Chapter III (2)

"The fact, that America does not belong to the territory of Spain is self-evident, and it is equally evident that the right which the Bourbons justly or unjustly exercised over it, and notwithstanding this was hereditary, yet it could not be disposed of without the consent of the people, and particularly of those of America, who, on the election between the French and Austrian dynasties, might have acted in the seventeenth century as they now have done in the nineteenth. The bull of Alexander VI., and the titles which the house of Austria alleged in the American code had no other origin than the right of power and conquest, partially ceded to the conquerors and to the settlers for their assistance rendered to the crown in extending its dominion in America. Without taking into consideration the scanty population of the country, the extermination of the natives, and the emigration which the self-called mother country sustained; it appears that when the fury of conquest had ceased--when the thirst for gold was satisfied--when the continued equilibrium was declared in favour of Spain, by the advantageous acquisition of America--the feudal government destroyed and rooted out from the time of the Bourbons in Spain, and every right extinct that did not originate in the new concessions or commands of the prince, the conquerors and the settlers then became absolved of theirs. As soon as the faultiness and invalidity of the rights which the Bourbons have arrogated to themselves are demonstrated, the titles by which the American descendants of the conquerors possessed these countries revive--not to the detriment of the natives and primitive proprietors, but to equalize them in the enjoyment of liberty, property, and independence, which they always held by a right stronger than that of the Bourbons or any other person or persons to whom they may have ceded America, without the consent of its natural owners, the Americans.

"That America does not belong to the territory of Spain is a principle of natural, and a law of positive right. No title just or unjust which exists of American slavery can belong to the Spaniards of Europe, and all the liberality of Alexander VI. could only declare the Austrian kings promoters of the faith, in order to find out for them a preternatural right by which to make them lords of America. Neither the pre-eminence of the parent state, nor the prerogative of the mother country, could at any time constitute the origin of lordship on the part of Spain. The first was lost the moment the monarch who was acknowledged by the Americans left his country and renounced his rights; and the second never was more than a scandalous abuse of words, as great as that of calling our slavery felicity; that of calling the fiscals protectors of the indians; and that of saying that the sons of Americans were divested of every right and civil dignity. By the mere act of even passing from one country to another to settle in it, those who do not leave their homes acquire no property, nor do they expose themselves to the hardships of emigration. Those who conquer and obtain possession of a country by means of their labour, industry, cultivation, and connection with the natives thereof, are the individuals who have a right of preference in preserving it, which right they transmit to their posterity born therein; for if the country where one is born possessed the origin of sovereignty, or gave the right of acquisition, the general will of nations, and the fate of the human race, would then be riveted to the soil, as are the trees, mountains, rivers, and lakes.

"Neither could it ever be considered as a title of property to one part of a nation, the other having gone to another country to settle in it; for by such a right Spain would belong to the Phoenicians, or their descendants, or to the Carthagenians, wherever these may be found; even the whole of the nations of Europe would have to change their abodes to make room for and re-establish so singular a territorial right; home would then become as precarious as are the wants and caprices of men. The moral abuse of the maternity of Spain, with regard to America is still more insignificant, for it is well known that in the natural order of things, it is the duty of the father to emancipate the son, so soon as his minority expire, and he is able to use his strength and reason in providing for his subsistence; and also that it is the duty of the son to emancipate himself, whenever the cruelty or extravagance of the father or tutor endanger his welfare, or expose his patrimony to become the prey of a miser, or an usurper. Under these principles let a comparison be made of the three hundred years of our filiation to Spain; and even when it is proved, that she was our mother, it still remains to be proved that we are yet her minors or pupils.

"At any period when Spain has entertained any doubt of the rights of the Bourbons, or of any other dynasty, the only source, and that not a very clear one, of the Spanish dominion in America, it would appear that the Americans were excluded from alleging any reasons that might destroy such claims, though doubtful from their very origin; but as Venezuela may hereafter be reproached for the conditional oath by which the representative body that now declares its absolute independence of any foreign power previously acknowledged Ferdinand VII., the same august body feels anxious that no room should be left for scruples of conscience, for the illusions of ignorance, and for the malice of wounded ambition, whereby to discredit, calumniate, and weaken a resolution, taken with such maturity and deliberation as best suited its magnitude and importance.

