Indiana Republican, Volume 1, Number 29, Madison, Jefferson County, 12 July 1817 — Page 1

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VOL. I.

MADISON, (INDIANA) -SATURDAY, JULT 12, 1817.

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'ashington City, june 7. a fording to a former promise, jfer to the readers of the NaIntelligencer, to day, the iencement of some observafrom the new work of M. adt, concerning the colonies present revolution of AmeriThe author was formerly jishop of Malii cs, and has f made some figure in EuI as a writer, on several occaThe subject which he s under consideration is untedly one of the greatest im;nce to the whole civilized J, and, from obvious consid3ns, is peculiarly interesting e people and government of United States. After having isscd various preliminary Is, M. de Pradt, in his 21st ler, puts these questions : s Spain the power to rc-con-' her Americas? Ought Spain )it ? I then proceeds to discuss he calls this great question, that (he says) depends the bf the whole colonial system; it depends upon the result of jtruggle carried on between n and America ; for if thisj r remains independent, as evthing leads to the belief that will, by that event itself all ler colonies will become so. act, what are these colonies I the Antilles and Canada ? jse only will remain dependent 1st the rest of America will be and that within the reach of I United Stat es, with all ' the fives which they now have, or y have hereafter, to complete ? general independence of A

merica, with the charge of them, which, in such a state of hostility and immense separation, it has cj)st England. It would be well worth asccrtainiig what Canada has cost the English during their late war with America. It may be allowed to conjecture that the disbursments exceeded the income in a ten fold proportion. It would require the same for the Antilles, which surrouded by large independent colonies, not requiring the same vigilance of protection, it would be difficult to defend from them, and, in this dependent state, could no longer pretend to rival the culture of the free colonies. Meanwhile, from the Straits of Magellan to California, upon an extended line of 19 hundred leagues, they are fighting, ruining, ancl exterminating each other : it is a vast tomb, which the fury of man has once more opened for himself. It is for the second time, after an interval of three centuries, that the Spaniards exterminate the population of America : the first time, because the condition of the latter was inferior to their own ; the second, because that population have had the audacity to assert their equality I On several occasions, among others in 1768, the natives have attempted to regain the empire of their own country, and to chase out their masters. If the enterprise formed by Tupac Amaru had been crowned with success, an end would have been put to the dominion of the Spaniards in America: but the present is quite a different affair it is no longer the natives, who pursue their masters, arms in hand ; it is the Spa niards themselves, who, uniting with a portion of the natives, combat the mother country, and demand assisance from the ancient Americans, in breaking the yoke of Spain. As we see, the scene is greatly changed, and the action proceeds towards a very different conclusion. The movement, beginning in the provinces of the Terra Firma, has extended itself in a twinklin over this vast continent ; so that the whole will soon find itself ripe for the event. They have profitted of the embarrassments which Spain has experienced in Europe, to effect their object. Scarcely had she become treed from the invader, than she was occupied with America ; but there she found a people who, like herself, in resisting the domination of Joseph, prepared themselves to repulse their own proper sovereign, and would no more submit to Spain than Spain would to France. Spain has presented herself to

America with her ancient laws, and troops to compel the colonists to accept them. Unshaken in her principles of colonial exclusion, over which the council of the Indies watches as the dragon watches over the garden of the Hesperides, she has proposed to America to shut her self up from every body but Spain, and to serve none but her. To sustain these demands, she has thrown into America some thousands of men, the armed restorers of her empire; she prepares herself to reinforce these envoys ; she counts upon the diversions which the royalists will make in her favor, excited mainly by the Spanish clergy of America, who, there as every where else,show themselves the ardent abettors of absolute power. Spain has made Carthagena her place of arms ; from thence her forces will be enabled to transport themselves to the coasts of the South sea, and take in reverse Mexico and Peru. Assuredly this is a part of the plan, the executian of which has been confided to general Morillo. The most strict re-assumption of the exclusive system of policy has been proclaimed, and every where that Spain becomes mistress, where her partizans gain the ascendant, he revives the former law, in such a manner that the end of the liberty of the country is also an end to rhe liberty of the commerce, and that, in submitting to Spain, America also submits to the ports of the peninsula. It is this which must riot be lost sight of in taking a view of this question. From this single motive the Europeans have been induced to " become parties to the cause ; for there is not an individual of them who does not entertain a very lively interest in relation to it, as will be shewn by and by. They feel very sensibly that a prohibition of this nature, sub stituted for a free commerce, is not calculated to restore dissatified colonies to so burdensome a parent country. Accordingly, in recent times, Havanna has been seen to intimmidate its Vice Roy into a relinquishment of the exclusive system with which he had oppressed Cuba. He was compelled to retire before the murmurs of a population, formed to habitudes too far removed from the maxims of the council of the Indies and monopoly of Cadiz, to suffer itself to be reclaimed by a simple mandate from the mother country. From this state of things arise 2 questions : 1. Can Spain .re-conquer her colonies ? 2. Is she able to preserve them ? The best method of deciding

these questions is, doubtless, to compare the means of attack and of defence ; the means of preservation, with their difficulties ; & the expense of protecting these colonies. Spain reckons eleven millions of inhabitants. America fifteen millions. Balance in favor of the colon y, four millions. Spain has twenty-five thousand square leagues. , ; J America four hundred and six-ty-eight thousand. Spain can only attack America with a very small part of her population, as England did with regard to the U. States ; nor will she be enabled to direct against the Americans the auxiliary troops which England sent to combat the U. States, those who, at that time, they called insurgents. Id this combat with her colonies, Spain, therefore, will be reduced to her own particular forces ; s he would operate, of course, as she has hitherto done, by bodies of troops, few in nomber, but at distant intervals, and of which the assembling, the departure, the transportation, and the arrival, aresubject to all the inconveniencies attached to such expeditions among every people, and particularly among a people slow in their movementSjbadly provided with the means suitable for these large embarkations, little careful in the selection of the crews of their ves1 sels, and but little mindful of that exactitude of detail which contributes so much to the good direction of armaments of this nature. W hat a contrast would an expedition of this kind, prepared by the Spaniards, form to one that should be prepared by the English! The armaments of the Spaniards are accordingly feeble, and always embarrassed by the very nature of the Spanish administration itself : but, what are these armaments in compam'son with a country such as that of America, so vast, so difficult to penetrate by divisions of an army ; there, where they have neither roads, nor passages over numerous and extensive rivers, where the towns are separated by grest distances, where you must travel over immense spaces to attain any object whatever, where there are neither magazines, nor places of safety, nor hospitals ? America will be defended by her climate, the attacks whereof the Europeans cannot encounter without the greatest danger. Before a corps of ten thousand men could be formed at Cadiz, pass a few months together,land and render some services, it would be reduced at least a third. The natives are not ub-