believe it to be our duty to lay before your Majesty whatever information we possess with regard to the best mode of effecting this most important point:—information which may tend, at the same time, to convey an exact idea of events which are much misrepresented before they reach the Peninsula. The knowledge of the evil ought to precede the inquiry as to the remedy. In order to extinguish the fire that is consuming the Americas, it is necessary to examine its origin. It appears, that all agree that the desire of Independence first excited amongst the Americans the flame of discord, when they saw that it was impossible that the Peninsula should employ force against them. The loss of power, on the part of the Mother-country, is, therefore, the first circumstance to be noted; but something more than this was required to occasion the explosion, since otherwise it would have taken place as soon as the obstacle was removed, and this has not been the case; the revolt of the colonies being effected in some places before others, and in none immediately on the arrival from Spain of the first fatal news of the occupation of Madrid.
In Caracas, the intelligence of the invasion of Andalusia by the French, and the dissolution of the Central Junta, caused the revolution, by which, on the 19th of April, 1810, the Authorities were deposed without bloodshed, and a Junta created, with the title of Supreme, for the government of the Province, "to preserve its existence, and provide for its safety," as it is expressed in the proclamation which was published upon the occasion.
The same news was communicated to Buenos Ayres by the Viceroy, Don Baltasar Cisneros, who permitted the people to assemble a Congress, in order to take the necessary precautions, and not to be involved in similar calamities. This produced, in May 1810, a Provisional Junta, which took the command, until a Congress could be formed of Deputies from all the Provinces.
The imprudent conduct of the Corregidor of El Socorro, in the new kingdom of Granada, in attacking with troops the unarmed people, who, by means of official representations, endeavoured to calm him, and to avoid a rupture, irritated the natives, and caused a revolution, on the 3d of July, 1810, the
