I shall not, I hope, be accused by the friends of American Independence, of a wish to colour this part of the picture too highly; but if I should be suspected of any such intention, a reference to the first acts of any of the new Juntas, will be sufficient to clear me from the imputation.
It will be found, I believe, that, in almost every instance, they exercised the power with which they were entrusted, in the most wanton and oppressive manner.[1] Not only opposition to their will, but hesitation in the adoption of their political creeds, (however exaggerated, or absurd,) was visited with the severest penalties. Nor was it to their own territory alone, that this spirit of proselytism was confined; the instant that a Province, or State, had determined upon the principles to be adopted for its own guidance, it endeavoured to force these same principles upon its neighbours, and stamped the least demur in conforming to them, as treason to the common cause.[2]
Sovereigns by the grace of "Adam and Eve,"
- ↑ See, as an instance, an order of the day published at Buenos Ayres on the 6th December, 1810, by which a citizen who had, when drunk, given a toast, at a dinner, offensive to the President, was banished for life.
- ↑ Vide a "Declaration of the Rights of the People," sanctioned by the Congress of Venezuela, 1st of July, 1811, followed by a law for regulating the liberty of the press; by the nineteenth article of which, any one who should publish any political writing contrary to the system then established in Venezuela, was condemned to death: 25th July, 1811.
