Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Years 1799-1804, Vol.3 — 15 - Chapter 3.27, Part 3

The description above given of the productions of Venezuela and the development of its coast sufficiently shows the importance of the commerce of that rich country.

Even under the thraldom of the colonial system, the value of the exported products of agriculture and of the gold-washings amount to eleven or twelve millions of piastres in the countries at present united under the denomination of the Republic of Columbia.

The exports of the Capitania-General of Caracas alone, exclusive of the precious metals which are the objects of regular working, was (with the contraband) from five to six millions of piastres at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Cumana, Barcelona, La Guayra, Porto Cabello and Maracaybo are the most important parts of the coast; those that lie most eastward have the advantage of an easier communication with the Virgin Islands, Guadaloupe, Martinique and St. Vincent.

Angostura, the real name of which is Santo Tome de Nueva Guiana, may be considered as the port of the rich province of Varinas.

The majestic river on whose banks this town is built, affords by its communications with the Apure, the Meta and the Rio Negro the greatest advantages for trade with Europe.

The shores of Venezuela, from the beauty of their ports, the tranquillity of the sea by which they are washed and the fine timber that covers them, possess great advantages over the shores of the United States.

In no part of the world do we find firmer anchorage or better positions for the establishment of ports.

The sea of this coast is constantly calm, like that which extends from Lima to Guayaquil.

The storms and hurricanes of the West Indies are never felt on the Costa Firme; and when, after the sun has passed the meridian, thick clouds charged with electricity accumulate on the mountains of the coasts, a pilot accustomed to these latitudes knows that this threatening aspect of the sky denotes only a squall.

The virgin-forests near the sea, in the eastern part of New Andalusia, present valuable resources for the establishment of dockyards.

The wood of the mountains of Paria may vie with that of the island of Cuba, Huasacualco, Guayaquil and San Blas.

The Spanish Government at the close of the last century fixed its attention on this important object.

Marine engineers were sent to mark the finest trunks of Brazil-wood, mahogany, cedrela and laurinea between Angostura and the mouth of the Orinoco, as well as on the banks of the Gulf of Paria, commonly called the Golfo triste.

It was not intended to establish docks on that spot, but to hew the weighty timber into the forms necessary for ship-building, and to transport it to Caraque, near Cadiz.

Though trees fit for masts are not found in this country, it was nevertheless hoped that the execution of this project would considerably diminish the importation of timber from Sweden and Norway.

The experiment of forming this establishment was tried in a very unhealthy spot, the valley of Quebranta, near Guirie; I have already adverted to the causes of its destruction.

The insalubrity of the place would, doubtless, have diminished in proportion as the forest (el monte virgen) should have been removed from the dwellings of the inhabitants.

Mulattos, and not whites, ought to have been employed in hewing the wood, and it should have been remembered that the expense of the roads (arastraderos) for the transport of the timber, when once laid out, would not have been the same, and that, by the increase of the population, the price of day labour would progressively have diminished.

It is for ship-builders alone, who determine the localities, to judge whether, in the present state of things, the freight of merchant-vessels be not far too high to admit of sending to Europe large quantities of roughly-hewn wood; but it cannot be doubted that Venezuela possesses on its maritime coast, as well as on the banks of the Orinoco, immense resources for ship-building.

The fine ships which have been launched from the dockyards of the Havannah, Guayaquil and San Blas have, no doubt, cost more than those constructed in Europe; but from the nature of tropical wood they possess the advantages of hardness and amazing durability.

The great struggle during which Venezuela has fought for independence has lasted more than twelve years.

That period has been no less fruitful than civil commotions usually are in heroic and generous actions, guilty errors and violent passions.

The sentiment of common danger has strengthened the ties between men of various races who, spread over the plains of Cumana or insulated on the table-land of Cundinamarca, have a physical and moral organization as different as the climates in which they live.

The mother-country has several times regained possession of some districts; but as revolutions are always renewed with more violence when the evils that produce them can no longer be remedied these conquests have been transitory.

To facilitate and give greater energy to the defence of this country the governments have been concentrated, and a vast state has been formed, extending from the mouth of the Orinoco to the other side of the Andes of Riobamba and the banks of the Amazon.

The Capitania-General of Caracas has been united to the Vice-royalty of New Grenada, from which it was only separated entirely in 1777. This union, which will always be indispensable for external safety, this centralization of powers in a country six times larger than Spain, has been prompted by political views.

The tranquil progress of the new government has justified the wisdom of those views, and the Congress will find still fewer obstacles in the execution of its beneficent projects for national industry and civilization, in proportion as it can grant increased liberty to the provinces, must render the people sensible to the advantages of institutions which they have purchased at the price of their blood.

In every form of government, in republics as well as in limited monarchies, improvements, to be salutary, must be progressive.

New Andalusia, Caracas, Cundinamarca, Popayan and Quito, are not confederate states like Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland.

Without juntas, or provincial legislatures, all those countries are directly subject to the congress and government of Columbia.

In conformity with the constitutional act, the intendants and governors of the departments and provinces are nominated by the president of the republic.

