Page:Memoir upon the negotiations between Spain and the United States of America which led to the treaty of 1819.djvu/17

7 are strong grounds to believe, that the Spanish Cortes were influenced by it to consent to the ratification of his treaty, and that his main object was thus accomplished.

After this translation had been announced as in the Press, but before I had advanced many pages in the work, one of those publick gazettes which, in the language of the author, "inundate the country," was put into my hands, in which the editor, to my amazement, and, I may add, amusement, expressed strong fears that the translation would be mutilated or garbled. Without knowing who was the translator, or what motives he could have for want of fidelity to his author, the editor fired a random shot, in hopes it might strike some member of the government. He had either seen the original, or he had heard particular parts of it read, in which Don Onis had been so severe upon certain great men, that pains had been taken to suppress the circulation of the few copies that had found their way into the country; but the editor was quite sure, he remembered enough of the book to detect any imposition, which the translator might attempt to practise upon the publick, with a view to screen the said great men from exposure!

Now as I would not have it suspected, even by a solitary individual, either that our government can have any thing to fear from the fullest exposure of their conduct and motives, or that I would descend to be instrumental in shielding them from censure, if they deserved it, I think it proper here to assure the reader, that I have not only given a faithful exhibition of the author's sentiments, but that I have translated every line of the Memoir, so literally, as often to sacrifice elegance and idiomatick propriety, rather than risk by paraphrase to