306 The Spanish Absolutists and Constitutionalists [1814-24

population — an arrangement whereby Spaniards in the Spanish Parliament would have been outnumbered by Americans ignorant of Spain and also ignorant of every part of the Indies but their own.

During this period considerable reinforcements were sent to Mexico; but in general there were few European troops in America, and the struggle was mainly between Americans on both sides, though most of the royalist leaders were European. Yet on the whole the royalists were successful except in Buenos Aires.

The second period (1814-20) corresponds to Ferdinand's absolute Government in Spain. The King's promise to call Cortes in which America should have satisfactory representation was presently followed by an attempt to suppress insurrection by dispatching European troops. But the Spanish monarchy was unequal to this effort, which would have required two or three strong naval squadrons. The only decided gain was the conclusion of the civil war in Mexico — a success which rather opened than closed the door to political revolution. In South America, notwithstanding some initial successes, the royalist cause lost ground during this period. At its close the region south of the tropics was practically free from Spanish dominion; Peru, the centre of royalism, was invaded ; and in the north of the continent only the Isthmus and the coast towns of Venezuela obeyed the King.

In the third period (1820-4) the restoration of the Constitution in Spain introduced a certain moderation into the struggle. Bolivar and Morillo agreed that thenceforth quarter should be given and that desertion should not be punished with death, since the war was a war of opinions, with friends and relatives in opposing ranks; San Martin concluded an armistice with an envoy from Spain ; a Colombian agent even entered Madrid, where he was courteously treated. It was noted that Spanish officers in Peru were less bitter against the insurgents than were their Creole colleagues; and during the closing phase of the struggle several Spanish war-ships passed into American hands through the desertion or easy surrender of Spanish officers and crews. Although the Cortes in 1822 vehemently repudiated all notion of recognition, next year it was proposed in negotiations between Spain and Buenos Aires that hostilities should cease for eighteen months, and that Buenos Aires should induce the South American Governments to contribute twenty million pesos in aid of Spanish resistance to the French. These proposals, which were closed by the French invasion of Spain, indicated a consciousness that constitutionalists in Spain and revolutionists in America were really fighting the same battle, and seemed to foreshadow the recognition of independence by the constitutional Government of Spain.

After the revolt of the army at Cadiz in 1820 the royalists fought without further aid from Europe. Spain had dispatched 42,000 troops to America, including the West Indies, between 1811 and 1819. Of these " expeditionary troops " 23,000 remained in 1820 ; in that year there were

1809-19] British policy and action 307

in America, besides volunteers, 87,000 disciplined royalist troops, counting both regulars and militia, 41,000 of them stationed in New Spain, 19,000 in the West Indies and only 27,000 in South America. Of the 87,000 perhaps about one-third were Europeans. After 1820 a group of officers, veterans of Saragossa, Albuera, and Vittoria, fought on for Spain with troops chiefly raised and trained in America: of the 9000 royalists who fought at Ayacucho not more than 500 were Spaniards born in Spain.

Throughout the war, the first diplomatic object of insurgent leaders and republican Governments was to obtain British support. In 1809-10 Venezuelan envoys sought aid in London and are said to have received official assurance of protection against French interference. Such protection was the natural outcome of British policy, so long as French ascendancy in the New World was to be feared; indeed, the chief service of Great Britain to the revolution resulted from the series of naval victories culminating in Trafalgar, which made it impossible either for France or for Spain to operate effectively across the Atlantic. But since alliance with Spain now precluded any aid to insurrection, British commodores and West Indian Governors were instructed to encourage reconciliation between the insurgents and the Spanish Junta or Regency. Yet British offers of mediation were felt to give some moral support to the insurgents ; and in 1817 a United States diplomatist, referring to these offers, says that Great Britain had thrice interfered on behalf of Buenos Aires and adds that the British Minister in Rio de Janeiro favoured the Argentine revolution. In 1814 Great Britain by treaty with Spain undertook to prevent her subjects from furnishing arms, ammunition, and war-stores to the insurgents; yet British subjects predominated among the European officers of all nations who joined the insurgents on the conclusion of the great war. British ships, ignoring Spanish authority and the pretended Spanish blockade, traded with revolutionary ports; British commodores in the Pacific, who held a kind of diplomatic position, maintaining amicable relations with both contending parties, generally leaned in sympathy towards the insurgents.

In 1817-9 the Spanish Government not unnaturally complained of this attitude of an allied Power. Agents fftun the revolutionary Governments raised loans and enlisted soldiers in London undisturbed; whole regiments were formed in Great Britain, the officers wearing Venezuelan uniform in public ; ships, chartered for the Spanish Main, were openly loaded with military stores and artillery. Finally the ablest of British sailors, accompanied by many British officers and seamen, led a fleet against the Spaniards. The mercantile interest generally favoured the insurgents, as also did the anxious and growing body of subscribers to the large loans continually being raised in London by revolutionary authorities. Not until 1819 was a tardy and ineffective measure passed, after much debate, to prevent enlistment for alien service.

308 The European Poivers. Congress of Verona [1817-23

In May, 1817, Ferdinand, with the support of Russia, suggested to the Allied Powers that they should aid him in reducing the insurgents. For nearly a year communications passed on the proposal. But the attitude of Great Britain, together with the many and obvious difficulties of arranging the terms of intervention, led to its abandonment. Great Britain was, however, bound by alliance with the Powers and with Spain ; and, when, in February, 1819, the United States communicated to her their intention of receiving a Consul from Buenos Aires and expressed a hope for the recognition of the new States by Great Britain and the European Powers, Castlereagh replied that the hope of peace on the basis of Spanish supremacy with improved administration was still entertained by the European Alliance. In 1817-8 the United States sent Commissioners and soon afterwards Consuls to Spanish America ; and in 1822 they recognised the national independence of Colombia, Chile, Buenos Aires, and Mexico. Meantime, as the ultimate success of Spain became more hopeless, particularly after 1820, Great Britain found her ambiguous attitude more unsatisfactory and was drifting away from the policy of the European Alliance. Since 1790 or even since 1702 trade had been the chief motive of British policy concerning Spanish America; and now the British trade which had recently sprung up suffered much from the confusion of authority and from the swarms of West Indian pirates, who, calling themselves royalist or patriot privateers, attacked unarmed ships of all nations.

