Chapter 67

England and Spanish America--A Significant Declaration--The Key to England's Policy in South America--Alexander Hamilton and the South Americans--President Adams' Grandson a Filibuster--Origin of the Revolutions in South America--Colonial Zeal for Spain--Colonists Driven to Fight for Independence--A War of Extermination--Patriot Leaders--The British Assist the Revolutionists--American Caution and Reserve--The Monroe Doctrine--Why England Championed the Spanish-American Republics-- A Free Field Desired for British Trade--The Holy Alliance--Secretary Canning and President Monroe--The Monroe Declaration Not British, But American.

The same motives which had prompted England to impose oppressive restrictions upon American trade, thereby driving the colonies to strike for independence, prompted her to assist South America in throwing off the yoke of Spain. England did not expect to conquer Spain's American colonies for herself, but she desired to liberate them in order to annex them commercially. Hardly had King George recognized the independence of the United States when his ministers were scheming to effect the independence of South America. As early as June 26, 1797, Thomas Picton, governor of the British island of Trinidad, in the West Indies, issued an address to certain revolutionists in Venezuela in which, speaking by authority of the British Minister of Foreign Affairs, he said:

"The object which at present I desire most particularly to recommend to your attention, is the means which might be best adapted to liberate the people of the continent near to the Island of Trinidad, from the oppressive and tyrannic system which supports, with so much rigor, the monopoly of commerce, under the title of exclusive registers, which their government licenses demand; also to draw the greatest advantages possible, and which the local situation of the island presents, by opening a direct and free communication with the other parts of the world, without prejudice to the commerce of the British nation. In order to fulfill this intention with greater facility, it will be prudent for your Excellency to animate the inhabitants of Trinidad in keeping up the communication which they had with those of Terra Firma, previous to the reduction of that island; under the assurance, that they will find there an _entrepôt_, or general magazine, of every sort of goods whatever. To this end, his Britannic Majesty has determined, in council, to grant freedom to the ports of Trinidad, with a direct trade to Great Britain.

"With regard to the hopes you entertain of raising the spirits of those persons, with whom you are in correspondence, toward encouraging the inhabitants to resist the oppressive authority of their government, I have little more to say, than that they may be certain that, whenever they are in that disposition, they may receive, at your hands, all the succors to be expected from his Britannic Majesty, be it with forces, or with arms and ammunition to any extent; with the assurance, that the views of his Britannic Majesty go no further than to secure to them their independence, without pretending to any sovereignty over their country, nor even to interfere in the privileges of the people, nor in their political, civil or religious rights."

This declaration is the key to Great Britain's policy in Spanish America during the century since it was issued. The conspiracy which evoked Governor Picton's plain statement of England's attitude toward the South American colonies, was discovered by the Spanish authorities, and J. M. Espana, one of its leaders, was executed.[1] William Pitt continued to scheme for Spanish-American independence, and succeeded in enlisting the sympathy of Alexander Hamilton and Rufus King, American Minister at London. President John Adams, however, would have nothing to do with the movement, which he regarded as a plot to drive the United States into a British alliance against the French, and possibly this may have been in the mind of Pitt. The American people were not as cold as the President, however, on the subject of South America, and Francisco Miranda, a voluntary exile from Venezuela on account of his republican principles, succeeded in organizing a filibustering force in New York, one of the members of which was a grandson of the President himself. The expedition was defeated and nearly all engaged in it were captured by the Spaniards, among them young William S. Smith, John Adams' grandson. Yrujo, the Spanish Minister at Washington, offered to interpose in behalf of a pardon for the young man, but President Adams declined to use his exalted office to obtain any respite for the youth who had so unfortunately proved his inheritance of the old Adams' devotion to liberty. "My blood should flow upon a Spanish scaffold," wrote America's chief magistrate, "before I would meanly ask or accept a distinction in favor of my grandson." The young man's life was spared, however, and he returned to the United States.

[1] Espana was hanged and quartered. A writer in the New York _Sun_, commenting on Espana's death, said that "thus in the eighteenth century Spain repeated the barbarism perpetrated by England on William Wallace in 1305." It is unnecessary to go back to William Wallace or off the American continent for an act of barbarity similar to Espana's execution. In the same decade, one McLean, a former resident, if not a citizen of the United States, was hanged and quartered in Canada, by the sentence of a British court, on a trumped up charge of having been engaged in a treasonable conspiracy.

