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TEXAS STATE LIBRARY
it was impossible to enforce the policy to the extent intended; for in- spite of every vigilance and precaution, books·_would be introduced, and were sought after and read with more avidity for the very reason of their proscription. The works denounced were the most devoured. The growth of intelligence, under such circumstances was necessarily very slow. It was chiefly confined to the higher orders, without pro- ducing any immediate and material change upon the general character of the nation. The great body of the people remained essentially the same; and although they had been gradually emerging, with the growth of population, from their ancient darkness; yet they were far from being awakened to a knowledge of their humiliating condition, or hav- ing any clear conception of the principles of free government. The great masses still abided in their blind devotion to the power which enslaved them, without daring to think of a better state of things. It is true that the -Creoles were greatly imbittered against the Gachupins of ::Vlexico; but this hostility did not extend to the mother country, which still commanded their veneration and respect.- · 'l'hus we see, that Notwithstanding their accumulated wrongs and outrages-the in- sult, degradation and oppression to which they were daily subjected- they still continued faithful in their allegiance to Old Spain, and be- lieved her the most powerful and enlightened of all nations. Such was the condition of the people of l\fexico at the time of the French invasion of the Peninsula in 1808. Up to that period, they had never ceased to boast of the Spanish blood that flowed in their veins, or hesitated for a moment in their obedience to the arbitrary and op- pressive mandates of the King. How long this state of things would have continued, had it not been interrupted by the events of that epoch, it is difficult to conjecture; but there is one thing certain, that the Revo- lution which followed, was not the offspring of the people's own free- will. That they were reluctantly forced into it by the ingratitude and folly of the mother country, will appear from a review of the events that conducted to it. The immediate causes that produced the out- break, will form the subject of the next chapter. Some writers have attempted to exhonorate the Court of Spain from the responsibility of the excesses which were committed in the colonies to the disgrace of the Spanish character, by imputing them to unprin- cipled agents who were either too powerful or too remote to be re- strained by law. This may possibly be in part true with respect to the first Conquerers of the country; but even then, the Spanish :Monarchs, with exception of the good and pious Isabella, was duly alert in secur- ing their portion of the gains which were wrung from the life-blood of this unfortunate race.- If they possessed any sympathy or compassion for the Indians, they certainly evinced none for the Creoles; who were doomed to as manywrongs and hardships as the Aborigines; and if they did not perish as those under their heavy oppressions, it was because the [y] were born under the system tyranny-was enured to it-knew nothing else, and was more docile under the y~ke, than the wild, un- tamable race that perished in the breaking.- Very little reflection will shew that nearly all the repudiated evils, instead of being solely imputable to ·the agents of the government, were the natural and un- avoidable consequences of the system itself and inherent in it. The Colonial Policy of Spain, never could have been carried out by scrupu-
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