MEXICO. 243 of the right of Patronage enables the Goverment to relieve them. Under these circumstances, it is not extraordinary that the inconveniences of a dependent existence should be so strongly felt, as to create a very general desire for emancipation ; and should the Pope neglect the present opportunity, or insist upon onerous conditions in the Concordat, which the Govern- ment is still desirous to frame, he will find, when too late, that he has no longer any hold upon the country, and that the Colonial policy of Rome will not be more patiently en- dured, than the Colonial policy of the Court of Madrid. The total inefficacy of spiritual arms in the New World has been recently proved by the reception given to the Circular Bull, or Enciclica, addressed by the Court of Rome to the Archbishops, Bishops, and Clergy in general of the Americas, on the 24th of September, 1824, exhorting them,^ to be silent no longer ; but to unite in leading back their flocks to the path of the commandments of that Lord, who places Kings upon their thrones, and connects, by indissoluble ties, the preservation of their rights and authority, with the welfare of His Holy Church.""* The Government of Mexico, convinced that, in a discus- sion of tliis nature, reason and common sense were in its favour, was not deterred from entering upon it by any fears of the intrigues of the Old Spaniards, the prejudices of the people, or the supposed infalhbility of the Pope. The Bull was communicated to the nation at large, as soon as re- ceived, in the Government Gazette ; and there was certainly nothing that savoured either of bigotry, or superstition, in the notes by which it was accompanied. They contained no affectation of humility, no expressions of an eager desire to be reconciled to the Holy See, but entered boldly into the question of the Pope's Spiritual and Temporal Sovereignty ;
- Vide Enciclica, as published in the Madrid Gazette of the 10th Fe-
bruary, 1825, and in that of Mexico, July 6, of the same year. R 2
