492
TEXAS STATE LTBRARY
Such were the principles, and such the mode of reasoning that in- fluenced the councils of the mother country in the beginning of the tlifficulties with her colonies. Her great error consisted in her for- getting what tyrants seem fated never to remember or regard, that all government has to be in harmony with the character and condition of .the people; and that even the most abject and submissive of the human race may be driven to desperation by intolerable wrongs. The Creoles in 1808 were a different people from what they were in the sixteenth century, and therefore required to be governed by very different laws; but blind to the necessity of making those motlifications in her govern- ment which the progress of intelligence had rendered imperious, Old Spain still hoped to maintain her authority in the colonies unimpaired; and to coerce by physical force that obedience and submission which had been formerly rendered in a great measure, through ignorance and superstition, and more recently through voluntary homage and sincere devotion.- It was upon this hope that the Gachupins acted in the arrest of Iturrigaray. As his was the first attempt at an exercise of self-government in Mexico, it was believed that the infliction of con- dign punishment upon him and his supporters, would fill the Creoles with alarm; and would quite suffice for the re-establishment of the old system of passive obedience and non-resistance in its former rigor and severity. But how different were the results from those expected. That high-handed measure, instead of extinguishing the sentiment of liberty, was the very thing that lighted its torch. It aroused the people to reflection, and engendered the first idea of a revolution-an idea which was, at the beginning, but a small spark, that might have been easily extinguished at the moment, but which was fanned by the folly and madness of the mother country, into a mighty flame that finally threw its hallowed mumination over the whole country. The generous enthusiasm of the Creoles in favor of Ferdinand and his cause was con- verted into hatred of the whole Spanish race; and the desire of free- dom and of Yengeance took deep root in the heart of the nation.- The arrest, however, of the Viceroy, though productive of universal indignation among the Creoles, did not immediately generalize the de- sire of a revolution. This had to be the work of time and circum- stances. The fies which had sprung up between the Colonies and the parent country during three hundred years, could not be disruptured in a moment.- She may have acted the part of a cruel parent; but the Creoles knew no other mother, and the old feeling of reverence and respect which they had been taught to cherish towards her, still lin- gered in the heart inspite of all their just resentments. It is true that the dissencions of the Royal family, the occurrences at Bayonne, and the invasion of the peninsula by the french, had somewhat im- paired, the prestige, which attached to the name of Spain. Still she was regarded b~, the masses with superstitiou;i veneration; and the idea of <hawing the sword against the mother country, had not yet lost its religious horror.- These feelings, however, diminished daily. They gradually gave way under the influx of light which was cont~n- ually pouring in, upon the minds of the benighted multitude. Insp1te of the double vigilance and rigor of the government, books found their way into the country; and the press for the first time began to discuss political affairs. Indeecl it was impossible that the Creoles could have
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