clared determination of the then ruler of France to uphold a branch of his own family upon the throne of Spain and of the Indies; and they undoubtedly pledged us to Spain not to lay down our arms until that design should be defeated in Spain, and the pretension altogether abandoned as to Americaa pledge which it is not, and cannot be denied that Great Britain amply redeemed. But those objects once accomplished, the stipulations of the treaty were fulfilled, and its obligations necessarily expired, together with the matter to which they related. In effect, at the happy conclusion of the war in the Peninsula, and after the restoration, by British assistance, of his Catholic Majesty to the throne of his ancestors, the treaty of 1809 was replaced by the treaty of 1814. And what does that treaty contain? First, the expression of an earnest wish on the part of his majesty, that Spanish America may be reunited to the Spanish monarchy; and secondly, an engagement to prohibit British subjects from supplying the Spanish Americans with munitions of war. This engagement was instantly carried into effect by an order in council of 1814. And in furtherance of the like object, beyond the obligation of the treaty, an act of Parliament was passed in 1819, prohibiting the service of British subjects in the ranks of the resisting colonies. That the wish expressed in this treaty was sincere, the proof is to be found not only in the measures above-mentioned, but in the repeated offers of Great Britain to mediate between Spain and her colonies. Nor were these offers of mediation, as M. de Zea alleges, uniformly founded on the single basis of the admission by Spain of the independence of the Spanish provinces. Years had elapsed, and many opportunities had been missed of negotiating on better terms for Spain, before that basis was assumed to be the only one on which negotiation could be successfully opened. It was not assumed in 1812, when our mediation was offered to the Cortes. It was not assumed in 1815, when Spain asked our mediation, but refused to state the terms to which she was willing to agree. It was not assumed in 1818, in the conferences at Aix-la-Chapelle, in which conferences the question of an arrangement between Spain and her Americas was for the first and last time discussed between the great powers of Europe. After the silence, indeed, which Spain observed as to the opinion of the powers assisting at those conferences, when laid before her, two things became perfectly clear; the first, that Spain had at that time no serious intention of offering any terms such as the Spanish American provinces were likely to accept; the second, that any subsequent reference of the subject to a congress must be wholly fruitless and unsatisfactory. From that time forth, Great Britain abstained from stirring the subject of negotiation with the colonies, till, in the month of May, 1822, Spain spontaneously announced to Great Britain that she had measures in contemplation for the pacification of her Americas on a basis entirely new, which basis, however, was not explicitly described. In answer to that notification, Spain was exhorted by Great Britain to hasten, as much as pos sible, her negotiation with the colonies, as the course of events was evidently so rapid as not to admit of a much longer delay; but no suggestion was even then brought forward by Great Britain as to the adoption of the basis of independence. The first suggestion of that basis came, in fact, from the government of Spain itself, in the month of November, 1822, when the British minister at Madrid received an intimation that the Cortes meditated opening negotiations with the colonies on the basis of colonial independence; negotiations which were in fact subsequently opened, and carried to a successful termination, with Buenos Ayres, though they were afterwards disavowed by his Catholic majesty. It was not till after this lastmentioned communication from the Spanish government that Great Britain expressed the opinion which she entertained as to the hopelessness of negotiating upon any other basis than that then first suggested by the Spanish government. This opinion stated (as has been said) in the first instance confidentially to Spain, was nearly a twelvemonth afterwards-that is to say, in the month of October, 1823-mentioned by the undersigned in a conference with the French ambassador in London, the substance of which conference was communicated to Spain and to the other powers. It was repeated and enforced in the despatch from the undersigned to sir William A'Court, in January, 1824. Nothing, therefore, can be less exact than the supposition that Britain has uniformly put forward the basis of independence as the sine qua non condition of her counsel and assistance to Spain in negotiating with her colonies. To come now to the second charge against Great Britain-the alleged violation of general international law. Has it ever been admitted as an axiom, or ever been observed by any nation or government as a practical maxim, that no circumstances and no time should entitle a de facto government to recognition? or should entitle third powers, who may have a deep