[1720-1778 A.D.]

thousand miles from Mexico, and some appertaining to the viceroyalty of Peru were still farther from Lima. To remedy this evil a fourth viceroyalty was created in 1776, comprising the provinces of Rio de la Plata, Buenos Ayres, Paraguay, Tucuman, Potosi, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Charcas, and the towns of Mendoza and San Juan. The seat of government was established at Buenos Ayres, and Don Pedro Zevallos raised to this new dignity, who was well acquainted with the countries over which he had to preside, having long resided in them, in a subordinate station. This division, together with what was taken off at the erection of the viceroyalty of New Granada, reduced the territory of the viceroyalty of Peru to one third its original extent. The remote provinces of Sonora, Sinaloa, California, and New Navarre, which belonged to the jurisdiction of New Spain, were likewise formed into a separate government, which was conferred on the chevalier de Croix, who, although not possessed of the title and dignity of viceroy, was wholly independent of the viceroyalty of New Spain. Several of these provinces contained some of the richest mines of gold in America, recently discovered, and this was among the reasons that urged the erection of a new government, which, from its vicinity, might afford the protection and facilities that the mining operations required. Another, and perhaps the most patriotic measure of the count de Galvez, was the establishment of intendancies for the superintendence and protection of the Indians. This measure had a happy effect on the natives; under the active superintendence of the intendants, whose duty it was to watch over their rights, as guardians and protectors, this miserable race enjoyed securities and advantages of which they were deprived under the tyranny of the subaltern Spanish and Indian magistrates, to whom they had been subjected.

At a subsequent period some alterations took place in the political divisions of Spanish America, so that at the commencement of the political revolution, which restored all the Spanish dominions on the American continent to independence and liberty, its civil divisions consisted of the four viceroyalties of New Spain, Peru, Buenos Ayres, and New Granada, and the territories called captain-generalcies of Chili, Venezuela, and Guatemala. These seven distinct governments were independent of each other; a viceroy presided over the four first, and an officer, called a captain-general, over the three last, all of which were appointed by the king; were independent of each other, and directly dependent on the crown. These governments were subdivided into provinces, over which presided a governor, or corregidor, and also into intendancies, which formed the jurisdiction of an officer called an intendant. This latter division was principally for that part of the government which related to the Indians. The governors and intendants were appointed by the king, but accountable to the viceroy, or captain-general, to whose jurisdiction the province belonged.

The provinces were again divided into departments, over which presided a delegate of the governor or officer at the head of the government of the province, and likewise subordinate magistrates, called alcaldes, appointed by the municipalities, denominated cabildos. The viceroys and captain-generals possessed both civil and military power, and generally the governors possessed the same; but in some instances they enjoyed only civil authority, in which cases there was a military chief, or officer in the province, called comandante, who held the military command. The supreme judicial power was vested in the court of audience, of which there was one or more in each of the viceroyalties and captain-generalcies; the separate judges of this tribunal were called oidores, and their number varied according to the population and

H. W.- VOL. XXIII. 2P

[1720-1778 A.D.] business of their jurisdictions. A subordinate judicial authority was vested in the governors, corregidores, and their delegates; and the alcaldes also possessed a limited jurisdiction, but could not act, unless they were lawprofessors, without the advice of an assessor, or lawyer. The decisions of all these inferior tribunals might be reviewed by the royal audience, whose decrees were final, except in some important cases an appeal was allowed to the council of the Indies.

There were also in some of the seaports tribunals called consulados, having cognisance of commercial affairs only, from whose decisions an appeal might be made to the viceroy. In addition to these authorities there were spiritual tribunals, with jurisdiction over ecclesiastical affairs. At the head of these was the holy Inquisition, whose jurisdiction was undefined, and its proceedings secret, tyrannical, and cruel. Its punishments were inflicted by fine, imprisonment, torture, the gallows, and the stake. In each diocese there was a spiritual court, composed of the bishop, the fiscal procurador, or lawyer, and the provisor. The ecclesiastical courts, as well as others, were subject to the control of the viceroy, and consequently were used to advance the ambitious views of the state, as well as the church.

There was nothing like popular influence in either branch of the government; no mode in which the voice of the people could be expressed; nor was there a tribunal or officer who was amenable to, or whose authority emanated directly from, the people. There was no meeting of the inhabitants, except at church, and for public worship on religious festivals, and the press could scarcely be said to exert any influence; so far as it did, however, it was only an instrument of tyranny and oppression. Even the cabildos, or corporations, which regulated the internal police of cities and towns, consisting of from six to twelve members, according to their population or business, were entirely independent of popular influence. These officers were called regidores, the governor of the province being ex-officio president of the cabildo, and controlled all its acts. The office of regidore was held during life, having a fixed price, which, in Buenos Ayres and Chili, was about five hundred dollars, and was purchased like any other commodity in market. The executive officers of the cabildos, called alquazils, answering to sheriffs and constables in the United States, were sold at given prices, the same being the case in a great measure with the alcaldes, who were a kind of petty magistrates, or justices of the peace. The administration was corrupt in all departments, beyond any example in modern times. The viceroys, captain-generals, intendants, members of the court of audience, archbishops and bishops who were appointed by the king, almost without exception were Spaniards; and most of the civil and military appointments were conferred on natives of Old Spain. Down to the year 1810, one hundred and sixty viceroys, and five hundred and eighty-eight captain-generals, governors, and presidents of the royal audience, had been appointed in America, of whom only eighteen were natives of the country, these obtaining their appointments in consequence of having received their education in Spain. Thus, for ages, was Spanish America governed by swarms of foreign officers, who had no other interest than to gratify their employers, and enrich themselves.