"It is well known, that the promissory oath in question is no more than an accessory bond, which always pre-supposes the validity and legitimacy of the contract ratified by the same. When in the contract there is no defect that may render it null and illegitimate, it is then that we invoke God by an oath, believing that he will not refuse to witness it, and guarantee the fulfilment of our promises, because the obligation to comply with them is founded on an evident maxim of the natural law instituted by the divine author. God can at no time guarantee any contract that is not binding in the natural order of things, nor can it be supposed that he will accept any contract opposed to those very laws which he himself has established for the felicity of the human race. It would be insulting his wisdom to believe that he would listen to our vows when we implore his divine concurrence to a contract that is opposed to our own liberty, the only origin of the right of our actions--such a supposition would inculcate an idea that God had an interest in multiplying our duties by means of such agreements, to the prejudice of our national liberty. Even in case the oath could add any new obligation to that of the contract thereby confirmed, the nullity of the one would consequently be inseparable from the nullity of the other; and if he who violates a sworn contract be criminal, and worthy of punishment, it is because he has violated good faith, the only bond of society, without the perjury being more concerned than to increase the crime, and to aggravate the punishment. That national law which binds us to fulfil our promises, and that divine one which forbids us to invoke the name of God in vain, do not in any manner alter the obligation contracted under the simultaneous and inseparable effects of both laws, so that the infraction of the one supposes the infraction of the other. For our good we call on God to witness our promises, and when we believe that he can guarantee them, and avenge their violation, it is only because the contract has nothing in itself that can render it invalid, illicit, unworthy of or contrary to the eternal justice of the Supreme Arbiter to whom we submit it. It is according to these principles that we are to analyze the conditional oath by which the congress of Venezuela has promised to preserve the rights legally held by Ferdinand VII., without attributing to it any other which, being contrary to the liberty of the people, would consequently invalidate the contract, and annul the oath.

"We have seen that the people of Venezuela, impelled by the government of Spain, became insensible of the circumstances that rendered the tolerated rights of Ferdinand void, in consequence of the transactions of the Escurial and Aranjues, as well as those of all his house, by the cessions and abdications made at Bayonne; and from the demonstration of this truth, follows, as a corollary, the invalidity of an oath, which, besides being conditional, could not subsist beyond the contract to which it was added as an accessory bond. To preserve the right of Ferdinand was all that Caracas promised on the nineteenth of April, at a time when she was ignorant that he had lost them--_Judicio caret juramentum, incantum Div. tom. 22, p. 80, art. 3. Si vero sit quidem posibile fieri; sed fieri non debeat, vel quid est per se malum, vel quia est boni impeditivum, tunc juramento deest justitia, et ideo non est servandum_. Quest, cit. art. 7. Even if Ferdinand retained them with regard to Spain, it remains to be proved, whether by virtue of the same he was authorized to cede America to another dynasty, without the concurrence of her own consent. The accounts which Venezuela, in spite of the oppression and cunning of the intrusive government, was enabled to obtain of the conduct of the Bourbons, and the fatal effects that it was likely to entail on America, have constituted a body of irrefragable proofs, evincing that as Ferdinand no longer retained any rights, the preservation of which Venezuela promised, as well as the oath by which she confirmed this promise, consequently are, and ought to be cancelled--_Jurabis in veritate, et in judicio, et in justicia_. From the first part of the position, the nullity of the second becomes a legitimate consequence.

