seen that in America these principles have been invariably connected with the establishment of independence. Formerly a revolution indicated little more than a change of masters; it now means the establishment of free government. The unexampled prosperity of the United States, the knowledge of which could not be concealed from the colonists, furnished the aliment to keep alive the fire which had been thus lighted up-their triumph over all their enemies, and their conquest over all their difficulties, at last, must render this fire unextinguishable. The daring enterprise and the intelligence of our citizens, who continually found their way into the Spanish colonies, in spite of all the guards which the most watchful jealousy could establish, contributed not a little to open the eyes of the colonists. For twenty-five years before the revolutions of South America took place, there was a slow but progressive state of preparation for this momentous occurrence. It is, therefore, a mistake to suppose that the separation of the colonies was a revolt produced by an unpremeditated and accidental event—a sudden and passing storm which would soon be over-it was, in fact, the natural consummation of what had been long and gradually preparing, hastened by accidental circumstances, but not occasioned by them.

There is nothing which tends so much to check the sympathy we should be disposed to give the Southern Americans, in their present interesting struggle, as the prevailing idea that they are totally unfit for self-government-a character which we bestow, without discrimination, on all, although there is by no means an uniformity in the moral state of the different colonies. This is a topic of which their enemies have availed themselves, unfortunately, with great success. They are represented without distinction or discrimination, as in a state of extreme ignorance and debasement (a state, by the by, which ought to cover the Spaniard with shame) without any kind of information, and without morals; lazy, inconstant, worthless, and, at the same time, violent, jealous, and cruel; composed of heterogeneous casts, likely to be split into factions, and, if left to themselves, to exterminate each other like the soldiers of Cadmus. In fact no pains have been spared to represent them in the most hateful and disgusting colors, and there are many of us who now take it for granted that they are the most despicable of the human race. Let us for a moment inquire by whom is this indiscriminate character bestowed? It is given either by their bitterest enemies or by those who are unacquainted with them, or whose opportunities have enabled to see them only in the most unfavorable light.-Persons who have never seen a Southern American, are in the habit of condemning them all by the wholesale, as stupid, depraved, and worthless. Notwithstanding this, if we consult the enlightened travellers who have visited those countries, we shall find that they concur in bearing testimony to

their native intelligence, and to the number of well informed and well educated people they possess. But is it for us to repeat or believe such slanders? We should recollect the character which until lately was charitably given to us throughout Europe; and we should hesitate before we condemn a people whom we have had no opportunity of correctly estimating. Until the American revolution, it was a fashionable opinion, extremely agreeable to European vanity, that man degenerated in the new world, and if not continually renewed by European intelligence, would be in danger of losing the faculty of reason. How long since has this slander been refuted? There are those who assert it even now; yet the enlightened, who knew that the true dignity of human character does not depend upon climate or soil, but on the liberty and freedom of government, as necessary as the sun and air to plants, foretold what we should be, when left to ourselves. "Why is it,' asked an eloquent orator, "that the slave looks quietly on the spot where Leonidas expired? The nature of man has not changed, but Sparta has lost the government which her liberty could not survive."-Man is everywhere a noble and lofty being; and if the burthen which bows him to the earth be taken away, if the slavish bands in which he is fastened are burst, he will suddenly rise with ease to the natural standard of his character. Our enemies in Europe are still in the habit, in spite of the proofs we have given, both in peace and war, of representing us as degenerate, at least as incapable of any thing great. These things we know to be the slander of malevolence and envy, repeated by ignorance and prejudice; may we not in charity suppose that all we have heard of the Southern Americans is not true?

The standing topic of our enemies during our eventful struggle for independence, was our supposed incapacity for self-government. They represented us as being, in general, an uninformed people, our distance from the metropolis, from the sun of knowledge, rendering it impossible for us to know any thing, and therefore incapable of making any good use of our independence, even if it were possible for us to gain it; they said we were restless and factious, and would either fall into a state of horrible anarchy, or from our intestine divisions become a prey to the ambition of military chiefs. Nothing of all this happened, or was likely to happen. It is lamentable to see the proneness of the human mind to form opinions without data or experience, or to form general theories from a few isolated facts. It is a source of a thousand vexations in politics, in science, in morals, and in philosophy. It is this bigotry of opinion which forms the greatest barrier to the progress of the human mind. The ignorant and the arrogant will ever believe, that what they do not know to exist, does not exist. VOL. XIII. Pam. NO. XXV. D

I was once asked by a foreigner why no books of original composition were ever published in this country. For this simple reason, I replied, because you have never read them. We pronounce upon the character of the South Americans; we declare them to be deficient in all those qualities which we most prize, not because we know them, but because we do not. It is thus that the vain and contemptible African or Asiatic sovereign pronounces the European to be an inferior race-in a state of ignorance and barbarity.