Francisco Miranda, who had made his escape to Barbadoes, raised a force of four hundred men, with the assistance of the British, landed in Venezuela, and proclaimed a provisional government. This expedition was also unsuccessful, and Miranda retired under the protection of a British man-of-war. At this time there was no general feeling in South America in favor of independence. Although some scattering sparks from the sacred altar of liberty had found their way into Spanish America; notwithstanding the severity of the colonial system, and the corruptions and abuses of power which everywhere prevailed; such was the habitual loyalty of the creoles of America; such the degradation and insignificance of the other races; so inveterate were the prejudices of all, and so powerful was the influence of a state religion, maintained by an established hierarchy, that it is probable the colonies would have continued, for successive ages, to be governed by a nation six thousand miles distant, who had no interest in common with them, and whose oppressions, they had borne for three centuries, had not that nation been shaken at home, by an extraordinary revolution, and its government overturned.[2]

[2] See Huntington's "View of South America and Mexico."

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Among other good results which the ambition of Napoleon Bonaparte produced without intention on his part, was the uprising against Spanish oppression in South America. When Napoleon compelled Ferdinand to abdicate the crown of Spain in favor of Joseph Bonaparte, the loyalty and spirit of the Spaniards were aroused, and the people refused to submit to a monarch imposed on them by treachery and supported by foreign bayonets. In the provinces not occupied by the French, juntas were established which assumed the government of their districts; and that at Seville, styling itself the supreme junta of Spain and the Indies, despatched deputies to the different governments in America, requiring an acknowledgment of its authority; to obtain which, it was represented that the junta was acknowledged and obeyed throughout Spain. At the same time the regency created at Madrid by Ferdinand when he left his capital, and the junta at Asturias, each claimed superiority, and endeavored to direct the affairs of the nation.

Napoleon, on his part, was not less attentive to America; agents were sent in the name of Joseph, king of Spain, to communicate to the colonies the abdication of Ferdinand, and Joseph's accession to the throne, and to procure the recognition of his authority by the Americans. Thus the obedience of the colonies was demanded by no less than four tribunals, each claiming to possess supreme authority at home. There could scarcely have occurred a conjuncture more favorable for the colonists to throw off their dependence on Spain, being convulsed, as she was, by a civil war, the king a prisoner, the monarchy subverted and the people unable to agree among themselves where the supreme authority was vested, or which of the pretenders was to be obeyed. The power of the parent state over its colonies was _de facto_ at an end; in consequence of which they were, in a measure, required to "provide new guards for their security." But so totally unprepared were the colonists for a political revolution that instead of these events being regarded as auspicious to their welfare, they only served to prove the strength of their loyalty and attachment to Spain. Notwithstanding that the viceroys and captain-generals, excepting the viceroy of New Spain, manifested a readiness to acquiesce in the cessions of Bayonne, to yield to the new order of things, and to sacrifice their king, provided they could retain their places, in which they were confirmed by the new king, the news of the occurrences in Spain filled the people with indignation; they publicly burnt the proclamations sent out by King Joseph, expelled his agents, and such was their rage that all Frenchmen in the colonies became objects of insult and execration. In their zeal, not for their own but for Spanish independence, the colonists, up to the year 1810, supplied not less than ninety millions of dollars to Spain to assist in carrying on the war against France.

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At length, about the year 1809, the people of the several provinces began to form juntas of their own, not with the object of throwing off the Spanish yoke, but the better to protect themselves, should the French succeed in establishing their power in the peninsula. The Spanish viceroys, alarmed for their own authority, met the movement with unsparing hostility. In the city of Quito the popular junta was suppressed by an armed force, and hundreds of persons were massacred and the city plundered by the Spanish troops. Notwithstanding these cruelties the people remained faithful to the crown of Spain, and the junta of Caracas, having deposed the colonial officers, and organized a new administration, still acted in the name of Ferdinand the Seventh, and offered to aid in the prosecution of the war against France. The impotent Council of Regency, which pretended to represent the ancient government in Spain, treated the position taken by the colonists as a declaration of independence, and sent troops to dragoon the Americans into submission. Thus the Spanish-Americans were compelled to assume an independence of the mother country which they had neither sought nor desired, and on July 5, 1811, Venezuela took the lead in formally casting off allegiance to Spain.

