be no small concession to put it On the other hand, were the In addition, your Excellency combines your mediation with the armistice; and, should a negocia tion take place, General Elio would continue to hold all the authority of Viceroy, wherewith he is invested by the Junta of Cadiz, at least in that place which he now occupies; but this would involve a contradiction in principles: Elio, and the illegitimate power from which he derives his authority, would remain triumphant over our rights before the termination of the dispute. The unlimited confidence which this Junta has in the pure intentions of your Excellency, convinces us that you have no other object in view than to unite the political ties which subsist in common betwixt both nations; but your Excellency may rest assured that if the state of our negociations do not permit us to adhere to them, our friendship towards Great Britain shall not be less firm, nor our consideration of your Excellency less high.-God preserve your Excellency many years. THE MEMBERS OF THE JUNTA. Buenos Ayres, May 18, 1811. Lord Strangford, &c. Paris, June 16.-Speech of the French Emperor to the Legislative Body. Gentlemen Deputies of Departments to the Legislative Body; The peace concluded with the Emperor of Austria has been since cemented by the happy alliance I have contracted: the birth of the King of Rome has fulfilled my. wishes, and satisfies my people with respect to the future. The affairs of religion have been too often mixed with and sacrificed to the interests of a state of the third order. If half Europe has separated from the church of Rome, we may attribute it specially to the contradiction which has never ceased to exist between the truths and the principles of religion which belong to the whole universe, and the pretensions and interests which regarded only a very small corner of Italy. I have put an end to this scandal for ever. I have united Rone to the Empire. I have given palaces to the Popes at Rome and a: Paris; if they have at heart the interests of religion, they will often sojourn in the centre of the affairs of Christianity. It was thus that St. Peter preferred Rome to an abode even in the Holy Land. Holland has been united to the empire; she is but an emanation of it; without her the empire would not be complete. The principles adopted by the English government not to recognize the neutrality of any flag, have obliged me to possess myself of the mouths of the Ems, the Weser, and the Elbe, and have rendered an interior communication with the Baltic indispensable to me. It is not my territory that I wish to increase, but my maritime means. America is making efforts to cause the freedom of her flag to be recognized. I will second her. I have nothing but praises to give to the Sovereigns of the Confederation of the Rhine. The Union of the Valais has been foreseen, ever since the Act of Mediation, and considered as necessary to conciliate the interests of Switzerland with the inter-. ests of France and Italy. The English bring all the passions into play. One time they suppose France to have all the designs that could alarm other powers, designs which she could have put in execution if they had entered into her policy. At another time they make an appeal to the pride of nations in order to excite their jealousy. They lay hold of all circunstances which arise out of the unexpected events of the times in which we live. It is war over every part of the continent that can abone ensure their prosperity. I wish for nothing that is not in the treaties I have concluded. I wil never sacrifice the blood of my people to interests that are not immediately the interests of my empire. I flatter myself that the peace of the continent will not be disturbed. have given him all that was necessary and proper to unite the interests and hearts of the different people of his provinces. Since 1809, the greater part of the strong places in Spain have been taken after memorable sieges. The insurgents have been beat in a great number of pitched battles. England has felt that this war was approaching its termination, and that intrigues and gold were no longer sufficient to nourish it. She found herself, therefore, obliged to change the nature of it, and from an auxiliary she has become a principal. All she has of troops of the line have been sent into the Peninsula. England, Scotland, and Ireland are drained, English blood has at length flowed in tor-. rents, in several actions glorious to the French arms.***** This conflict against Carthage, which seemed as if it would be decided in fields of battle, on the ocean, or beyond the seas, will henceforth be decided in the plains of Spain ! When England shall be exhausted when she shall at last have felt the evils which for twenty years she has with so much cruelty poured upon the continent-when half her families shall be in mourning-then shall a peal of thunder put an end to the affairs of the Peninsula, the destinies of her armies, and avenge Europe and Asia by finishing this second Punic war. Gentlemen Deputies of Depart ments to the Legislative Body; I have ordered my Minister to lay before you the accounts of 1809 and 1810. It is the object for which I have called you together. You will see in them the prosperIous state of my finances. Though The King of Spain is come to assist at this last solemnity. I have placed within three months 100 millions extraordinary at the disposal of my ministers of war, to defray the expenses of new armaments which then appeared necessary, I find myself in the fortunate situation of not having any new taxes to impose upon my people. I shall not increase any tax: I have no want of any augmentation in the imposts. Declaration of Independence of the Province of Venezuela. In the Name of the Most High. We, the representatives of the federal provinces of Caraccas, Cumana, Barinas, Margalta, Barcelona, Merida, and Truxillo, constituting the confederation of Venezuela, on the southern continent of America, in Congress assembled; considering, that we have been in the full entire possession of our natural rights since the 19th of April, 1810, which we re-assumed in consequence of the transaction at Bayonne, the abdication of the Spanish throne, by the conquest of Spain, and the accession of a new dynasty, established without our consent: while we avail ourselves of the rights of men, which have been held from us by force for more than three centuries, and to which we are restored by the political revolutions in human affairs, think it becoming to state to the world the reasons by which we are called to the free exercise of the sovereign authority. We deem it unnecessary to insist upon the unquestionable right which every conquered country holds to restore itself to liberty and independence: we pass over in a generous silence, the long series of afflictions, oppressions, and privations, in which the fatal law of conquest has indiscriminately involved the discoverers, conquerors, and settlers, of these countries; whose condition has been made wretched by the very means which should have promoted their felicity: throwing a veil over three centuries of Spanish