"But neither the Escurial, Aranjues, nor Bayonne were the first theatres of the transactions which deprived the Bourbons of their rights to America. By the treaty of Basil, made July fifteenth, 1795, (by which Godoy obtained the title of Prince of the Peace), and in the court of Spain the fundamental laws of the Spanish dominion were broken. Charles IV., contrary to one of them (Recopil. de Indias, law 1. tit. 1.) ceded the island of Santa Domingo to France, and disposed of Louisiana to the same foreign power, which unequalled and scandalous infractions authorised the Americans, against whom they were committed, as well as the whole of the Colombian people, to separate from the obedience, and lay aside the oath by which they had bound themselves to the crown of Castile, in like manner as they were entitled to protest against the imminent danger which threatened the integrity of the monarchy in both worlds, by the introduction of French troops into Spain previous to the transactions at Bayonne, invited no doubt by one of the Bourbon factions, in order to usurp the national sovereignty in favour of an intruder, a foreigner, or a traitor; but as these events are prior to the period that we have fixed on for our discussion, we will return to those which have authorised our conduct since the year 1808.

"Every one is aware of the occurrences that took place at the Escurial in 1807, but perhaps all are not acquainted with the natural results of those events. It is not our intention to enter here into the discovery of the origin of the discord that existed in the family of Charles IV.; let England and France attribute it to themselves, both governments have their accusers and their defenders; neither is it to our purpose to notice the marriage agreed on between Ferdinand and the daughter-in-law of Napoleon, the peace of Tilsit, the conference at Erfuhrt, the secret treaty at St. Cloud, and the emigration of the house of Bragansa to the Brasils. What most materially concerns us is, that by the transactions of the Escurial, Ferdinand VII. was declared a traitor to his father Charles IV. A hundred pens and a hundred presses published at the same time in both worlds his perfidy, and the pardon which at his prayer was granted to him by his father; but this pardon, as an attribute of the sovereignty and of paternal authority, only absolved the son from corporal punishment; the king his father had no power to free him from the infamy and inability which the constitutional laws of Spain impose on the traitor, not only to prevent him from obtaining the royal dignity, but even the lowest office of civil employment; Ferdinand therefore never could be a lawful king of Spain, or of the Indies.

"To this condition the heir of the crown remained reduced till the month of March, 1808, when while the court was at Aranjues, the project that was frustrated at the Escurial was converted into insurrection, and open mutiny, by the friends of Ferdinand. The public exasperation against the ministry of Godoy served as a pretext to the faction of Ferdinand, and as an indirect plea to convert to the good of the nation what was perhaps allotted to other designs. The fact of using force against his father, instead of supplication and convincing arguments; his having excited the people to mutiny; his having assembled the mob in front of the palace, in order to take it by surprise, to insult the minister, and force the king to abdicate his crown, which, far from giving Ferdinand any title to it, tended to increase his crime, to aggravate his treachery, and to complete his inability to ascend the throne, vacated by violence, perfidy, and faction. Charles IV., outraged, disobeyed, and threatened, had no other alternative suitable to his decorum, and favourable to his vengeance, than to emigrate to France to implore the protection of Bonaparte, in favour his offended royal dignity. Under the nullity of the abdication of Aranjues, and contrary to the will of the people of Spain, all the Bourbons assembled at Bayonne, preferring their personal resentments to the safety of the nation. The emperor of the French availed himself of this opportunity, and having under his controul, and within his influence the whole family of Ferdinand, and several of the first Spanish dignitaries, as well as many substitutes for deputies in the cortes, he obliged Ferdinand to restore the crown to his father, and then the latter to cede it to him, the emperor, in order that he might afterwards confer it on his brother Joseph.

