"Such was the advantageous alternative that enslaved America presented to her mistress, Spain, on the other side of the ocean, when oppressed by the weight of every evil, and undermined by every principle destructive to society, America called upon her to ease her of her chains that she might fly to her succour. Fortunately prejudice triumphed, the genius of evil and disorder seized on the government, goaded pride usurped the seat of prudence; ambition triumphed over liberality, and substituting deceit and perfidy for generosity and integrity, those very arms were turned against us which we ourselves used when impelled by fidelity and good faith; we taught Spain herself the way to resist her enemies, under the banners of a presuming king, unfit to reign, and void of all title except the generous compassion of the people and his own misfortunes. "Venezuela was the first in the new world to pledge to Spain that generous aid which she considered as a necessary homage; Venezuela was the first to pour the consoling balm of friendship and fraternity into her wounds when afflicted; Venezuela was the first that knew the disorders which threatened the destruction of Spain; she was the first to provide for her own safety, without severing the bonds that linked her to the mother country; the first to feel the effects of her ambitious ingratitude; she was the first on whom war was declared by her brethren; and she is now the first to recover and declare her independence and civil dignity in the new world. In order to justify this measure of necessity and of justice, she considers it an incumbent duty to present to the universe the reasons which have urged her to the same, that her honour and principles may not be doubted, nor endangered when she comes to fill the high rank which Providence restores her to. "All those persons who are aware of our determinations know what was our fate previous to the late inversion of things, which alone dissolved our engagements with Spain, even granting that these were legal and equitable. It would be superfluous to present again to impartial Europe the misfortunes and vexations she has so often had cause to lament, at a time when we were not allowed to do so; neither is it necessary to assert the injustice of our dependence and degradation, when every nation has viewed as an insult to political equity, that Spain unpeopled, corrupted, and plunged into a state of sloth and indolence by the measures of a despotic government, should have exclusively usurped from the industry and activity of the rest of the continent, the precious and incalculable resources of a world constituted in the fief and monopoly of a small portion of the other.