478 
VOYAGE OP THE POTOMAC. 
[Decembei;, 
causes which have taken place since the revolution ; and which 
have not, and never have had, connexion with any party in the 
country unfavourable to liberty, and the establishment of republi- 
can institutions. 
We must give these republics time. The birth and maturity 
of a nation are not the work of a day ; and low indeed must be 
his estimate of the blessings of liberty, who considers that these 
people, with all their toils, sacrifices, and sufferings, are paying 
a price too dear ! 
But what have they not done already ? Who worked the 
mines, guarded the flocks, and tilled the soil of Spanish America ? 
The Indian ! From whence issued those immense streams of 
wealth which flowed from the colonies into the lap of the mother 
country, during the three hundred years of her tyranny and do- 
minion, but from the poor and subjugated Indian? Who can 
reflect, without horror, on the destruction of eight millions of 
these wretched beings, who, in Peru alone, perished under the 
cruel and unjust exactions of the Mita ? What excesses and ex- 
tortions were not committed — civil and ecclesiastical, under the 
well intended, but much abused, regulation of the Ripartimiento ! 
Does the total abolition of these abuses — of slavery, the Inqui- 
sition, and a hundred others,* on the ruins of the Spanish system, 
argue unfitness for self-government in these people ? Indeed, it 
appears to us, that if we reflect on what these countries were 
under the Spanish dominion, the restrictions of commerce, of sci- 
ence and the arts, the political deceptions and superstitions which 
were constantly practised, and then reflect on the spectacle they 
now present (disturbed as they are), the only matter of aston- 
ishment will be, that they have done so much in the short space 
of twenty years ! 
If these views be not deceptive, and a vast deal more might 
b% advanced to show that they are not, how deeply interesting to 
the friends of liberty in our own country, in Europe, and through- 
* Though actual toleration has not been extended in these countries, the friends 
of such a measure are neither few nor without influence. The rising generation 
will regulate this matter. We have never seen a young man of intelligence, in any 
of these countries, who was not ultra liberal on this point. The power of the clergy 
has been overthrown, and they are now, comparatively, the humble pensioners, in- 
stead of the haughty and bigoted rulers, of the state. 