"When the emissaries of the new King reached Caracas, Venezuela was ignorant or knew but partially what had happened. The innocence of Ferdinand, compared to the insolence and despotism of the favourite, Godoy, directed the conduct of Venezuela when the local authorities wavered on the fifteenth of July, 1808; and being left to choose between the alternative of delivering himself up to a foreign power, or of remaining faithful to a king who appeared to be unfortunate and persecuted--the ignorance of what had occurred--triumphed over the interests of the country, and Ferdinand was acknowledged, under the belief, that by this means, the unity of the nation being maintained, she would be saved from the oppression that threatened her, and the king ransomed, of whose virtues, wisdom, and rights we were falsely prepossessed. But less was requisite on the part of those who relied on our good faith to oppress us. Ferdinand, disqualified, and unable legally to obtain the crown--previously announced by the leaders of Spain as dispossessed of his right of succession--incapable of governing in America, and held in bondage by a foreign power--from that time became by illusion a legitimate but unfortunate prince. As many as had the audacity to call themselves his self-created heirs and representatives became as such, and taking advantage of the innate fidelity of the Spaniards of both worlds, and forming themselves into intrusive governments, they appropriated to themselves the sovereignty of the people, under the name of a chimerical king, began to exercise new tyrannies, and, in a word, the commercial junta of Cadiz sought to extend her controul over the whole of Spanish America.

"Such have been the antecedents and consequences of an oath, which, dictated by candour and generosity, and conditionally maintained by good faith, is now arrayed against us, in order to perpetuate those evils which the dear-bought experience of three years has proved to be inseparable to so fatal and ruinous an engagement. Taught as we are by a series of evils, insults, hardships, and ingratitude, during the interval of from the fifteenth of July, 1808, to the fifth of July, 1811, and such as we have already manifested, it became full time that we should abandon it, as a talisman invented by ignorance, and adopted by a misguided fidelity, as from its first existence it has constantly heaped upon us all the evils that accompany an ambiguous state of suspicion and discord. The rights of Ferdinand, and the legitimate representation of them on the part of the intrusive governments of Spain on the one side, demonstrations of compassion and gratitude on the other, have been the two favourite springs alternately played on to support our illusion, to decrease our substance, to prolong our degradation, to multiply our evils, and ignominiously to prepare us to receive that passive fate prepared for us by those who have dealt with us so kindly for three centuries. Ferdinand VII. is the universal watch-word for tyranny, as well in Spain as in America.

"No sooner was that vigilant and suspicious fear, produced among us by the contradictory acts and artificious falsehoods of the strange and short-lived governments which have succeeded one another since the junta of Seville, made known to these governments, than they recurred to a system of apparent liberality towards us, in order to cover with flowers the very snare we had not perceived while covered by the veil of candour, which was at length rent asunder by mistrust. For this purpose of deceit were accelerated, and tumultuously assembled, the cortes, so wished for by the nation, and opposed by the commercial government of Cadiz, but which were at length considered as necessary to restrain the torrent of liberty and justice, which on every side burst the wounds of oppression and iniquity in the new world; it was even still supposed that the habit of obedience, submission, and dependence, would be in us superior to the conviction which at so high a price we had just obtained.

"It is most strange by what kind of deception, fatal to Spain, it has been believed, that the one part of a nation which crosses the ocean, or is born under the tropics, acquires a habit united to servitude, and incapable of bending to the habits of liberty. The effects of this strong-rooted prejudice, as notorious to the world as they are fatal, were at length converted into the welfare of America. Without it Spain would perhaps not have lost the rank she held as a nation, and America in obtaining this blessing would have had to pass through the bitter ordeal of a civil war, more ominous to its promoters than to ourselves.

"Our public papers have already sufficiently demonstrated the defects under which the cortes laboured respecting America, and the measures as illegal as insulting adopted by that body to give us a representation which we could not but object to, even though we were, as the regency had loudly boasted us to be, integral parts of the nation, and had no other complaints to allege against their government than the scandalous usurpation of our rights at a moment when they most required our aid. They have, no doubt, been informed of the reasonings we used with their perfidious envoy, Montenegro, at a time that the former missions being frustrated, the great shipments of newspapers filled with triumphs, reforms, heroic acts, and lamentations, being rendered useless; and the inefficacy of blockades, pacificators, squadrons and expeditions, made known; it was thought convenient to dazzle the self-love of the Americans, by seating near to the throne of the cortes deputies whom we had never named, and who could not be chosen our substitutes by those who created them such, in the same manner as they did others for the provinces in possession of the French, submitting to, and alleging themselves content under their domination. In case this puerile measure of the prolific genius of Spain should not produce a due effect, the envoy (and for this purpose an American, a native of Caracas, was selected) was ordered, that in case the energy of the country, now called rebellion, should prevail against fraternity, (the name given to perfidy), he was to add fuel to the flame already kindled in Coro and Maracaibo, and that discord, again raising her serpent head, might lead the herald of the cortes by the hand under the banner of rebellion through those deceived districts of Venezuela that had not been able to-triumph over their oppressing tyrants.