It may be naturally supposed that such dependence has not always been deemed favourable to the liberty if the communes, which love to discuss their own local interests.

The ancient kingdom of Quito, for instance, is connected by the habits and language of its mountainous inhabitants with Peru and New Grenada.

If there were a provincial junta, if the congress alone determined the taxes necessary for the defence and general welfare of Columbia, the feeling of an individual political existence would render the inhabitants less interested in the choice of the spot which is the seat of the central government.

The same argument applies to New Andalusia or Guiana which are governed by intendants named by the president.

It may be said that these provinces have hitherto been in a position differing but little from those territories of the United States which have a population below 60,000 souls.

Peculiar circumstances, which cannot be justly appreciated at such a distance, have doubtless rendered great centralization necessary in the civil administration; every change would be dangerous as long as the state has external enemies; but the forms useful for defence are not always those which, after the struggle, sufficiently favour individual liberty and the development of public prosperity.

The powerful union of North America has long been insulated and without contact with any states having analogous institutions.

Although the progress America is making from east to west is considerably retarded near the right bank of the Mississippi, she will advance without interruption towards the internal provinces of Mexico, and will there find a European people of another race, other manners, and a different religious faith.

Will the feeble population of those provinces, belonging to another dawning federation, resist; or will it be absorbed by the torrent from the east and transformed into an Anglo-American state, like the inhabitants of Lower Louisiana?

The future will soon solve this problem.

On the other hand, Mexico is separated from Columbia only by Guatimala, a country and extreme fertility which has recently assumed the denomination of the republic of Central America.

The political divisions between Oaxaca and Chiapa, Costa Rica and Veragua, are not founded either on the natural limits or the manners and languages of the natives, but solely on the habit of dependence on the Spanish chiefs who resided at Mexico, Guatimala or Santa Fe de Bogota.

It seems natural that Guatimala should one day join the isthmuses of Veragua and Panama to the isthmus of Costa Rica;

and that Quito should connect New Grenada with Peru, as La Paz, Charcas and Potosi link Peru with Buenos-Ayres.

The intermediate parts from Chiapa to the Cordilleras of Upper Peru form a passage from one political association to another, like those transitory forms which link together the various groups of the organic kingdom in nature.

In neighbouring monarchies the provinces that adjoin each other present those striking demarcations which are the effect of great centralization of power in federal republics, states situated at the extremities of each system are some time before they acquire a stable equilibrium.

It would be almost a matter of indifference to the provinces between Arkansas and the Rio del Norte whether they send their deputies to Mexico or to Washington.

Were Spanish America one day to show a more uniform tendency towards the spirit of federalism, which the example of the United States has created on several points, there would result from the contact of so many systems or groups of states, confederations variously graduated.

I here only touch on the relations that arise from this assemblage of colonies on an uninterrupted line of 1600 leagues in length.

We have seen in North America, one of the old Atlantic states divided into two, and each having a different representation.

The separation of Maine and Massachusetts in 1820 was effected in the most peaceable manner.

Schisms of this kind will, it may be feared, render such changes turbulent.

It may also be observed that the importance of the geographical divisions of Spanish America, founded at the same time on the relations of local position and the habits of several centuries, have prevented the mother-country from retarding the separation of the colonies by attempting to establish Spanish princes in the New World.

In order to rule such vast possessions it would have been requisite to form six or seven centres of government; and that multiplicity of centres was hostile to the establishment of new dynasties at the period when they might still have been salutary to the mother country.

Bacon somewhere observes that it would be happy if nations would always follow the example of time, the greatest of all innovators, but who acts calmly and almost without being perceived.

This happiness does not belong to colonies when they reach the critical juncture of emancipation; and least of all to Spanish America, engaged in the struggle at first not to obtain complete independence, but to escape from a foreign yoke.

May these party agitations be succeeded by a lasting tranquillity!

May the germ of civil discord, disseminated during three centuries to secure the dominion of the mother-country, gradually perish; and may productive and commercial Europe be convinced that to perpetuate the political agitations of the New World would be to impoverish herself by diminishing the consumption of her productions and losing a market which already yields more than seventy millions of piastres.

Many years must no doubt elapse before seventeen millions of inhabitants, spread over a surface one-fifth greater than the whole of Europe, will have found a stable equilibrium in governing themselves.

The most critical moment is that when nations, after long oppression, find themselves suddenly at liberty to promote their own prosperity.

The Spanish Americans, it is unceasingly repeated, are not sufficiently advanced in intellectual cultivation to be fitted for free institutions.

I remember that at a period not very remote, the same reasoning was applied to other nations who were said to have made too great an advance in civilization.

Experience, no doubt, proves that nations, like individuals, find that intellect and learning do not always lead to happiness; but without denying the necessity of a certain mass of knowledge and popular instruction for the stability of republics or constitutional monarchies, we believe that stability depends much less on the degree of intellectual improvement than on the strength of the national character; on that balance of energy and tranquillity of ardour and patience which maintains and perpetuates new institutions; on the local circumstances in which a nation is placed; and on the political relations of a country with neighbouring states.