APPENDIX. 



No. II. 



481 



"Proclamation of Don Jose de San Martin, #c. $c. to the Limenians and other 



Inhabitants of Peru. 



" Countrymen ! I do not now address you solely by the right that every 

 free man possesses of comforting the oppressed. The events which have 

 crowded on each other for the last nine years have conferred the solemn 

 title by which the independent states of Chile, and the United Provinces of 

 South America, now order me to enter your territory in defence of the cause 

 of your independence : it is identified with their own, and with the cause 

 of human nature ; and the means entrusted to me, in order to save you, are 

 as efficacious as appropriate to this most sacred object. 



" As soon as the will to be free declared itself in any part of South America, 

 the agents of Spanish power exerted themselves to smother the lights by 

 which the Americans might perceive their chains. The beginning of the 

 revolution presented a monstrous assemblage of good with evil ; and in con- 

 sequence of its advance, the Viceroy of Peru endeavoured to persuade you 

 that he had been able to annihilate, in the inhabitants of Lima and its de- 

 pendencies, even the soul to feel the weight and the ignominy of the yoke. 

 The earth was shocked to see American blood shed by Americans : it doubted 

 if the slaves were as culpable as the tyrants ; or if freedom had to complain 

 most of those whose barbarous daring invaded it, or of the slaves who had 

 the stupid folly not to defend it. War followed, destroying the innocent 

 country; but in spite of all the combinations of despotism, the gospel of the 

 rights of man was preached in the midst of the confusion. Hundreds of 

 Americans have fallen in the field of honour, or by the hands of unnatural 

 executioners ; but opinion, fortified by noble passions, must always cause its 

 triumphs to be felt. And thus, Time, the regenerator of political societies, 

 has brought about the great moment which must decide the problem of 

 Peruvian sentiment and the fate of South America. 



" My proclamation is not that of a conqueror, who would systematise a new 

 slavery : the force of things has prepared this great day of your political eman- 

 cipation ; and I can be no other than a casual instrument of justice and an 

 agent of destiny. Sensible of the horrors which war inflicts on humanity, I 

 have always endeavoured to accomplish my ends in the manner most recon- 

 cileable with the true interest of the Peruvians. After a complete victory 



3q 