"Stratagems and artifices were repeatedly forged, in order that duplicity and cunning might prepare the road for the sanguinary armies of the chiefs of Coro, Maracaibo, and Puerto Rico; and when the cortes were convinced that the conduct of Ferdinand, his bonds of affinity with the emperor of the French, and his influence over all the Bourbons already placed under his tutelage, began to weaken the insidious impressions, which fidelity, sustained by illusion, had produced in the Americans; preventatives were employed to stop the flame already kindled, and limit it to what was yet necessary for their vast complicated and dark designs. For this purpose was written the eloquent manifest which the cortes on the ninth of January directed against America, worded in a stile worthy of a better object; but under the brilliancy of diction the dark side of the argument, designed to deceive, was discovered. Fearing that we should be the first to protest against the whole of these nullities, they began to calculate on what was already known, not to risk what was yet hidden. The misfortunes of Ferdinand were the pretexts that had obtained for his pseudo-representatives the treasures, submission, and slavery of America; and Ferdinand seduced, deceived, and prostituted to the designs of the emperor of the French, is now the last resource to which they fly to extinguish the flames of liberty which Venezuela had kindled in the south continent. We have discovered and published the true spirit of the manifest in question, reduced to the following reasoning, which may be considered as an exact commentary:--'America is threatened with becoming the victim of a foreign power, or of continuing to be our slave; but in order to recover her rights, and to throw off all dependency whatever, she has considered it necessary not violently to break the bonds that held her to this country. Ferdinand has been the signal of reunion which the new world had adopted, and we have followed; he is suspected of connivance with the emperor of the French, and if we give ourselves up blindly to him, we afford the Americans a pretext for believing us still his representatives; and as these designs already begin to be understood in some parts of America, let us previously manifest our intention not to acknowledge Ferdinand, except under certain conditions; these will never be carried into effect, and whilst Ferdinand neither in fact nor right is our king, we shall reign over America, the country we so much covet, which although so difficult to preserve in slavery, will not then so easily slip through our fingers.' Such are the expressions illustrative of the opinions of Spaniards, agitated in the cortes, respecting the allegiance to Ferdinand.

"The above brilliant appearance of liberality is now the real and visible spring of the complicated machine destined to excite and stir up commotions in America; at the same time that within the walls of the cortes justice towards us is overlooked, our efforts are eluded, our resolutions are contemned, our enemies are supported, the voices of our imaginary representatives are suppressed, the inquisition is renewed against them, when the liberty of the press is proclaimed, and it is controversially discussed whether the regency could or could not declare us free, and one integral part of the nation. When an American, worthy of that name, speaks against the abuses of the regency in Puerto Rico, endeavours are made to silence his just, energetic, and imperious claims, that distinguish him from the slaves of despotism, and by means of a short, cunning, and insignificant decree, they strive to avoid the conflict of justice against iniquity. Melendés, named by the regency king of Puerto Rico, is by a decree of the cortes left with the equivalent investiture of a governor, names synonymous in America, because it now appeared too monstrous to have two kings in a small island of the Spanish Antilles. Cortavarria only was capable of eluding the effects of a decree dictated merely by a momentary fit of decency. It happened that when the investiture, granted by the regency to Melendes was declared iniquitous, arbitrary, and tyrannical, and a revocation was extended to all the countries of America, then situated as was Puerto Rico, nothing was said of the plenipotentiary Cortavarria, authorized by the same regency against Venezuela, with powers the most uncommon and scandalous ever registered in the annals of organized despotism.

