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REVIEW.
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( 349 y .
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Art . I . —Noticias seer etas de America , escritas , Sfc , y presentadas en informe secreto d S . M . C . el Senor Don Fernando VI . Por Don Jorge Juan y Don Antonio de Ulloa , &c , ; sacadas a luz por Don David Barry , Londres , 1826 . Secret Report on Jlmerica , written according to the Instructions of the Secretary of State 9 and presented to Ferdinand VI . By Don Antonio de Ulloa and Don Jorge Juan ; now published by Don David Barry . London , 1826 .
It is clear that Dr . Robertson ' s account of the administration and policy of the Spanish authorities , as well as of the state of the Indians , the clergy , &c , in America , was sketched in very favourable colours . The cunning of the government veiled every thing in mystery , their records were invisible to the eye of the inquirer , and the historian was candid or credulous enough to believe , " that upon a more minute scrutiny into their early operations in the new world , however reprehensible the actions of individuals might
appear , the conduct of the nation would be placed in a more favourable light . " The Spaniards certainly did little justice to themselves if they concealed their good deeds ; and considering that this word " nation , " in fact , meant nothing more than a series of kings as treacherous , cruel , and tyrant nical , as ever were raised up to grace the cause of legitimate monarchy , one would not easily conceive that this self-denial in the manifestation of their actions , bad or good , was without its motives . Robertson ' s defence of the
conduct of the government rests on the old ground of the apparent benevolence of laws which certainly were not enforced , and as certainly were never meant to be so ; and on a supposed ignorance on the part of the authorities at home of what was going on abroad . He does not appear to have recollected that those authorities always consisted , in a great measure , of persons who
had served in America , and who knew very well , having themselves practised , all the iniquities complained of . These are the very men who , year after year , made the regulations the professed equity of which is to wipe away the sins of the government and acquit it of connivance , knowing perfectl y well , by their own experience , that not a tittle of them would be obeyed .
But the most damning proofs of the perfidy and tyranny of this court are those now produced in the folio volume before us , which the Editor has drawn from the manuscript Records in Spain , and has lately caused to be printed in this country , not for regular publication , but chiefly for the use of the revolted colonies . The work will read them a striking lesson of the wickedness and duplicity of those whose yoke they have happily shaken off , of the vices inherent in the old system , and the judicious remedies suggested by so
observant an eye-witness as Ulloa near a century ago . Ulloa is already well known as a traveller who visited Peru about 1735 , and published his travels and general observations , from which Robertson and others derived much information . It now appears that he was desired , on the part of the government , and avowedly for the private information and direction of the king , to inquire and report upon the state of the provinces of Southern America , in a political and military point of view , on the administration of the government , and
Review.
REVIEW .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1827, page 349, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1796/page/37/
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