interest in defining and establishing their relations with a de facto government to do so? Such a proceeding on the part of third powers undoubtedly does not decide the question of right against the mother country. The Netherlands had thrown off the supremacy of Spain long be fore the end of the 16th century; but that supremacy was not formally renounced by Spain till the treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Portugal declared in 1640 her independence of the Spanish monarchy; but it was not till 1668 that Spain by treaty acknowledged that independence. During each of these intervals the abstract rights of Spain may be said to have remained unextinguished. But third powers did not in either of these instances wait the slow conviction of Spain, before they thought themselves warranted to establish direct relations, and even to contract intimate alliances with the republic of the United Netherlands, as well as with the new monarchy of the house of Braganza. The separation of the Spanish colonies from Spain has been neither our work nor our wish, Events, in which the British government had no participation, decided that separation-a separation which we are still of opinion might have been averted if our counsels had been listened to in time. But out of that separation grew a state of things, to which it was the duty of the British government (in proportion as it became the plain and legitimate interest of the nation whose welfare is committed to its charge) to conform its measures, as well as its language, not hastily and precipitately, but with due deliberation and circumspection. To continue to call that a possession of Spain, in which all Spanish occupation and power had been actually extinguished and effaced, could render no practical service to the mother country; but it would have risked the peace of the world. For all political communities are responsible to other political communities for their conduct that is, they are bound to perform the ordinary international duties, and to afford redress for any violation of the rights of others by their citizens or subjects. Now either the mother country must have continued responsible for acts over which it could no longer exercise the shadow of a control, or the inhabitants of those countries, whose independent political existence was, in fact, established, but to whom the acknowledgment of that independence was denied, must have been placed in a situation in which they were either wholly responsible for all their actions, or were to be visited for such of those actions as might furnish ground of complaint to other nations with the punishment due to pirates and outlaws. If the former of these alternatives-the total irresponsibility of unrecognized states, be too absurd to be maintained, and if the latter, the treatment of their inhabitants as pirates and outlaws, be too monstrous to be applied for an indefinite length of time to a large portion of the habitable globe, no other chance remained for Great Britain, or for any country having intercourse with Spanish American provinces, but to recognize, in due time, their immediate existence as states, and thus to bring them within the pale of those rights and duties which civilized nations are bound mutually to respect, and are entitled reciprocally to claim from each other. The example of the late revolution in France, and of the ultimate happy restoration of his majesty Louis 18th, is pleaded by M. Zea in illustration of the principle of unextinguishable right in a legitimate sovereign; and of the respect to which that right is entitled from all foreign powers; and he calls upon Great Britain, in justice to her own consistency, to act with the same reserve towards the new states of Spanish America, which she employed so much to her honour towards revolutionary France. But can M. Zea need to be reminded that every power in Europe, and specifically Spain amongst the foremost, not only acknowledged the several successive governments de facto by which the house of Bourbon was first expelled from the throne of France, and afterwards kept for near a quarter of a century out of possession of it, but contracted intimate alliances with them all; and above all, with that which M. Zea justly describes as the strongest of de facto govern ments, the government of Buonaparte; against whom, not any principle of respect for the rights of legitimate monarchy, but his own ungovernable ambition, finally brought combined Europe into the field? There is no use in endeavouring to give a specious colouring to facts which are now the property of history. The undersigned is therefore compelled to add, that Great Britain herself cannot justly accept the praise which M. Zea is will ing to ascribe to her in this respect, nor can she claim to be altogether exempted from the general charge of having treated with the powers of the French revolution. It is true, indeed, that up to the year 1796, she abstained from treating with revolutionary France, long after other powers of Europe had set her the example. But the reasons alleged in parliament and in state papers for that abstinence was the unsettled state of the French