellious subjects, who, after having per- fidiously seized upon the Government in various parts of his [Catholic majesty's] American Do- minions, now affect to consider themselves the arbi- ters of the destinies & to defend the political In- terests of those very people whom they oppress and destroy." In language of surprise and grief he cited the old treaties between England and Spain, alluded to their joint resistance to " the Usurper of the Throne of France," and the opposition of Great Britain to "the recognition of the momentary
69 F O. MM. ; the report of the Mezican Minister of Foreign Rela- tions for 1826 is in British and Foreign State Papers, XIV : 1106.
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" triumph of violence over justice." Was this the time for her to cast aside her treaties and contradict these principles to " sanction the existence of some Governments de facto the offspring of Rebellion. — Infants in strength, but old in crime, supported by Ambition, and defended by blood and Anarchy?" The Minister made the most of the turbulence of South American republicanism, and of the factious services of the very British Commissioners on whose evidence recognition was to be accorded. He would not attempt, he said, to enumerate the times British subjects had provided the insurgents with arms in defiance of treaty stipulations. He complained that Britain's professed desire for mediation had always been based upon the inadmissible condition of in- dependence— a charge which some one at the For- eign Office saw fit to deny on the margin of the despatch : " this is not true of any offer from 1812 to 1818." He cited brilliant, but imaginary, vic- tories of the Royalist armies in Upper Peru, main- tained the unswerving loyalty of the majority of the South Americans, and insisted, in conclusion, that Spain would never abandon in those provinces her legitimate rights.70
To this tirade replied Canning toward the end of March, in a note to M. de los Rios, his Catholic maj-
*°Zea to Bosanquet, January 21, 1825. F. 0. Mss.
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esty's minister in London. He declined to enter into any controversy upon the facts in the case, Spain's weakest point, for de Zea Bermudez had sys- tematically and blindly denied every essential fact upon which British opinion was based. Upon the theory of recognition he replied at some length in the language that Mackintosh had thrust upon him for eight years. He saw in the determination of Spain never to recognize the independence a com- plete justification for British action. " We admit," he stated in conclusion, " that no question of right is decided by our recognition of the new states of America." Four days later he enclosed a copy of his note to Bosanquet, and hoped sincerely that Spain would let the discussion drop.71
In 1822, nearly two years before the enunciation of the Monroe Doctrine, the United States saw fit to recognize the independent existence of the South American republics. Although the action was in direct opposition to the avowed policy of Europe, no Power took occasion in a formal manner to reproach the United States for this deviation from their course. Instead, the European statesmen admitted at this early date the principle of isolation as applied to American policy, while European journals ex-
71 Canning to de los Rios, March 25, 1825 ; to Bosanquet, March 29, 1825. F. 0. Mas. Annual Register, 1825, 51*.
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pressed jealous regrets that their governments could not act in similar manner. In striking contrast to this treatment of recognition by the United States is the procession of diplomats to the Foreign Office in the early days of March, 1825, in protest against recognition by Great Britain.
Canning had entered deliberately into the course which led him to recognition. The fight he had fought in his own cabinet against an aristocratic hos- tility to the provinces must have prepared him for the treatment which his policy received when pub- licly announced. Evidently by concert, the min- isters of Austria, Russia and Prussia called upon him, on the second and fourth of March, to protest in a formal manner against his action.
Prince Esterhazy72 announced to the Foreign Sec- retary :
" 1. That the Court of Vienna views with regret and disapprobation the Course adopted towards the Countries of Spanish America, as being a deviation from the Principles of Legitimacy, which guide the Politicks of the Great Powers of Europe.
" 2nd. That the Court of Vienna does not pre- tend to erect itself into a Judge of the Interests of Great Britain, nor to decide how far those Interests
71 Substance of a communication from Prince Esterhazy, March 2, 1825. F. O. Mss.
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" might, or might not be sufficiently urgent to neces- sitate a step which, It could not but consider precipi- tate, even in that point of view.
" 3d. But that it could not admit the validity of such a Plea, because, affecting as it does, in this in- stance, the rights of Spain, it might, if once admit- ted affect equally in some instances the right of some other Power.
"4th. That the court of Vienna faithful to its principles would not acknowledge any of the Coun- tries of Spanish America, until the Mother Country shall have set the example."