The war which followed was of the most sanguinary character. The patriots of South America were denounced as rebels and traitors, and the vengeance of the State, and the anathemas of the Church, directed against them. That a contest commenced under such auspices should have become a war of extermination, and in its progress have exhibited horrid scenes of cruelty, desolation, and deliberate bloodshed; that all offers of accommodation were repelled with insult and outrage; capitulations violated, public faith disregarded, prisoners of war cruelly massacred, and the inhabitants persecuted, imprisoned, and put to death, cannot occasion surprise, however much it may excite indignation. As violence and cruelty always tend to provoke recrimination and revenge, the outrages of the Spaniards exasperated the Americans, and led to retaliation, which rendered the contest a war of death, as it was often called, characterized by a ferocious and savage spirit, scarcely surpassed by that of Cortes and Pizarro. The violent measures of the Spanish rulers, and the furious and cruel conduct of their agents in America, toward the patriots, produced an effect directly contrary to what was expected; but which nevertheless might have been foreseen, had the Spaniards taken counsel from experience instead of from their mortified pride and exasperated feelings. Arbitrary measures, enforced with vigor and cruelty, instead of extinguishing the spirit of independence, only served to enliven its latent sparks and blow them into flame. Miranda died in chains, and Hidalgo, the patriot priest of Mexico, was put to death by his cruel captors, but Bolivar and Paez, Sucre and San Martin, led the patriot armies to ultimate victory, and established the independence of Spanish America. Only one great revolutionary leader, Iturbide, failed to follow the example of Washington. Iturbide attempted to found an imperial dynasty in Mexico, and lost his life and his crown. Bolivar, on the other hand, with a foresight worthy of Washington himself, sought to form a general confederation of all the States of what was formerly Spanish America, with the object of uniting the resources and means of the several States for their general defence and security. This great project was accepted by Chile, Peru and Mexico, and treaties concluded in accordance therewith.

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Throughout the South American struggle for independence Great Britain gave assistance to the patriots almost as freely and openly as if she had been at war with Spain. Veteran officers who had served in the British armies against Napoleon, joined the South American forces, and an Irish Legion of one thousand men, raised by General D'Evereux, sailed from Dublin for Colombia. A banquet was given to General D'Evereux, before his departure, at which two thousand guests were present, and the celebrated orator, Charles Philips, delivered a most eloquent address. Lord Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald, commanding the Chilian fleet, drove the Spaniards from the Pacific. American as well as English officers and seamen served under Cochrane's flag, and took part in his exploits, of which the most brilliant was the cutting out of a Spanish frigate from under the guns of Callao. Under the protection of the batteries of the castle of Callao lay three Spanish armed vessels, a forty-gun frigate and two sloops-of-war, guarded by fourteen gunboats. On the night of the fifth of November, 1820, Lord Cochrane, with 240 volunteers in fourteen boats, entered the inner harbor, and succeeded in cutting out the Spanish frigate with the loss of only forty-one men killed and wounded. The Spanish loss was 120 men. This success annihilated the Spanish naval power in those waters.

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When a commissioner from the patriots of New Grenada applied at Washington in 1812, for assistance, President Madison answered that "though the United States were not in alliance, they were at peace with Spain, and could not therefore assist the independents; still, as inhabitants of the same continent, they wished well to their exertions." Notwithstanding the policy of the government, founded on the dictates of prudence and caution, the people of the United States almost universally felt a deep and lively interest in the success of their brethren in South America, engaged in the same desperate struggle for liberty which they themselves had gone through. Near the close of the year 1817, the President of the United States appointed three commissioners, Messrs. Rodney, Bland, and Graham, to visit the revolted colonies in South America and to ascertain their political condition, and their means and prospects of securing their independence; and early in 1818, the legislators of Kentucky adopted resolutions, expressing their sense of the propriety and expediency of the national government acknowledging the independence of the South American republics. These resolutions probably emanated from the influence of Henry Clay, from the first a zealous and steadfast friend of the South American patriots. Some Americans joined the patriot forces, and supplies of ammunition and muskets were furnished to them from this country. President Monroe was able to state to Congress, in 1819, that the greatest care had been taken to enforce the laws intended to preserve an impartial neutrality. Briefly summed up, the attitude of the American government throughout the South American struggle was one of distance, caution and reserve, while England boldly ignored international laws, and fought her way through her filibusters to the hearts and the commerce of the Spanish-Americans.

