96 MEXICO. It was in vain to struggle against nature, or to attempt to subdue the new spirit, which, within two years after the inva- sion of the Peninsula, began to appear amongst all classes of the Creoles. Its progress was both rapid, and irresistible ; and, without any previous concert amongst the parties them- selves, without even the possibility of foreign interference, a mighty revolution broke out at once, in almost every part of the New World. A momentary enthusiasm in favour of the Mother country, was, indeed, excited (in 1808) by the resolution of the Spa- nish people to vindicate their rights, and not tamely to sub- mit to a yoke, which, force and fraud combined, seemed, at first, to render inevitable; but the rapid progress of the French arms, during the year 1809, the weakness and re- verses of the Central Junta, its retreat into Andalusia, and the gradual occupation of the whole of that province by the invading army, with the exception of Cadiz, not only checked this favourable disposition, but completed that change in the feelings and opinions of the Creoles, for which the occur- rences of the preceding year had prepared the way. They regarded Spain as lost, and degraded almost to the rank of a province of France ; and they saw no plea of right, or jus- tice, by which obedience could be exacted from them to the agents of a government which was itself decried, and dis- obeyed with impunity at home. The King was the only tie that connected them with Spain ; for it was the fundamental principle of Spanish Jurisprudence with regard to America, to consider what had been acquired there, as vested in the Crotvn, and not in the State. In the absence of the Monarch, therefore, the Creoles might, with justice, assert their right to determine what should be considered as a fit substitute for his authority, (as the Spanish people had done in their own case,) instead of admitting the claims of Provincial Delegates, representing at best but a fraction of the Royal power, and that in virtue of a most irregular popular election, to exercise
