Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 1.djvu/162

136 It is a curious fact, that the importance of these great events was not, at first, felt in the Peninsula; or if felt, was, at least, greatly underrated. So little was the character of the Creoles known, and so high the opinion entertained of the superior resources of Spain, that neither the Regency, nor the Cortes, which met, (as I have already stated,) in September, 1810, would ever take the subject into serious consideration.

The First thought to quell the spirit of insurrection in Vĕnĕzuelā, (where the flame first broke out,) by sending there a Royal Commissary, (Don Antonio Ignacio Cŏrtăvărrīă,) armed with extravagant powers, whom the Junta of Caracas, of course, refused to receive; and the Second passed days and weeks in discussing the mode in which the Americans were to be represented in the National assembly, and fixed it, at last, upon a basis to which the Colonists refused their assent. The whole coast of Vĕnĕzuelā was subsequently declared to be in a state of blockade, without a single ship of war