302 SPANISH AMElllCA. 



It was tke Spanish chiefs and rulers in 

 South America who gave the first examples 

 of violating capitulations and of shooting 

 prisoners; practices by which even many 

 barbarians would have considered them- 

 selves disgraced. It was they who, in cold 

 blood, murdered numbers of the inhabitants 

 of South America, merely to satiate their 

 revenge ; and who, upon many others, in- 

 flicted in the same spirit the greatest, the 

 most monstrous cruelties, without even the 

 semblance of justice. 



Instances of treachery and inhumanity of 

 this description were unhappily so nume- 

 rous, that the following may be considered 

 as only a selection from them, anticipating 

 at the same time, as they do in some de- 

 gree, the events which remain to be noticed. 

 When General Miranda delivered up, by 

 capitulation, the fort of La Guayra, the 

 city of Caraccas, and the provinces of Cu- 