dominion in America, we shall confine ourselves to the narration of recent and well-known facts, which prove how much we have been afflicted; and that we should not be involved in the commotions, disorders, and conquests which have divided Spain. The disorders in Europe had increased the evils under which we before suffered, by obstructing complaints, and frustrating the means of redress; by authorizing the governors placed over us by Spain, to insult and oppress us with impunity, leaving us without the protection or support of the laws. It is contrary to the order of nature, impracticable in relation to the government of Spain, and has been most afflicting to America, that territories so much more extensive, and a population incomparably more numerous, should be subjected and dependent on a peninsular corner of the European continent. The cession and abdication made at Bayonne, the transactions at the Escurial, and at Arranjuez, and the orders issued by the Imperial Lieutenant, the Marshal Duke of Berg, to America, authorised the exercise of those rights, which till that period the Ameri cans had sacrificed to the preservation and integrity of the Spanish nation. The people of Venezuela were the first who generally acknowledged, and who preferred that integrity; never forsaking the interests of their European brethren, while there remained the least prospect of salvation. America had acquired a new existence; she was able and was bound to take charge of her own safety and prosperity; she was at liberty to acknowledge or to reject the authority of a King, who was so little deserving of that power as to regard his personal safety more than that of the nation over which he had been placed. All the Bourbons who concurred in the futile stipulations of Bayonne, having withdrawn from the Spanish territory contrary to the will of the people, abrogated, dishonoured, and trampled upon all the sacred obligations which they had contracted with the Spaniards of both worlds, who with their blood and treasures had placed them on the throne in opposition to the efforts of the house of Austria: such conduct has rendered them unfit to rule over a free people, whom they disposed of like a gang of slaves. The intrusive government, which have arrogated to themselves the authority which belongs only to the national representation, treacherously availed themselves of the known good faith, the distance, and effects which ignorance and oppression had produced among the Americans, to direct their passions against the new dynasty which had been imposed upon Spain; and, in opposition to their own principles, kept up the illusion amongst us in favour of Ferdinand, but only in order to baffle our rational hopes, and to make us with greater impunity their prey: they held forth to us promises of liberty, equality, and fraternity, in pompous discourses, the more effectually to conceal the snare which they were insidiously laying for us by an inefficient and degrading show of representation. As soon as the various forms of the Spanish government were overthrown, and others had been successively substituted, and imperious necessity had taught Venezuela to look to her own safety, in order to support the King, and afford an asylum to their European brethren against the calamities by which they were menaced, all their former services were disregarded; new measures were adopted against us, and the very steps taken for the preservation of the Spanish government were branded with the titles of insurrection, perfidy, and ingratitude; but only because the door was closed against a monopoly of power which they had expected to perpetuate in the name of a King whose dominion was imaginary. Notwithstanding our modera tion, our generosity, and the purity of our intentions, and in opposition to the wishes of our brethren in Europe, we were declared to the world in a state of blockade ; hostilities were commenced against us; agents sent among us to excite revolt, and arm us against each other; whilst our national character was traduced, and foreign nations excited to make war upon us.. Deaf to our remonstrances, without submitting our reasons to the impartial judgment of mankind, and deprived of every other arbitrement but that of our enemies, we were prohibited from all intercourse with our brethren; and, adding contempt to calumny, they undertook to appoint dele gates for us, and without our consent, who were to assist at their Cortes, the more effectually to dispose of our persons and property, and render us subjects to the power of our enemies. In order to feed the wholesome measures of our national representations, when obliged to recognize it, they undertook to reduce the ratio of our population, submitting the forms of election to servile committees acting at the disposal of arbitrary rulers; thus insulting our inexperience and good faith, and utterly regardless of our political importance or our welfare. The Spanish government, ever deaf to the demands of justice, undertook to frustrate all our legitimate rights, by condemning as criminals, and devoting to the infamy of the gibbet, or to confisca tion and banishment, those Americans who at different periods had employed their talents and services for the happiness of their country. Such were the causes which at length have impelled us to look to our own security, and to avert those disorders and horrible cala mities, which we could perceive were otherwise inevitable, and from which we shall ever keep aloof; by their fell policy they have rendered our brethren insen sible to our misfortunes, and have armed them against us; they have effaced from their hearts the tender impressions of love and consanguinity, and converted into enemies many members of our great family. When, faithful to our promises, we were sacrificing our peace and dignity to support the cause of Ferdinand of Bourbon, we saw that to the bonds of power by which he united his fate to that of the Emperor of the French, he added the sacrifice of kindred and friends; and that on this account the existing Spanish rulers themselves have already resolved to acknowledge him only conditionally. In this painful state of perplexity, three years have elapsed in political irresolution, so dangerous, so fraught with evil, that this alone would have authorized the determination which the faith we had pledged and other fraternal attachments had caused us to defer, till imperious necessity compels us to proceed further than we had first contemplated; but, pressed by the hostile and unnatural conduct of the Spanish rulers, we are at length absolved from the conditional oath which we had taken, and now take upon us the august sovereignty which we are called here to exercise. But as our glory consists in establishing principles consistent with human happiness, and not erecting a partial felicity on the misfortunes of our fellow mortals, we hereby proclaim and declare, that we shall regard as friends and companions in our destiny, and participators of our happiness, all those who, united by the ties of blood, language, and religion, have suffered oppression under the ancient establishments, and who |