19 months, during which these people, throwing off the despotism of the mother-country, have been strengthened themselves in the desire of establishing their civil liberty, they have not advanced a single step capable of leading them to that end; on the contrary, all the measures which they have taken appear more calculated to produce their own ruin. The first men who thought to raise the standard of American liberty were led by ignorance to commit the most deadly errors: these same men gave way to the love of superiority which is in the human heart; and bad faith, then conjoined with ignorance, produced a monster which was about to precipitate us to political death. Our governors began to persuade themselves that terror was the only means of preserving their authority; and immediately they made the Marats and the Robespierres re-appear. The people are witnesses of all the horrors which a false direction of the system of government can produce. An imprudent and premature terrorism (the expression deserves notice)-aa imprudent and premature terrorism, excites the bloody shock of opinions, opens the doors to wickedness and vengeance, sets all the passions in motion, and men who propose to themselves the acquisition of any advantage, hesitate then no longer at sacrificing others. Denunciations multiply with the victims, and the wicked secures impunity for his crimes, by the very informality of the process. The government being continually agitated by the desire of perpetuating its authority, adopted, with stupid blindness, the most scandalous extremes. Public security was never more trampled upon, nor the citizens more trodden down; the tutelary government, which the people had created to re-establish their rights, justified by its conduct the rapacity of the old mandatories; and established a

species of ostracism entirely unknown before. This salutary remedy, which the wisdom of the Athenians had devised to remove from them men whose popularity endangered the safety of the state, required at least the suffrages of 6000 citizens, whereas in Buenos Ayres six were enough to ostracise six thousand.

"Revolution," he continued, "is only the change of one form of government for another; naturally, therefore, it involves the desire of bettering our condition; its first characteristic ought to be liberality. The expulsion then of the Europeans is directly contrary to the end of a revolution, and to the interests of this people in particular is in the highest degree prejudicial. We are without industry and without population; we depend necessarily upon the Europeans for the improvements of the arts and sciences, and yet our inexorable spirit will perpetuate the infelicity of these countries! My object is not to argue for the impunity of guilt; on the contrary, I could recommend, with all the force of which I am capable, that the infliction of punishment should be equally speedy and proportionate; yea more, that in these circumstances it should be exemplary and undistinguishing. But this is not saying that it is a crime to be a European, and that without further investigation we should proceed to punishment. The Europeans are not those who have produced our misfortunes, nor those who have impeded the esta blishment of our happiness; they only murmur in secret, without being able to re-establish their former pride and superiority. Our want of public spirit, our ignorance, our prejudices, and, above all, our inconsistent, mean, and selfish character, have prepared for us discord and civil wars. The bloody domestic contests, and the destructive wars which cover the American soil, have no other origin than the indecent

personalities of ambitious men, who have busied themselves in creating factions, and arming them against each other."

This is the picture which a revolutionist drew of Buenos Ayres; and the best symptom which has appeared during the revolution is, that there should be a man honest enough thus to describe it! He concluded by inferring that Buenos Ayres was not the country where rigorism (as he called it, to avoid a more obnoxious but more appropriate word,) could produce the good which was desired, or at least that this was not the time for trying it. It was not the time for trying it, because the government wanted strength rather than inclination, and so sensible were they of their unpopularity as well as of their danger, that they ordered all arms of every kind in the possession of the inhabitants to be delivered up; the punishment for concealment was to be 100 stripes in the public streets for the first offence, a fine of a thousand dollars, and four years of garrison duty, for the second, death for the third.

In all these proceedings there was enough to alarm the vigilance of Vigodet. When the gazettes affected to speak in true republican language, and when it was declared that the congress could not be assembled till the united provinces had recovered their liberty by the aid of the arms of Buenos Ayres, it was beyond all doubt that the leaders were determined to separate the colonies from the mother country, and that they had learnt in the French school to consider oaths and treaties only as instruments of their perfidious policy. They had refused to believe the recovery of Figueras when it was taken in so masterly a manner by Rovira; but when that fortress was lost again, the loss was blazoned as the death-blow of Spain;-" there was no remedy for her," they said; "she

had now expired, and they ought to forget her even as the dead are forgot ten." On the other hand, the wildest accounts of the success of the revolutionists in Mexico were officially circulated; and at a time when Hidalgo had fallen under the sword of the law, it was affirmed that he had entered Mexico in triumph, at the head of 180,000 Americans, and that that capital had proclaimed its independence. Respecting England, the language even of the moderate editor was such as Buonaparte would have dictated. "England," said he, "would rather constitute us her colonies upon the same footing as Brazil, than trade directly with us, and thus contribute to form our exist. ence as a nation. Her object is to es tablish an exclusive commerce in these regions. The domination of the Por tugueze would easily put them in possession of some of the principal points on the eastern bank of this river, and in a situation to dictate the law to both sides. The captious conduct and the duplicity which this court has display. ed, convinces us of the truth of this reflection. To this it is that we must attribute the criminal indifference with which she has forborne to relieve out most urgent necessities, and this is the true origin of the hostilities on the opposite shore, and of the obstinate delinquency of Monte Video."

