EFFECTS OF DESPOTISM. 389 



a Cortes, a Regency, or by the Sovereign 

 himself and his ministers, the exasperation 

 against the Spanish American patriots re- 

 mained the same, or rather continued to 

 increase. By all of them conciliation was 

 rejected with disdain ; they were obstinately 

 determined to have recourse to no power 

 but that of the sword ; and thus, by the 

 sword, the authority of the mother-country 

 has been destroyed. The hopes of recon- 

 ciliation, which, up to that period, had 

 been fondly entertained by a great number 

 of individuals in Spanish America, were so 

 completely destroyed by the conduct of the 

 government of Ferdinand, that no chance of 

 their renovation remained ; on the contrary, 

 they seem to have been converted into all 

 the bitterness of rage and despair ; and it is 

 from that moment, that the revolt against 

 the royal authority in Spanish America 

 may be said to date its actual commence- 

 ment. 