"After this decree of the cortes the effects of discord promoted, sustained, and denied at the fatal observatory of Puerto Rico were more severely felt; it was after this decree that the fishermen and coasters were inhumanly assassinated in Ocumare, by the pirates of Cortavarria, after the report of which Cumana and Barcelona were blockaded, threatened, and summoned. A new and sanguinary conspiracy against Venezuela was formed, and organized by a vile emissary, who perfidiously entered the peaceable bosom of his country, in order to destroy it; deceptions were successively practised on the most innocent and laborious classes of the imported colonists of Venezuela, principally emigrants from the Canary Islands, and in spite of our endeavours the chief instigators were led to the block as a sacrifice to justice and to tranquillity. By the suggestions of the pacificator of the cortes, and posterior to their said decree, the political union of our constitution was lacerated in Valencia; attempts were made in vain to reduce other cities of the interior; a false summons was sent to Carora, by the factious leaders of the west, to the end that Venezuela might on the same day be deluged in blood, and sunk in affliction and desolation, and be hostilely assaulted from every point within the reach of the conspirators, who were scattered amongst us by the same government that issued the decree in favour of Puerto Rico and of all America. The name of Ferdinand VII. is the pretext under which the new world is about to be laid waste, if the example of Venezuela does not henceforward cause the standard of our unshaken and established liberty to be distinguished from the banners of a seditious and dissembled fidelity.

"The bitter duty of vindicating ourselves would carry us still further, if we did not dread splitting on the same rocks as have the governments of Spain, by substituting resentment for justice; at the same time that we can charge her with three centuries of acts of injustice, we have opposed three years of lawful, generous, and philanthropic efforts to obtain what it was never in our power to dispose of, although by nature ours. Had gall and poison been the chief agents of this our solemn, true, and candid manifest, we should have begun by destroying the rights of Ferdinand, in consequence of the illegitimacy of his origin, declared by his mother at Bayonne, and published in the French and Spanish papers; we should have proved the personal defects of Ferdinand, his ineptitude to reign, his weak and degrading conduct in the court at Bayonne; his inefficient education, and the futile securities that offered for the realization of the gigantic hopes of the governments of Spain; hopes founded in the illusion of America, nor any other support than the political interests of England, much opposed to the rights of the Bourbons. The public opinion of Spain, and the experience of the revolution of the kingdom, furnish us with sufficient proofs of the conduct of the mother, and the qualifications of the son, without recurring to the manifest of the minister Azanza, published after the transactions of Bayonne, and the secret memoirs of Maria Luisa; but decency is the guide of our conduct, to which we are ready to sacrifice even our reason. Sufficient has already been alleged to prove the justice, necessity, and utility of our resolution, for the support of which, nothing is wanting but the examples by which we will strive to justify our independence.

"It were necessary for the partizans of slavery in the new world either to destroy, or to falsify history, that unchangeable monument of the rights and of the usurpations of the human race, before they could maintain that America was not liable to the same changes that all other nations have experienced. Even when the rights of the Bourbons had been incontestible and indelible, the oath that we have proved never did exist, the injustice, force, and deceit with which the same was exacted of us would suffice to render it null and void, so soon as it was found to be opposed to our liberty, grievous to our rights, prejudicial to our interests, and fatal to our tranquillity. Such is the nature of an oath made to the conquerors and to their heirs, at the same time that the crown holds them in oppression by means of the same additional strength that it obtained by means of the result of their conquest. It was in this manner that Spain herself recovered her rights, after she had sworn allegiance to the Carthagenians, Romans, Goths, Arabs, and almost to the French; nevertheless she yet disowns the rights of America, no longer to depend on any nation when she is capable of throwing off the yoke, and following the example of Spain and of other nations.

