"Of all this there remains authentic testimony in our archives, notwithstanding the vigilance with which these were examined by the friends of the late authorities: there exists in Cuenca an order of the Spanish government to excite discord among the nobles and among the different branches of American families. There are besides many written and well-known documents of corruption, gambling, and libertinism promoted by Guevara, for the purpose of demoralizing the country; and no one can ever forget the collusions and subornings publicly used by the judges, and proved in the act of their residencia. "Under these auspices the defeats and misfortunes of the Spanish armies were concealed. Pompous and imaginary triumphs over the French on the peninsula were forged and announced; the streets were ordered to be illuminated, gunpowder was wasted in salutes, the bells announced the rejoicings, and religion was prostituted by the chanting Te Deums and other public acts, as if to insult Providence, and invoke a perpetuity of the evils we groaned under. In order to allow us no time to analyze our own fate, or discover the snares laid for us, conspiracies were invented, parties and factions were forged in the imagination of our oppressors, every one was calumniated who did not consent to be initiated in the mysteries of perfidy; fleets and emissaries from France were figured as being on our seas, and residing among us; our correspondence with the neighbouring colonies was circumscribed and restricted; our trade received new fetters, and the whole was for the purpose of keeping us in a state of continual agitation, that we might not fix our attention on our own situation and interests. "When our forbearance was once alarmed, and our vigilance awakened, we began to lose all confidence in the governments of Spain and their agents; through the veil of their intrigues and machinations we perceived the horrid futurity that awaited us; the genius of truth, elevated above the dense atmosphere of oppression and calumny, pointed out to us with the finger of impartiality the true fate of Spain, the disorders of her governments, the unavailing energy of her inhabitants, the formidable power of her enemies, and the groundless hopes of her salvation. Shut up in our own houses, surrounded by spies, threatened with infamy and banishment, scarcely daring to bewail our own situation, or even secretly to complain against our vigilant and cunning enemies; the consonance of our blinded sighs exhaled in the moments of the most galling oppression, at length gave uniformity to our sentiments and united our opinions. Shut up within the walls of our own houses, and debarred from all communication with our fellow-citizens, there was scarcely an individual in Caracas who did not think that the moment of being for ever free, or of sanctioning irrevocably a new and horrid slavery, had arrived.