It was more easy to excite an alarm against the interference of the Por tugueze than against the English cabinet ; and accordingly the favourite cry was, that there existed an intrigue for delivering them over to the princess of Brazil. Upon this pretext troops were still kept on the op posite bank, waiting only for a fa vourable moment to renew hostilities; the people of Monte Video were in the gazette that they were to be de livered over to the despotic pleasure of the despicable mercenaries, who trod

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their soil under pretext of assisting them, and they were openly exhorted to imitate the example of Buenos Ayres, to take arms, and swear that they would be free. Their troops under Artigas committed great ex. cesses, and it may well be supposed that the Brazilian forces were neither under the influence of better morals nor of better discipline; so that a country in which the last few years had produced some symptoms of improve ment, was miserably laid waste. At length the revolutionists finding it better to renew the war, if it were only

to call off the attention of the people from their domestic misconduct, called upon the governor of Monte Video to co-operate with Artigas in expelling the Portugueze. It was impossible that so shallow a pretence could impose upon him; he in reply, therefore, required that Artigas should retire beyond the Uruguay, and declared that he would not permit more troops to cross. Of course hostilities were renewed, and the year closed with every appearance of fresh revolutions and bloodier struggles.

ENGLAND was earnestly desirous of preserving peace in the Spanish colonies, and effecting a reconciliation with the mother-country, upon grounds which should be equally to the advantage of both; but the good wishes of England were frustrated in Spain by the predominant influence of men as suspicious as they were selfish, and in America by the determination of the independent party to effect their object by any means. There was another country where England possessed the power of interfering with effect, and where her benevolent and beneficial interference, which had been withheld too long, was at last exerted.

When Nelson departed, in 1803, to take the command in the Mediterranean, the minister's last words to him were these: "Take every possi. ble care of their Sicilian majesties, for the king considers them as the most faithful allies he has ever had." In this opinion the British cabinet long persisted, and it led to a measure which, if it indeed took place, as there is reason to believe, has not unfitly been I called the most absurd act that was ever committed by a civilized nation. It was at that time more convenient for Buonaparte to extort money from the court of Naples, than to send an

army to take possession of the king. dom; Naples, therefore, became a tributary state, and Great Britain agreed to pay it a subsidy to enable it to discharge its tribute. It is as serted by one *whose means of infor mation are not to be doubted, that by order of the Neapolitan government the money was paid direct by the Bri tish agent into the hands of the French banker at Naples, so that we actual ly subsidised France to carry on the war against ourselves!

Nelson had the strongest prejudices in favour of the king and queen of Naples; they loved and honoured him as their deliverer, and he who had sha red in their danger, and entered but too deeply into their resentments, look. ed upon their re-establishment as his own work, and from feelings of per sonal as well as political pride, would of all men be most unwilling to see any thing in their conduct but what was good. Nelson, however, saw and felt the abominations of their misrule. "The state of Sicily," says he, "is almost as bad as a civilized country can be. I have no doubt from what is passing at Naples, and in that island, that the French will have it. I see clearly if we have not a little army to take it, the French will. The mass of Sici

lians wish for a change of government; they desire us, but if we will not go there, they would gladly, I fear, receive the French the middle and lower classes would be relieved from the oppressions of the nobles; they love their king and the English, but hate the nobles and the French."

One good thing had been done in Sicily under the last reign. When the Marquis of Caraccioli was viceroy, the inquisition was abolished, and all its papers committed to the flames. The people, superstitious as they were, rejoiced in the downfal of this accursed tribunal; they broke in pieces the statue of the devilish St Domingo at the entrance of the holy office, and were with difficulty prevented from demolishing the building itself. This good had been done. But those reforms, which from the temper of the age might have been expected to follow, were checked by the fatal course of events in France; sudden and total revolution instead of gradual amend ment became the object of virtuous, but erring minds; and on the other hand, the government in its fear upheld every species of abuse, as if their existence was identified with its own. Every where throughout the two Sicilies, the people laboured under the most vexatious and oppressive grievances. Calabria, with all its natural advantages, was thinned by progressive depopulation, because in a country where marriages are remarkably fruitful, the people were deterred from marriage by the dread of increasing wretchedness. The peasant, in addition to his rent, paid to the baron a tax in kind for his produce, and a toll at his mill and at his oil-press; he paid also to the king a second and a heavy tax for his oil and his raw silk and before they could be exported they were taxed again in the merchants'

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hands. The people were forbidden to use salt from the natural salt-pans near Taranto, in order that the royal saltworks at Barletta might not be deprived of the benefit of their consumption; the peasants, however, went armed, and supplied themselves with what nature had provided for their wants, in defiance of this monstrous prohibition. The king, like the other branches of his effete race, had neither character for good nor evil, and cared only for his amusements. passionate love for field-sports prevails in that family like an hereditary folly. He had a cover for pheasants in the isle of Procida, and to preserve these birds, a law was made, forbidding the inhabitants to keep cats. They petitioned for its repeal, but their petition, if it ever reached the king, was disregarded, and rats and mice in consequence became so numerous, (for dogs also for the same reason were banished from the island,) that the very children were not safe in the cradle.

Bad as things were in Naples, they were worse in Sicily. In the former country there were some limits to the power of the baronage; but here the lord of the manor appointed to every place of trust and jurisdiction ; he had his judge upon the fief, and his law-agent in Palermo, whose confirmation of the sentence was all that was required for it to be executed without farther appeal. When these enormous powers were given by the Norman conqueror to his captains,* he gave them nothing but the property and the bodies of infidels, which he abandoned to their will and discretion as objects of contempt and hatred; but when Christians became in process of time sole occupiers of the lands held on these conditions of abject vassalage, the barons did not suffer any diminution of their authority to take place on