"It would be superfluous to remind our enemies of what they already knew, and in what they have themselves founded the sacred right of their own liberty and independence; epochs so memorable, that they ought not to have been tarnished with the slavery of the greater part of a country situated on the other side of the ocean. But unfortunately it is not they alone whom it is necessary to convince by palpable examples of the justice and common resemblance that our independence bears to that of all other nations which had lost and again recovered it. The illusions of slavery, kept alive by the candour of the Americans, and supported by the most criminal abuse that superstition can form of the established belief and religion, which one would suppose were only dictated for the happiness, liberty, and salvation of the people, namely, by the excommunications denounced against the people of Caracas for changing their government, render it necessary to tranquillize the deceived piety of some, to instruct their unwary ignorance, and stimulate their apathy, that had slumbered since the unusual tranquillity of the new order of things: in short, it is time to inculcate, that governments never had nor ever can have any other duration than the utility and happiness of the human race may require; that kings are not of any privileged nature, nor of an order superior to other men; that their authority emanates from the people, directed and supported by the providence of God, who leaves our actions to our own free-will; that his omnipotence does not interfere in favour of any peculiar form of government; and that neither religion nor its ministers can anathematize the efforts of a nation struggling to be free and independent in the political order of things, and resolved to depend only on God and his ministers in a moral and religious sense.

"The very people of God, governed by himself, and guided by such miracles, portentous signs and favors as will perhaps never again be repeated, offer a proof of the rights of insurrection on the part of the people sufficiently satisfactory to the orthodox piety of the friends of public order. The subjects of Pharaoh, and bound by force to obey him, collect round Moses, and under his guidance triumph over their enemies, and recover their independence without being blamed by God or his prophet and legislator, Moses, for their conduct, or being subjected by them to the least malediction or anathema. This same people being afterwards subjected by the forces of Nebuchadnezzar; first--under the direction of Holofernes, Judith was sent by God to procure their independence by the death of the Babylonian general. Under Antiochus, Epiphanes, Mattathias and his sons raised the standard of independence, and God blessed and aided their efforts till he obtained the entire liberty of his people against the oppression of that impious king and his successors. Not only against the foreign kings who oppressed them did the Israelites resort to the right of insurrection by breaking through the obedience to force; but even against those whom God had given them in their own country and of their own nation do we behold them claim this imprescriptable right wherever their liberty and their advantage required it, or when the sacred character of those facts by which God himself bound them to those he chose as their governors, had been profaned. David obtained the allegiance of the Israelites in favour of his dynasty, and his son Solomon ratified it in favour of his posterity; but at the death of this king, who had oppressed his subjects by exactions and contributions to support the splendour of his court and the luxury and sumptuousness of his pleasures, then the tribes of Judah and Benjamin alone acknowledged his son, and the other ten, availing themselves of their rights, recovered their political independence, and in excuse thereof deposited their sovereignty in Jereboam, the son of Nabath. The momentary and passing hardships of the reign of Solomon were sufficient for the Israelites to annul their obedience sworn to his line, and to place another on the throne without waiting for an order from the Deity, informing them, that their fate no longer depended on the kings of Judah, nor on the ministers, chiefs, or priests of Solomon. And shall the Christian people of Venezuela and of all Spanish America be still in a worse plight, and after being declared free by the government of Spain after three hundred years of captivity, exactions, hardships, and injustice, shall they not be allowed to do what the God of Israel, whom they equally adore, formerly permitted to his people without being spurned, and without vengeance being hurled upon their heads? It is his divine hand that guides our conduct, and to his eternal judgments our resolution shall be submitted.

"If the independence of the Hebrew people was not a sin against the written law, that of a Christian people cannot be such against the law of grace. At no time has the apostolical see excommunicated any nation that has risen against the tyranny of those kings or governments which had violated the social compact. The Swiss, Dutch, French, and North Americans proclaimed their independence, overturned their constitution, and varied their forms of government without having incurred any other spiritual censures than those which the church might have fulminated for the infringements on the belief, discipline, or piety, but without their being connected with political measures or alluding to the civil transactions of the people. The Swiss were bound by oath to Germany, as were also the Dutch to Spain, the French to Louis XVI., and the North Americans to George III.; yet neither they nor the princes that favoured their independence were excommunicated by the Pope. The grandfather of Ferdinand VII., one of the most pious and catholic kings that ever filled the throne of Spain, together with his nephew, Louis XVI., protected the independence of North America, without dreading ecclesiastical censures or the anger of heaven; and now that the order and succession of events more justly place it within the reach of South America, those who call themselves the authorized agents of the grandson wish to abuse that same religion so much respected by Charles III., in order to prolong the most atrocious and unparalleled usurpations. Just, omnipotent, and most merciful God! Till when will fanaticism dispute the empire of that sacred religion which thou sent to the uncorrupted regions of America for thy glory and her felicity.

