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TEXAS STATE LIBRARY
that they were no longer regarded in the light of Colonies but as com- ponent parts of the Spanish Monarchy-that they were 'entitled to a representation of the proposed Congress-and that the Americans were to enjoy a perfect equality of rights with their European brethren. These concessions were reiterated by the Regency, who in calling upon the Colonies to proceed to the election of their delegates to the Con- gress, accompanied their decree, with an appeal to the people declaring that they were now raised to the dignity of freemen, having their des- tiny in their own hands, and no longer dependent for their rights, upon the will of Kings, Viceroys and governors. The press of the peninsula was loud in support of the same thing-addressing the people of Spain as sovereigns, the Creoles as equals, and all classes in general, not as subjects but as citizens ;-and in order to make assurances doubly sure, the Regency, in a Decree dated 17th May 1810, granted to the Col- onies a temporary free-trade-a measure of vast importance to them, and which although limited as to time and encumbered with restric- tions, was nevertheless well calculated of itself to promote the desired object. The demands of the Colonies were, indeed, more than met by these concessions, and a reconciliation would have ensued without further difficulty, had the concessions been carried into practical operation. But such was not the design of the mother country. It never was her intention to concede to the Colonies one solitary right of any essential value; or in the slightest degree to relinquish her ancient system of exclusion and monopoly. Her sole purpose seems to have been to amuse the Colonies with hopes which were never to be realized; and by her deceiptful and fallacious promises to keep them from a general outbreak, until she should find herself in a situation to throw her Ana- conda folds around them again with double pressure. The free-trade Concession of 1Iay 17th 1810 was recinded almost as soon as made. This was done in obedience to the dictation of the merchants of Cadiz whose profits were diminished by it, and who had sufficient power to roerce its repeal. The Regency not only abrogated the act, but denounced the Decree as a forgery, and actually punished some of the subalterns of the Department, in order to escape the re- sponsibility of having sanctioned it. This vacillating and cowardly conduct, could not fail to to [sic] augment the general incredulity of the colonies with regard to all the pledges of the government, and to strengthen the conviction that they would finally have to rely upon themselves for a redress of their grievances. The boasted concession of National representation, and equality of rights, resulted in like manner. It amounted to no concession at all. It was but the paltering with the Colonies in a double sense. The solemn assurances that the Colonies were merged with the Peninsula in a common :Monarchy, and that there was no distinction between the European and the American subjects, when stripped of their verbage and reduced to practice amounted to nothing more than this-that the transatlantic Provinces should be allowed to send twenty six delegates to the intended National Congress, on condition of their falling back into their former dependence, and rendering their accustomed obe- dience to the Mother Country. The Viceroy, the Audiencia, and the prohibitory laws and commercial restrictions-the very things com-
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