"Previous to the result of our political transformation, we received daily new motives sufficiently strong for each to have caused us to do what we have now done, after three centuries of misery and degradation. In every vessel that arrived from Spain new agents with fresh instructions came to strengthen those who supported the cause of ambition and perfidy. For the very same ends, those Europeans who wished to return to Spain, and assist in the war against the French, received a refusal to their request. On the tenth of April, 1810, the schools were ordered to be closed, to the end, that under the pretence of attending solely to the war, both Spain and America might be sunk deeper into a state of ignorance. It was also ordained, that rights and rewards should be forgotten, and that we should do nothing but send to Spain our money, our men, provisions, productions, submissions, and obedience. "The public press teemed with nothing but triumphs and victories, with donations and acknowledgments wrested from the people, as yet uninformed of our resolution; and under the most severe threats of punishment, a political inquisition with all its horrors was established against those who should read, possess, or receive papers, not only foreign but even Spanish that were not issued at the manufactory of the regency. Contrary to the very orders of the self-constituted sovereignty, previously issued to deceive us, every bound was over-leaped in the re-election of ultramarine functionaries, whose only merit consisted in swearing to maintain the system contrived by the regency. In the most scandalous and barefaced manner, that order which favoured our trade and encouraged our agriculture was annulled, condemned to the flames, and its authors and promoters proscribed. Every kind of aid was expected of us; but we were never informed of its destination, inversion, and expenditure. In contempt of even a shadow of public faith, and without any exception whatever, all epistolary correspondence from these countries was ordered to be opened, an excess unheard of even under the despotism of Godoy, and only adopted to make the espionage over America more tyrannical. In fine, the plans laid for the purpose of perpetuating our bondage now began to be practically realized.