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24 its acts the justice of their cause, fomenting their resistance as much by its concessions as by its refusals. The Regency of Cadiz called upon Americans to join the national Cortes, thus raising them to the rank of freemen, but at the same time gave them only one deputy, chosen by itself, for each million of inhabitants, while to the natives of the Peninsula, for the most part under the yoke of the foreigner, it gave one deputy for each hundred thousand. The essential difference lay in the divergence of their political opinions. The Regency maintained "The American dominions are an integral part of Spain," from which it deduced the right of Spain to rule America in the absence of the sovereign. Americans, as we have already seen, maintained that the crown was the only link between them. Take away this fundamental divergence of opinion, and the reason for the revolution disappears, the insurrection loses its legality, and the question becomes one of national representation, having no relation either to independence or to autonomy.

The colonial authorities were deposed without resistance by the force of public opinion, and new ones were instituted without any rupture of relations with the mother country, though all foresaw the logical end of the process. In answer to this moderate policy, the Regency refused to the colonies that freedom of trade which it had proposed to give them, avoided the mediation of England, and, without attempting to arrive peacefully at an understanding, stigmatised the Americans as rebels and declared war against them, punishing as high treason in them that which the Spaniards themselves had done in Spain. It was then (1811) that Venezuela declared herself independent, and gave herself a republican constitution.

South America was ill-prepared for the struggle; she had neither soldiers nor politicians, she had to improvise all she needed. Spain in alliance with England and supported by the first nations of the world, was mistress of the seas, her armies triumphant in Europe, were stronger