In place of the fourth article of the memorandum, Prince Esterhazy desired to substitute, " 4th. That the Court of Vienna, faithful to its principles, would not deviate from those which guided the Politicks of the Great Powers of Europe for these last ten years."
The communications from the ministers of Rus- sia and Prussia were identical in substance with that of Austria. Count Lieven added 73 that " History will not forget to record that, if in Spain and in France the Cause of legitimate authority obtained an advantageous Triumph, if Monarchs long unfor- tunate, recovered their Crowns and the Dominions
73 Substance of a communication from Count Lieven, March 2, 1825. F. 0. Mss.
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" of Their Ancestors, it was more especially to the British Govt that was to be attributed this mem- orable Reparation of the Evils caused by Revolu- tionary Violence.
" That, applying the Maxims of a Policy so gen- erous, to the Situation of the Peninsula and of her insurgent Colonies reciprocally, Russia could not forbear to follow the Example which had been given by England, in those past transactions."
By the time that Baron Maltzahn T* bore to him a third message of this character, the serenity of the Foreign Secretary seems to have been disturbed. " Upon Mr. Canning's taking the liberty of asking," runs the memorandum, " how it was possible to reconcile with the strictness of those principles which Baron Maltzahn described as constituting the rule of the conduct of the great Powers of Europe, the willingness which had been manifested by some of those Great Powers, after the successes of 1814, not only to make peace with Buonaparte to the ex- clusion of the Bourbons, but, even after Buonaparte was out of the question, to place some other than the Bourbons on the Throne of France, and with the unqualified acknowledgment of the present King of Sweden, while the legitimate King of Sweden, who
u Substance of a communication from Baron Maltzahn (undated, but corrected on March 5, 1825). F. 0. Mss.
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has certainly not abdicated his rights, was wandering an exile over Europe.
"Baron Maltzahn declared that he was not in- structed to enter into discussion upon these points; but simply to express the dissatisfaction of His Court at the steps taken by His Majesty towards the States of Spanish America."
The South American policy of the British Minis- try has now been traced to its conclusion, the recog- nition of the independence of the South American republics. It has been seen how the Ministry was in the beginning legitimist in its actions, and the cen- ter of the opposition to revolutionary tendencies in Europe; how it was legitimist in its real sympathies to the end.75 The progress of European wars, throw- ing the South Americans upon their own resources, enabled them to establish a freedom of commerce, meaning English commerce, that had been unknown. The restoration of the Bourbons in Spain, unenlight- ened by gleams of intelligence in the policy of Fer- dinand, forced the issue of liberation upon them. And in this issue the interests of an enormous British trade, amounting to more than three millions in
w H. W. V. Temperley, in Amer. Hist. Rev.t XI : 783n., seems to have misunderstood this last clause, and to have interpreted it as applying to England's policy, rather than to the sympathies of the Liverpool Ministry. Cf. a/nte, and Temperley, Life of Canning (1905), 149, 159, 179, 186.
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1821, were involved. Reinforced by a popular sym- pathy, as in the United States, the commercial inter- ests made themselves felt in the Parliamentary oppo- sition to the Ministry, convincing Canning at length that they, rather than legitimist principles in Eu- rope, should be the object of his solicitude. To pro- tect them, he was forced by the threatening action of France in Spain to take steps towards recog- nition, which the logic of events forced him as soon as might be, to follow to the end. He " called " his new world into existence because he must.
Upon the details in connection with the opening of diplomatic relations with the new States, but little time need be spent. The first treaty was concluded, with Buenos Ay res, on 2d February. In approba- tion of his conduct, Parish was commissioned as the first Charge to the Provinces, and was accorded his formal recognition in that capacity on the 26th of July, 1825. The Commissioners to Colombia, forc- ing their project upon that government as the price of any treaty, signed their treaty on the 18th of April,76 and ten days later Patrick Campbell was received as Charge. The Mexican treaty, later to
76 British and Foreign State Papers, XII : 661 ; Canning to Parish, May 24, 1825. F. 0. MSB.
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be rejected by Canning, was signed on 6th April by Morier and Ward, the latter being given his audi- ence as Charge on the 21st of May.77
77 Campbell to Canning, April 28, 1825 ; Ward to Canning, No. 1, May 21, 1825. F. O. Mss.; J. H. Smith, " The Mexican Recognition of Texas," inAmer. Hist. ltev.t XVI : 36, is interesting as a basis for comparing the attitude of Spain and Mexico in similar situations.
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