profits, which they have hitherto derived from the contraband trade. At one time, with hypocritical warmth, they lamented the fatal blow which the interests of the Mother-country were about to receive, and at another, they predicted the ruin of the colony, and the total destruction of its commerce: others again announced the universal distress that the free exportation of the precious metals would bring upon us, and pretended to feel a lively interest in the fate of our native artisans (whom they have always hitherto despised), endeavouring to enlist in their cause the sacred name of religion, and the interests of morality.
Never, certainly, has America known a more critical state of affairs, and never was any European governor so well entitled as your Excellency to dispense at once with the maxims of past ages; for if, in less dangerous times, the laws have often been allowed to sleep, when their observance might have checked the free action of the Government, surely your Excellency cannot now be condemned for the adoption of a measure, by which alone the preservation of this part of the monarchy can be effected.
Those should be doomed to eternal infamy, who maintain that, under present circumstances, it would be injurious either to Spain, or to this country, to open a free intercourse with Great Britain. But even supposing the measure to be injurious, still it is a necessary evil, and one which, since it cannot be avoided, ought at least to be made use of for the general good, by endeavouring to derive every possible advantage from it, and thus to convert it into a means of ensuring the safety of the state.
Since the English first appeared on our coasts, in 1806, the merchants of that nation have not lost sight of the Rio de la Plata in their speculations. A series of commercial adventures has followed, which has provided almost entirely for the consumption of the country; and this great importation, carried on in defiance of laws and reiterated prohibitions, has met with no other obstacles than those necessary to deprive the Custom-house of its dues, and the country of those advantages which it might have derived from a free exportation of its own produce in return.