At the Congress of Verona (1822) the British envoy, Wellington, presented a note to the effect that Great Britain had been obliged to recognise the existence de facto of several Governments so far as to treat with them; that pirates could only be extirpated by co-operation with the actual authorities on the coast; and that such co-operation must lead to further recognition. To this suggestion the French envoy returned an ambiguous answer; the other Powers rejected any suggestion of recognition so long as Spain should maintain her claims. The subsequent proceedings of the Congress, the proposal of France to send an armed force into the Peninsula, the adhesion of the other Powers, the protest and withdrawal of the British envoy, are related in other chapters of this volume.

Great Britain, now detached from the European Alliance, was threatened with the danger of French supremacy not only in Spain, but also in the Indies, a danger similar to that which she had opposed by arms in 1702-13 and in 1808-14. In March, 1823, just before the French invasion of Spain, Canning intimated to France that Great Britain considered the separation of the Colonies from Spain as accomplished ; adding that their formal recognition was a question of time and circumstances, that Great Britain intended no territorial acquisition in Spanish America, and that she was satisfied that France had no such design. In August the French army, having traversed Spain, was besieging Cadiz; and in

1823-30] Canning and the United States 309

view of a proposed conference of the Allies to settle the affairs of Spanish America, Canning anxiously sought the co-operation of the United States in a policy which, while leaving the ground open for an amicable settlement between Spain and the Colonies, should oppose the acquisition of any part of Spanish America by any other Power. The United States Minister in London undertook to pledge his Government to this co-operation, if Great Britain would promptly recognise the independence of the new States. Canning declined immediate recognition; and accordingly the two Governments, having certain objects in common but differing in their attitude both towards Spanish America and towards the European continent, proceeded to take separate action. Co-operation was made more difficult by Canning's desire to prevent the United States from obtaining complete supremacy over both American continents, and also by the determination of the United States to avoid any engagement which would limit their freedom of action. In October, 1823, Canning told the French ambassador that Great Britain would recognise the new States if France should employ force against them, and clearly signified uncompromising opposition to any such action. In December, President Monroe addressed to Congress his famous message, aimed not particularly at France but at the designs of the Holy Alliance and at any possible European aggression or advance in America. Meanwhile, in the autumn of 1823, Canning had prepared the way for closer relations with the new States by sending British Commissioners to visit Spanish America and by appointing British Consuls. Finally in January, 1825, Great Britain recognised the independence of Buenos Aires, Colombia, and Mexico. Canning, although his delay in recognition had lost him the co-operation of the United States, had nevertheless succeeded in his main object of thwarting French designs beyond the Atlantic. His apprehensions had not been unfounded, for Chateaubriand had intended that French princes should reign in Spanish America.

Unhampered as were the United States by European connexions, their official attitude towards the new States actually constituted was more candid and generous than that of Great Britain; but on the other hand it should be noted that the United States, by prohibiting Mexican and Colombian designs for the liberation of Cuba and Porto Rico, prevented the completion of emancipation and secured Spanish dominion in the Antilles for seventy-five years longer. The action of the United States and of Great Britain fixed the status of the new Republics, although Spain kept up the pretence of prosecuting the war down to 1830. About that date the Papal See, which at first had denounced rebellion and commanded submission, established definite relations with the new Republics, a matter perhaps not less essential to them than the recognition by Spain which in turn they severally received in the course of the following five-and-twenty years.

CHAPTER X

BRAZIL AND PORTUGAL

On November 29,1807, the Regent Dom John, accompanied by his mother, the insane Queen Maria I, his wife Carlota Joaquina, his two sons and six daughters, with a numerous following of nobles and functionaries and the treasure of the kingdom, set sail from the Tagus for Brazil. This event marks an epoch alike in the history of Portugal aud of its great transatlantic Colony.

On the following day, November 30, a French army under Junot occupied Lisbon. Portugal had long been an object of special dislike to Napoleon on account of its traditional relations of friendship with England; and by a treaty concluded at Fontainebleau between France and Spain (October 29) it had been agreed that the two Powers should jointly invade Portugal and divide its territory between them. Feeling resistance to be hopeless, Dom John, after establishing a Council of Regency, betook himself with the entire royal family on board the fleet, and, leaving his country to the protection of England, sought refuge in Rio de Janeiro. The history of Portugal during the eventful years that elapsed between the date of this event and the Congress of Vienna has already been treated in a previous volume. It is otherwise with the affairs of Brazil. The transference of the Court to Rio de Janeiro had such an influence, immediate and far-reaching, upon the position and the development of the Colony as to demand a brief notice.

The importance of Portugal at the close of the eighteenth century rested to no small extent upon her possession of Brazil. The mere area of Brazil, with its 3700 miles of Atlantic sea-board and inland depth of some 2500 miles, was enormous; it was rich in fertile territory, in gold, and diamonds; and it possessed in the River Amazon and its tributaries the most magnificent navigable river system in the world. That so small a people had been able to occupy and administer successfully this vast dependency across the seas is one of the wonders of history; unfortunately, as the Colony had grown and thriven and had acquired a vigorous life of its own, the distant motherland had never