FIRST SYMPTOMS OF INSURRECTION

The influence of the political revolution in the British colonies, and the effects of commercial freedom which Spanish America enjoyed after the regulations of 1778, gave rise to the first symptoms of a spirit of reformation and

[1779-1781 A.D.]

political improvement which appeared in the Spanish colonies. Down to this period, and in general, until the breaking out of the revolution in the parent country, and the overthrow of the monarchy by Bonaparte, the Spanish creoles in America, notwithstanding the political oppression which they suffered, and their personal degradation as a class, were distinguished for their loyalty and attachment to their king and country. About the middle of the eighteenth century a conspiracy was formed in Caracas, headed by a man named Leon, the object of which, however, was not so much political as commercial, it being the design of the conspirators to break up the company of Guipuzcoa, sometimes called the company of Caracas, who had long enjoyed a monopoly of all the trade of that and several other provinces. The plot did not succeed, and Leon was condemned to death, his house razed to the ground, and a column placed on the spot as a memorial of the horror of his offence, and the fate that awaited all traitors. In 1780 an alarming revolution broke out in Peru, among the natives, seconded by some of the creole inhabitants. Previous to the reformation and correction of abuses which took place during the administration of Count de Galvez, the corregidores practised such intolerable extortions and frauds on the Indians, compelling them to receive their necessary supplies on their own terms, as finally drove them into measures of open resistance.

Tupac Amaru, a native Peruvian, of the royal inca blood, became the leader of the malcontents; and several individuals of influence joining him, the flame of resistance was spread for three hundred leagues into the interior of the country; and so numerous and formidable did the party become, that Tupac Amaru was proclaimed Inca of Peru. The Spanish authorities adopted energetic and vindictive measures to suppress the insurgents; the contest lasted three years, and exhibited many bloody scenes. The malcontents were often successful; but Tupac Amaru did not conduct in his new dignity so as to maintain the attachment of his adherents; their zeal consequently began to abate, and their efforts to relax; and being attacked by the troops of Buenos Ayres, as well as by those of Lima, and most of the Spanish inhabitants declaring in favour of the government, the insurgents were overpowered, and compelled to submit. Tupac Amaru, and most of the principal leaders, were put to death, in a manner cruel and abhorrent to the feelings of humanity in the extreme. The loyalty of the creoles led them to take part with the government, notwithstanding the oppression which they suffered, on an occasion when it was in their power, by joining with the Indians, to have effected a political revolution.

Before this insurrection was suppressed, the Spanish government was alarmed by civil commotions in New Granada. In 1781, some new regulations and additional taxes, adopted by Regente Pineres, the viceroy, were opposed by almost the whole population of the province of Socorro. An armed multitude, amounting to seventeen thousand, marched toward Santa Fé, crying, "Long live the king - death to our bad governors." The viceroy not being able to oppose them in arms, had recourse to superstition: they advanced without opposition to within about thirty-six miles of the capital, where, instead of being confronted by an army, they were met by Gongora the archbishop, in his pontifical robes, holding the host in his hands. The suddenness and surprise of this appeal to their religious feelings, filled them with awe and timidity. The archbishop, availing himself of the happy moment, proposed a conference to Don Salvador Plata, their leader, which resulted in an accommodation, and the dispersion of the malcontents. But the terms of capitulation were not adhered to. These indications of a spirit of

[1781-1797 A.D.] reform and freedom in the colonies occasioned the greatest jealousy and alarm in the court of Madrid, and the adoption of such severe and harsh measures to suppress it, as rather tended to increase the evil. Printing presses were prohibited, even in towns of forty or fifty thousand inhabitants, and books of almost every description were proscribed, as dangerous and seditious. In New Granada, several persons, merely on suspicion of entertaining revolutionary designs, were subjected to the torture; and similar measures, of a distrustful policy, were pursued in other provinces, all of which tended to increase the discontents of the colonists. Nothing was done to conciliate their feelings, or redress the grievances of which they complained, or which even had the appearance of reforming any of the glaring abuses that everywhere prevailed. Power and coercion were the only means made use of; the sword, the rack, and the inquisition, were to control the minds as well as the bodies of the colonists, and convince them that they had no greater liberties, no other rights, than those of submission to the will of an arbitrary tyranny.

