164 MEXICO. rupting public opinion : the women, by employing their attractions, in order to seduce the Royal troops : the Govern- ment officer, by revealing, and thus paralyzing the plans of his superiors : the youth, by taking arms : the old man, by giving intelligence, and forwarding correspondence, and the public Corporations, by setting an example of eternal differ- ences with the Europeans, not one of whom they will admit as a colleague !"* What stronger arguments could the warmest advocates of the Revolution adduce, in order to prove the impossibility of ever permanently re-establishing the authority of Spain in the New World ? Yet this language was held, thirteen years ago, by one of her most able, and most zealous defenders. It was confirmed, too, by the opinion of the whole Audiencia of Mexico; which admits, as unreservedly as the Viceroy himself, the unanimity of the natives in favour of the Inde- pendent cause, {Vide paragraphs 12, 14, 18, 19, 26, 28, and 42,) and sees no hope of checking this spirit, but by having recourse to measures amounting to little less than the establish- ment of martial law ; since it recommends that all legal re- strictions should be dispensed with.-|- These measures loere resorted to, and were for a time suc- cessful. Backed by an imposing force, and relieved by the abolition of the Constitution (in 1814) from all legal tram- mels, the authority of the Viceroy was gradually re-esta- blished, and tranquillity, to a certain extent, restored. Seven- teen thousand Insurgents are supposed to have accepted the Indulto during the Viceroyalty of Apodaca, who assumed the reins of government in 1816 ; and even the expedition of Mina failed in rekindling the flame of civil war. But nothing could be more deceitful than this calm. The prin-
- Vide Calleja's letter to the Minister of War, Appendix, (Letter D.)
from which all the preceding passages are literal translations, t Vide Paragraphs, 249, 251, and 253, Appendix, Letter C.