"The events which have accumulated in Europe to terminate the bondage of America, beyond doubt entered into the high designs of Providence. Placed at a transatlantic distance of two thousand leagues, we have done nothing in the three years which have elapsed since we ought to be free and independent, till the period when we resolved to be so, than pass through the bitter trials of stratagems, conspiracies, insults, hostilities, and depredations on the part of that same nation whom we invite to partake of the good of our regeneration, and for whose welfare we wished to open the gates of the new world, heretofore closed to all communication with the old one, now wasted and inflamed by war, hunger, and desolation. Three distinct oligarchies have declared war against us, have despised our claims, have excited civil dissensions amongst us, have sown the seeds of discord and mistrust in our great family, have planned three horrible conspiracies against our liberty, have interrupted our trade, have suppressed our agriculture, have traduced our conduct, and have sought to raise against us an European power, by vainly imploring its aid to oppress us. The same flag, the same language, the same religion, the same laws, have till now confounded the party of liberty with that of tyranny: Ferdinand VII. as liberator, has been opposed to Ferdinand VII. as oppressor; and if we had not resolved to abandon a name at the same time synonymous with crime and virtue, America would in the end be enslaved by the same power that is exercised for the independence of Spain.

"Such has been the nature of the imperious impulse of conviction, tending to open our eyes, and to impel Venezuela to separate eternally from a name so ominous and so fatal. Placed by it in the irrevocable alternative of being the slave or the enemy of her brethren, she has preferred the purchase of her own freedom at the expense of friendship, without destroying the means of that reconciliation she desired. The most powerful reasons, the most serious meditations, the most profound considerations, long discussions, contested debates, well analyzed combinations, imperious events, imminent dangers, and the public opinion clearly pronounced and firmly sustained, have been the precursors of that solemn declaration made on the fifth of July, by the general congress of Venezuela, of the absolute independence of this part of South America; an act sighed for and applauded by the people of the capital, sanctioned by the powers of the confederation, acknowledged by the representatives of the provinces, sworn to and hailed by the chief of the church of Venezuela, and to be maintained with the lives, fortunes, and honour of all the citizens.

"Freemen, companions of our fate! Ye who have known how to divest your hearts of fear, or of hope; give from the elevation on which your virtues have placed you an impartial and disinterested look on the portrait that Venezuela has just traced out to you. She constitutes you the arbitrators of her differences with Spain, and the judges of her new destinies. If you have been affected by our evils, and are interested in our felicity, unite your efforts with ours, that the artifices of ambition may not any longer triumph over liberality and justice.

"To you it belongs to convince Spain of what an unfortunate rivalship places beyond the reach of America. Refrain the giddiness that has seized on her new governments; point out to them the reciprocal advantages of our regeneration; unfold to them the soothing prospect that they are prevented from beholding in America by that monopoly which has hardened their hearts; tell them what threatens them in Europe, and point out to them what they may expect in America, tranquil, uncorrupted, and already covered with all the blessings of liberty; nay swear to them in our name, that Venezuela awaits her brethren with open arms to share with them her happiness without asking any other sacrifice than that of prejudice, pride, and ambition, which for three centuries have produced the united misery of both countries."

"Juan Antonio Rodriguez Dominguez, _President_."

"Francisco Isnardy, _Secretary_."

"_Federal Palace of Caracas, July 30th, 1811._"

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The occurrences at Quito also bear testimony to this.

[2] Montufar, Villavicencio, Goyoneche.

[3] Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane.