exercise of the right of Patronage enables the Government to relieve them.
Under these circumstances, it is not extraordinary that the inconveniences of a dependent existence should be so strongly felt, as to create a very general desire for emancipation; and should the Pope neglect the present opportunity, or insist upon onerous conditions in the Concordat, which the Government is still desirous to frame, he will find, when too late, that he has no longer any hold upon the country, and that the Colonial Policy of Rome will not be more patiently endured, than the Colonial Policy of the Court of Madrid.
The total inefficacy of Spiritual arms in the New World has been very recently proved by the reception given to the Circular Bull or Enciclica, addressed by the Court of Rome to the Archbishops, Bishops, and Clergy in general of the Americas, on the 24th of September, 1824, exhorting them, "to be silent no longer; but to unite in leading back their flocks to the path of the commandments of that Lord, who places Kings upon their thrones, and connects, by indissoluble ties, the preservation of their rights and authority, with the welfare of His Holy Church."[1]
The Government of Mexico, convinced that, in a
- ↑ Vide Enciclica, as published in the Madrid Gazette of the 10th February, 1825, and in that of Mexico, July 6, of the same year.