The political events, which occurred in Europe, subsequently to 1778, produced a spirit of political inquiry that spread over that continent, and even reached the shores of the Spanish dominions in America, where light and liberty had so long been proscribed and shut out, as the greatest evils that could afflict the human race. Many of the Spanish creoles informed themselves with the history and the principles of the American and French revolutions; and the more they became acquainted with liberty the more lovely it appeared, and the more odious the tyranny of the Spanish colonial government. Elevated by such sentiments, and relying on the assurances of assistance from the British, derived from the proclamation of the governor of Trinidad, a number of creoles at Caracas, in 1797, formed a plan to revolutionise that province. When on the eve of making the attempt to carry their plans into execution, the conspiracy was discovered, and Don M. Gual, and J. M. España, the apparent leaders, escaped to a neighbouring island. Two years after, the latter, having the presumption to return to La Guayra, was seized, condemned, and executed, and thus became one of the first martyrs of Colombian liberty.

BRITISH INTERFERENCE IN SOUTH AMERICA

It had long been a favourite project of Mr. Pitt to aid the emancipation of South America, and to open a trade with that country. He had frequent conferences with the ex-Jesuit, Juan Pablo Viscardi Guzman, a native of Peru, and an enthusiast in favour of the independence of America, who represented the country to be impatient under the Spanish yoke, and ripe for revolt. He also published in London an appeal to his countrymen, using all the powers of his eloquence in attempting to bring them to a sense of their degraded condition. The British ministry encouraged General Miranda in his designs to revolutionise Venezuela, and aided the premature expedition which he fitted out in 1801; and furnished the funds for that which he afterward fitted out from the United States, in 1806, though it was done without the assistance or sanction of congress. This expedition failed without accomplishing anything, and a number of young men from the United States, falling into the hands of the Spaniards, became victims of their own credulity, and the cruelty of tyrannical power. It is said that, during Mr. Adams' administration, the British ministry made proposals to the American government to assist in the emancipation of the Spanish colonies, which did not meet a favourable reception.

[1797-1807 A.D.]

The failure of Miranda's expedition did not discourage the British government; for in 1806, Spain then being in alliance with France in the war which prevailed in Europe, they fitted out a squadron under Sir Home Popham, which entered the La Plata on the 25th of June, and anchored about twelve miles below Buenos Ayres, where the troops disembarked without opposition.

The inhabitants, and the viceroy Soliemente, were filled with consternation. After experiencing a feeble opposition at Rio Chueto, three miles from the city, General Beresford entered the capital, and took possession of the citadel. Don J. M. Pueyredon, afterward director, at the head of a company of hussars, was the only officer who did anything to oppose the advance of the English. The Spaniards, on learning the small number of their enemies, determined to expel them. The viceroy had escaped to Montevideo, and Liniers, a French emigrant, but an officer in the Spanish service, passed over to the eastern shore of the river, exciting the people to arms. The viceroy collected one thousand regulars, which he joined with those of Liniers, to whom the command of the united forces was given. With these troops, Liniers immediately recrossed the river, when the inhabitants flocking around his standard, soon enabled him to attack the British with great effect, compelling them, after they had sustained a heavy loss, to surrender, on the 12th of August, 1806. Soon after this event, reinforcements arrived from the Cape of Good Hope, which enabled Sir Home Popham to reduce Montevideo by storm.

This expedition, as appeared from the trial of Sir Home Popham, was not expressly authorised by the British ministry, but was so far from being disapproved of by them, that it was followed up by a bold and extensive plan of conquest. Two squadrons, each with a large body of troops, one commanded by General Whitlock, the other by General Crawford, were fitted out for the capture of Buenos Ayres; after accomplishing this, Crawford had received orders to proceed around Cape Horn, and capture Valparaiso, and, for the more effectually securing their conquest, to establish military posts across the continent, from Buenos Ayres to Valparaiso. The object of the ministry was entirely changed since 1797; now it was not to aid the inhabitants in establishing their independence, but to subjugate the country. The commanders, in their instructions from Mr. Windham, secretary of war, were directed to discourage all hopes of any other change in the condition of these countries than that of their being annexed to the crown of Great Britain.

On the 10th of May, 1807, the expedition under General Whitlock arrived at Montevideo, and on the 15th of June following that under General Crawford arrived. General Whitlock, who assumed the chief command, had now under his control about ten thousand of the best troops in the British service, and made immediate preparations for attacking the capital. The viceroy, arriving at Buenos Ayres, was opposed by the inhabitants, and finally deposed by the cabildo. Liniers, being raised to the chief command, was assisted by the inhabitants in making great exertions to defend the capital. Every avenue to the city was obstructed by breastworks of hides, from fifteen to twenty feet thick; small pieces of artillery were planted on the houses, which were barricaded and formed into fortresses, and all the citizens were under The British having landed on the 28th of June, traversed a swampy country of about thirty miles, and presented themselves on the morning of the 5th of July in front of Buenos Ayres. The British general having formed his troops in a line along the suburbs, commenced the attack - and never were men more surprised with their reception. The cannon, planted on the