Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/549

 APPENDIX. 509 or even the necessary authority. Such is the state to which three years have reduced this lovely country, once the envy of the world. 239. — But what shall be the remedy for such transcendent evils ? The rebels propose, as the only means of saving the country, those which will serve best to secure their triumph. 242. — The contempt with which all conciliatory measures have been received is the best proof of their inefficiency, 244. — The Audiencia will not omit to point out the only plan which it regards as likely to produce a radical cure. 245. — No doubt can be entertained as to the origin of the evil, which is, unquestionably, a spirit of Independence now generalized throughout New Spain: This is the real cause of the discord and jealousy which pre- vail, fomented by the constant opposition of the loyal and patriotic Spa- nish residents to these ideas of Independence : The struggle would be at an end if they were capable of compromising with their loyalty and devo- tion to the cause of the Mother-country. 246. — They must, therefore, be supported by powers, of which, how- ever extraordinary, the history of ancient and modern nations, under cri- tical circumstances, affords many examples. 249. — The wisdom of the august Congress must prepare the way for the happiness which it is desirous to bestow upon this people, by remov- ing, with a strong arm, the obstacles which their perversity has, hitherto, opposed to its introduction. 251. — Besides supplying a physical force sufficient to replace the moral force which has been lost, under circumstances of such extreme difficulty and distress, it is indispensably necessary to suspend all measures likely to diminish the new impulse that must be given to the Government, and, amongst others, the principal, and most beneficent of all, — the Constitu- tion itself. 253. — The disaffected here have converted this Constitution into a mere tool for their perfidious designs : We repeat, once more, that sen- timents of public good have no sort of influence over these men; — that gratitude is unknown to them, and that the majority, without a single political idea, have lent themselves with pleasure, and even with fury, to any and every change that afforded them the prospect of indulging their natural propensity to plunder and vice. The direction of a machine, moved by such springs as these, can neither be doubted nor resisted : — Every thing must be sacrificed, therefore, or the application of the machine, for a time, given up. 254. — Yes, Sire ; — Let those men, who, without faith or country, main- tain in secret the same treasonable principles as the rebels themselves, declaim against the proposal ; let them continue, under the mask of pa- triotism, to combat with arms only the more dangerous because they are more polished, that authority which the rebels openly defy; let them protest an attachment which they do not feel to the new institutions.