government. And it cannot be denied that both in 1796. and 1797 Great Britain opened a negotiation for peace with the directory of France-a negotiation, the favourable conclusion of which would have implied a recognition of that form of government; that in 1801 she made peace with the consulate; that if in 1806 she did not conclude a treaty with Buonaparte, emperor of France, the negotiation was broken off merely on a question of terms; and that if from 1808 to 1814, she steadily refused to listen to any overtures from France, she did so declaredly and notoriously on account of Spain alone, whom Buonaparte pertinaciously refused to admit as party to the negotiation. Nay, further, it cannot be denied that even in 1814, the year in which the Bourbon dynasty was eventually restored, peace would have been made by Great Britain with Buonaparte if he had not been unreasonable in his demands; and Spain cannot be ignorant that even after Buonaparte was set aside, there was question among the allies of the possible expediency of placing some other than a Bourbon on the throne of France. The appeal, therefore, to the conduct of the powers of Europe and even to that of Great Britain herself, with respect to the French revolution, does but recal abundant instances of the recognition of de facto governments by Great Britain, perhaps later and more reluctantly than by others, but by Great Britain herself, however reluctant, after the example set to her by the other powers of Europe, and especially by Spain. There are two other points in M. Zea's note which appear to call for particular attention. M. Zea declares that the king of Spain will never recognize the new states of South America, and that his majesty will never cease to employ the force of arms against his rebellious subjects in that part of the world. We have neither the pretension nor the desire to control his Catholic majesty's conduct; but this declaration of M. Zea comprises a complete justification of our conduct in having taken the opportunity, which to us seemed ripe, for placing our relations with the new states of America on a definite footing. For this declaration plainly shows that the complaint against us is not merely as to the mode or the time of our advances towards those states; it shows that the dispute between us and Spain is not merely as to the question of fact, whether the internal condition of any of those states be such as to justify the entering into definite relations with them; that it was not merely a reasonable delay for the purpose of verifying contradictory reports, and of affording opportunity for friendly negotiation that was required of us: it shows that no extent of forbearance on our part would have satis fied Spain, and that, defer our advances towards the new states as long as we might, we should still have had to make them without the consent of Spain; for that Spain is determined against all compromise, under any circumstances, and at any time, and is resolved upon interminable war with her late colonies in America. M. Zea concludes with declaring that his Catholic majesty will protest, in the most solemn manner, against the measures announced by the British government as violating existing treaties, and the imprescriptible rights of the throne of Spain. Against what will Spain protest? It has been proved that no treaties are violated by us; and we admit that no question of right is decided by our recognition of the new states of America. But if the argument on which this declaration is founded be true, it is eternal; and the offence of which we are guilty in placing our intercourse with those countries under the protection of treaties is one of which no time and circumstance could, in the view of Spain, have mitigated the character. Having thus entered with great pain and unwillingness into the several topics of M. Zea's note, the undersigned is directed, in conclusion, to express the anxious hope of his government that a discussion, now wholly without object, may be allowed here to close. The undersigned is directed to declare to the Spanish minister, that no feeling of ill-will or even of indifference to the interests of his Catholic majesty has prompted the steps which his majesty's government has taken that his majesty still cherishes an anxious wish for the welfare of Spain—and that his majesty still retains the disposition, and commands the undersigned again to renew to his Catholic majesty's government the offer, to employ his majesty's good offices for the bringing about of any amicable arrangements which may yet be practicable between his Catholic majesty and the countries of America which have separated themselves from Spain. (Signed) GEO. CANNING. LETTER of M. RODIOS, in the Name of the PROVISIONAL GREEK GOVERNMENT, to MR. CANNING. Napoli di Romania, Aug. 12 (24), 1824. Your Excellency;-For these four years past, the Greeks, in firm reliance in divine Providence, have defended, not without success, the land of their fathers. I say they defend the land, for they care little about the villages, houses, and private possessions. This has been sufficiently proved in the various incursions of the enemy, when |