SPAIN AND HER FORMER COLONIES.
TiMES—The Government of this country would depart from every profes-iien which it has made on every occasion, when the loans of its subjects to foreign Powers came into question, if it hazarded an hour of national peace, or wasted it shilling of the public money, to secure the fulfilment of contracts which it neither invited nor guaranteed ; but in using its diplomatic influence with our new allies, to inculcate the policy of an hottent discharge of their engagements, and with Spain to free them, by a speedy reeoenition of their independence, front those alarms of invasion by solid, without any advantage to herself, she prevents them from settling down into such habits of order and industry as may eventually benefit their creditors, it only performs in duty which any im- pel-mut class of our fellow-citizens has a right to expect from its humanity and justice. But more important considerations than the recovery of the stakes hazarded in gambling loans, are invohed in the present relations of Spain with her ancient coloines. It now seems evident that she never can reimpose on the new states—disorganized and distracted though they be—her colonial yoke ; and that nothing but that obstinacy which prevented her from recoguizing the independence of Holland till the peace of Westphalia, and of Portugal till the cud of two reigns, now restrains her from acknowledging the independent rights of tire new trans-Atlantic republics. In the mean time,
their internal order must be exposed to perpetual danger from her menaces and intrigues, and their commercial intercourse with Europe to constant inter- ruption from her naval warfare, however feeble and ineffective. This un- happy state of things has continued too long, and the best exertions of European Governments ought to be employed to bring it to an end. The interests of both worlds ought not to be sacrificed to a false pride or stubborn obstinacy.
Previous page