The character which we bestow upon our brethren of the south would do injustice to the most uncivilised of our Indians. That information is as general among them as amongst our people, no one, I presume, will pretend; yet, have we made no progress since the American revolution? Let this question be answered. Three generations of freemen have arisen since that period, and each has undergone some improvement. I would ask, amongst whom began our resistance to Great Britain-by whom was it carried on and directed? Certainly by the intelligent part of the community, who moved the uninformed mass, addressing themselves to passions which belong to nature, not to education alone, then inculcating ideas which had not before suggested themselves to those who are not in the habit of reading and thinking. Compare the state of general information and public spirit at that time with the present, and it will be found that the balance will be as much in favor of the latter, as it is in favor of the present state of our population, wealth, and public improvements. We had many well educated men, especially in the different professions; we had a numerous class in the middle walk of life, that is, possessing a moderate share of wealth, and with sufficient leisure and opportunity for acquiring enough of information to understand and place a proper value upon their rights, and to appreciate the advantage of a separation from Great Britain. Has it ever been pretended that such a population is no where to be found in South America? I am far from pretending that the great mass of its population is as well prepared as ours was; but let it be recollected that we established at once, not only a free government, but the freest that had ever been known in the world. It does not follow that because the Southern Americans cannot establish a government within many degrees as free as ours, that they are therefore incapable of any thing but absolute despotism. It would not be difficult to prove that there are some strong features of resemblance in the southern population to our own, and which have an equal tendency to qualify them for free government. The means of acquiring affluence, for instance, were sufficient to raise up in every village or district, families sufficiently at ease in their circumstances to acquire some informa

tion and to maintain a respectable character; they were everywhere more locomotive and consequently more thoughtful. They had their professional men as we had, who were necessarily enlightened, and were attached to the soil by the ties of birth and by family connexions, and yet could aspire to no public offices or honors. The native priesthood were, with hardly an exception, excluded from the dignities of the church, which were usually bestowed on foreigners. The secular priests, so far from being inimical to the cause of independence, have been its most active supporters, and what is more, the advocates of the most liberal principles. The fact is, that these native priests, who are the sons of the most respectable families, and, in most instances, have little more in reality than the name, are the leaders of their armies, their partizan officers, and engage actively in disseminating political information among the people. These men have in fact been long brooding over the emancipation of their country; and many, it is highly probable, have been induced to put on the gown in order the more effectually to conceal their studies. I have been acquainted with several gentlemen, who informed me, that long before the present struggle in South America, they had been surprised at the liberal sentiments of this class, and at the extraordinary avidity with which they gathered up every thing which related to our country.

Although incredible pains were taken by the Spanish government to shut out from the colonies all information, all knowledge of a liberal kind, and notwithstanding also all books were proscribed whose possible tendency might be to disclose to the Southern Americans the important secret that they were men, yet it was utterly impossible to exclude every kind of learning: some branches were even encouraged in order to divert the attention from more dangerous studies; they had their colleges and seminaries of learning in the principal cities and towns, as well as schools for teaching the first elements; while the sons of many of the more wealthy, as was the case in our own country, were sent abroad. In a philosophical point of view, there is nothing so vain as this attempt to force the thoughts into a particular channel like a stream of water. The reading of any book can do little more than set the mind in motion; and when we once begin to think, who but the Divinity can set bounds to our thoughts? The mere reading of an edict forbidding a book to be read, might give rise to a train of thought infinitely more dangerous than the book itself.

In Southern America, as well as in the North, subsistence was easily obtained; and from the thinness of the population, men were worth much more than in the thickly settled, starving countries of Europe. There was little or no hereditary nobility to look down upon them, and habituate them to feel an inferiority; such nobility

as were in the country (sprigs from old rotten Spanish stocks) were regarded as exotics, badly adapted to the climate and soil. In general, each one was the fabricator of his own fortune. The only real distinction of rank was that of superior wealth, talents, or office; the exotic nobility, who aspired to something more, were no better than strangers, often contemptible in themselves, and secretly despised by all classes of the natives. I do not see that I risk much in boldly asserting, that our southern brethren, taken collectively, were better fitted for liberty (Switzerland excepted) than any part of Europe. The shepherds of America are a bold, vigorous, manly race of men, and from the very nature of their employments, serious and contemplative. While the European Spaniards were sinking into indolence, and losing the manly spirit of independence which formerly placed them above all their neighbors, and which would still show itself under a different government, that spirit was cherished and improving in the colonies, and all that is now wanting, is to direct it to a noble purpose. The. agricultural part of the population was more free, and gained a more easy subsistence than their European brethren; it was not in the power of Spain to prevent this. The merchants and mechanics of towns, in like manner, from the greater facility of living, had more time for reflection than persons in the same class in countries which are crowded. It is in the nature of things, that there should be more general equality among the natives of the Spanish colonies than in European countries. Persons there were, it is true, who possessed very large estates, but these were of their own acquiring, or of their immediate ancestors. One of the richest individuals in New Spain, I have been informed, was a few years ago, a mule-driver. We should fall into the greatest errors, if we formed our opinion of the essential moral state of the colony by the European state from which it sprung. There are characteristics which run through all the colonies, of whatsoever nation they may be; and an opinion much more accurate may be formed of their character, by an attentive examination of their own, than by taking the old state, or mere theory, or the slanders of enemies, as a guide.

The specimens of Southern Americans we have had in this country, within a few years past, are surely not such as to justify the opinions which many of us entertain of the character and capaci ties of those people. The countries which can produce such men as Clemente, and Gaul, are surely not sunk in brutish ignorance, or incapable of rational self-government. These we have heard to breathe sentiments of manly independence and of exalted patriotism, which until now were thought to belong only to Greece or Rome. With shame, have I heard these men complain that we