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It is needless to go into extended discussion as to the authorship of the Monroe Doctrine. Intelligent self-interest inspired the United States and England to support the independence of South America. England's motive was chiefly commercial and partly political. She wanted Spanish America to be independent because the continent would thus be thrown open to British commerce, and because, not looking forward herself to territorial aggrandizement in that direction, she wished other powers to keep their hands off. The British government had no desire, in taking this position, to promote the growth and extension of republican institutions. The ruling class in Great Britain would doubtless have preferred to see every Spanish-American State a monarchy, provided that under monarchy it could be equally useful to the British empire and independent of every other European power. If England, in championing the Spanish-American republics seemed to champion republican institutions, it was because republican institutions gave the strongest assurance of political separation from Europe, and of a free field for Great Britain.[3]

[3] "The Spanish-American question is essentially settled. There will be no Congress upon it, and things will take their own course on that continent which cannot be otherwise than favorable to us. I have no objection to monarchy in Mexico; quite otherwise. Mr. Harvey's instructions authorize him to countenance and encourage any reasonable project for establishing it (project on the part of the Mexicans I mean), even in the person of a Spanish Infanta. But, as to putting it forward as a project, or proposition of ours, that is out of the question. Monarchy in Mexico, and monarchy in Brazil, would cure the evils of universal democracy, and prevent the drawing of the line of demarkation, which I most dread, America versus Europe. The United States naturally enough aim at this division, and cherish the democracy which leads to it. But I do not much apprehend their influence, even if I believed it. I do not altogether see any of the evidence of their activity in America. Mexico and they are too neighborly to be friends."--_Canning, to the British Minister at Madrid, December 31, 1823._

On the part of the United States the Monroe Doctrine was the formal and authoritative expression of a sentiment which had animated American breasts from the origin of the Republic. The Monroe Doctrine is based on patriotism and self-preservation, and the crisis which called it forth was of the gravest consequence to the American people. The Spanish empire in America had never been a menace to the United States. It was too decrepit to be dangerous. Conditions would have been very different with France, for instance, or Prussia, established as a great South American power. There was the strongest reason for believing that the governments of continental Europe combined in the "Holy Alliance" seriously intended to dispose the destinies of South America, as they had divided the continent of Europe. The primary object of the allied powers--the proscription of all political reforms originating from the people--could leave no doubt of the concern and hostility with which they viewed the development of events in Spanish America, and the probable establishment of several independent, free States, resting on institutions emanating from the will and the valor of the people. But there is more specific evidence of their hostile intentions--Don Jose Vaventine Gomez, envoy from the government of Buenos Ayres at Paris, in a note to the secretary of his government of the twentieth of April, 1819, said that "the diminution of republican governments was a basis of the plans adopted by the holy alliance for the preservation of their thrones; and that in consequence, the republics of Holland, Venice, and Genoa, received their deathblow at Vienna, at the very time that the world was amused by the solemn declaration that all the States of Europe would be restored to the same situation they were in before the French revolution. The sovereigns assembled at Aix la Chapelle, have agreed, secretly, to draw the Americans to join them in this policy, when Spain should be undeceived, and have renounced the project of re-conquering her provinces; and the king of Portugal warmly promoted this plan through his ministers." France also sought by intrigue to secure the acceptance by the United Provinces and Chile of a monarchical government under French protection.

For the reasons before stated these designs naturally alarmed Canning, England's distinguished Minister of Foreign Affairs, and he proposed to Mr. Rush, the American Minister at London, that Great Britain and the United States should join in a protest against European interference with the independent States of Spanish America. This was in September 1823, and in a message of December 2, following, President Monroe uttered his famous declaration to the effect that "the United States would consider any attempt on the part of the European powers to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety."[4] Mr. Monroe's motive in issuing this declaration was wholly American and patriotic. England's designs were inevitably aided by the action of the American President, and the English Government approved and their press applauded America's resolute course, but it was not to win English applause, but to defend the integrity of the United States that the Monroe Doctrine was proclaimed to the world. The opposition of Great Britain and the attitude of the United States proved more than the Holy Alliance cared to confront, and the nations of Spanish America were allowed to enjoy without further molestation the independence which they had gained by years of heroic effort and sacrifice.

[4] "They (the United States) have aided us materially. The Congress (Verona) was broken in all its limbs before, but the President's (Monroe's) speech gives it the coup de grace. While I was hesitating in September what shape to give the protest and declaration I sounded Mr. Rush, the American Minister here, as to his powers and disposition to join in any step which we might take to prevent a hostile enterprise on the part of the European powers against Spanish America. He had not powers, but he would have taken upon himself to join with us if we would have begun by recognizing the Spanish-American States. This we could not do, and so we went on alone. But I have no doubt that his report to his government of this sounding, which he probably represented as an overture, had a great share in producing the explicit declarations of the President."--_Canning to the British Minister at Madrid._

Progress.