“Your Majesty must relieve yourself of all your possessions on the continent of the two Americas, _preserving only the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico_ in the northern part, and some other convenient one in the southern part, to serve as a seaport or trading-place for Spanish commerce. “In order to accomplish this great thought in a manner becoming to Spain, three Infantes must be placed in America,--one as king of Mexico, another as king of Peru, and the third as king of the Terra Firma. Your Majesty will take the title of Emperor.” I have sometimes heard this remarkable Memoir called apocryphal, but without reason, except because its foresight is so remarkable. The Mexican historian Alaman treats it as genuine, and, after praising it, informs us that the project of Count Aranda was not taken into consideration, but that “the results have shown how advantageous it would have been to all, and especially to the people of America, who in this way would have obtained independence without revolution and enjoyed it without anarchy.”[598] Meanwhile all the American possessions of the Spanish crown, except Cuba and Porto Rico, have become independent, as predicted, and the new power, known as the United States, which at that time was a “pygmy,” is a “colossus.” In proposing a throne for Spanish America, Aranda was preceded by no less a person than the great French engineer and fort-builder, Marshal Vauban, who, during the reverses of the War of the Spanish Succession, submitted to the court of France that Philip the Fifth should be sent to reign in America; and that prince is said to have consented.[599] Aranda was not alone in surprise at the course of Spain. The English traveller Burnaby, in his edition of 1798, mentions this as one of the reasons for the success of the Colonists, and declares that he had not supposed, originally, “that Spain would join in a plan inevitably leading, though by slow and imperceptible steps, to the final loss of all her rich possessions in South America.”[600] This was not an uncommon idea. The same anxieties appeared in one of Mr. Adams’s Dutch correspondents, whose report of fearful prophecies has been already mentioned.[601] John Adams also records in his Diary, under date of 14th December, 1779, on landing at Ferrol in Spain, that, according to the report of various persons, “the Spanish nation in general have been of opinion that the Revolution in America was of bad example to the Spanish colonies, and dangerous to the interests of Spain, as the United States, if they should become ambitious, and be seized with the spirit of conquest, might aim at Mexico and Peru.”[602] All this is entirely in harmony with the Memoir of the Spanish statesman. WILLIAM PALEY, 1785.