Cape Horn, leave this country without taking on board a
supply of Monmouth-Street clothing, on which the least
profit they calculate is 800 per cent. In fact, as I before
observed, they have little or nothing but money, and as the
government of Spain will neither supply them itself with the
conveniencies of life, nor suffer other powers to do it, they
must either pay extravagantly for what they can obtain clandestinely,
or quietly submit to the scanty provision which a
country without agriculture and without manufactures is
capable of affording. I f the gold and silver mines of South
America have contributed so little to the comfort and happiness
of the colonist, there is but too good reason for believing
they have been equally detrimental to the Court of Spain,
and injurious to the Spanish character. The advice which
the Latin poet has put into the mouth of Juno, with regard
to Rome, is but too applicable to Spain and its colonies in
South America.
e ( Aurum irrepertum, et sic melius situm,
<( Quiim terra celat, spernere fortior,
( t Quam cogere humanos in usus
<c Omne sacrum rapiente dextra.”
( ( Let her the golden mine despise;
<c For deep in earth it better lies,
“ Than when by hands profane, from nature's store,
C( To human use compelled, flames forth the sacred ore.”
Whatever step the Court of Portugal may be compelled to
take in the present critical juncture, it will behove England
to keep a watchful eye on its colonies, and especially those
of the ¡frazils. Were the French once suffered to get possession
of Rio de Janeiro, the natural strength of the country is
so commanding, and the advantages it possesses so important,
that it would be no easy matter to drive them out of it
by force, or prevail on them to quit it by treaty. I am not
sure also that, next to one of the royal family of Portugal,
French interest might not preponderate in the interior of the
country, where the descendants of the French Jesuits are not
unmindful of their origin, and with whom the restoration of
the order would be attended with no small degree of influence.
And although in the sea-port towns the trading part of the nation
might feel it their interest to throw themselves under the
protection of the English flag, thinking by such a change to
acquire a free and unrestrained commerce; yet such is the
sway which the priesthood possesses over the laity, that the
difficulties are immense which a Protestant government would
have to encounter. I t is probable also that the present imbecile
government of Portugal may be compelled to court an
alliance with France, though the result must inevitably be
ruinous to her present declining trade and to her colonies.
I t has been a sort of popular speculation, that the present
war would be the means of revolutionizing South America.
Those whose expectations are sanguine on this point have not
perhaps sufficiently examined the situation of the colonists.
Revolutions in states, where each individual has some interest
in their welfare, are not effected without the most serious
calamities; what then must the consequences be in a country
where the number of slaves exceeds the proprietors of the soil
in at least a tenfold proportion, the former of whom would desire
nothing more earnestly than an opportunity of getting rid of