Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/459

Rh colonies generally united on all issues affecting America, and were called "la diputacion americana." They formed a party by themselves, usually leaning toward the liberal side, and thus giving the liberal party a large majority. They kept up the same organization in successive córtes, taking but little interest in matters not American; but they courted European influence for obvious reasons.

The córtes having at their first sitting declared themselves sovereign, the American deputies moved that the act should be transmitted to the colonies, accompanied with certain decrees conducive to a termination of the differences that had broken out between the creoles and Spaniards. The chamber acquiesced, and appointed a committee of Americans to frame such resolutions as they might deem proper. Whereupon the committee demanded, in general terms, first, that the American provinces should have, to place them on an equal footing with those of Spain, the number of deputies allowed under the rule established on the 1st of January for elections in Spain; and second, a discontinuance of all persecutions and measures issued and based on the ground that the disturbances in the ultramarine provinces had sprung from a desire for separation from the mother country, including the recall of all commissions for the subjugation of Americans; and finally, that all American deputies chosen pursuant to the system prescribed for the córtes by the regency, should be admitted upon their arrival and presentation of their credentials.

The magnitude of the American demands certainly called for a more mature study than those deputies would naturally give time for. The chamber ordered, however, that the decree already passed should be published without delay and circulated throughout the ultramarine provinces. The other interesting points were left for future consideration; and mean time, by an act of the 15th of October, 1810, passed in secret session, it was confirmed and sanctioned that