104 MEXICO. eqviality, which was, somehoAV or another, to subsist in con- cert with all those abuses of which the Creoles most com- plained : the prohibitory system was to be maintained in all its purity ; Viceroys, Audiencias, and all the paraphernalia of the Royal Government were to be kept up,* with powers only the more formidable because, under the supposed reign of the law, no legal bounds were prescribed for them : their re-admission into the Colonies was insisted upon, as a pre- liminary to any accommodation and yet, although these onerous conditions were not accompanied by any one prac- tical concession, the Creoles were assured " that they were Spanish citizens, inhabiting one of the component parts of the Monarchy, and equal in rights to their brethren of the Peninsula."! From such a system as this, nothing good could result. Had the demands of the Creoles been fairly met, some arrangement might have been possible; but dissimulation only gave rise to distrust, and thus, amidst reciprocal as- surances of the most amicable intentions, preparations were made for an appeal to arms, by which it was but too soon evident that the question must ultimatel} be decided. In this war of words I do not mean to accuse either party of unnecessary hypocrisy ; there was, perhaps, as much of the good faith, which both professed, on the one side, as on the other, (and this is not saying much for the aggregate ;) but each was desirous to make out a case, and with this view the
- Vide Terms proposed in a Proclamation of Cortavarria's, dated
Puerto Rico, 7th Dec. 1810, which may be taken as a criterion for the rest, and which amount to the re-establishment of things in statu quo, and nothing more. f Vide Correspondence between the new Viceroy Elio, and the Junta of Buenos Ayres, 15th January, 1811, in which the dissolution of the Junta, and the immediate recognition of Elio, as Vicei'oy, are required. I Vide Proclamations of Regency, passim ; and particularly those already referred to.
