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Recovered Possibilities: Moving the Seats of Empire from England and Spain to America
Elise Bartosik-Vélez Dickinson College
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Recommended Citation Bartosik-Vélez, Elise, "Recovered Possibilities: Moving the Seats of Empire from England and Spain to America" (2018). Dickinson College Faculty Publications. Paper 1041. https://scholar.dickinson.edu/faculty_publications/1041
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Recovered possibilities: Moving the seats of empire from England and Spain to America
Elise Bartosik-Vélez*
Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, USA
Abstract
During the 1760s, after decades of strong economic and population growth in Britain’s
American colonies, the notion that the capital of the imperial state would move from
London to some American city became increasingly common. A similar notion circulated
in the Spanish world after Napleon’s invasion of Spain in 1808. Some foresaw that the seat
of government, along with the royal family, would flee the French army in order to find an
asylum in Spain’s American colonies as the Portuguese Braganzas had done in November
1807. Long after King Ferdinand VII was taken captive by Napoleon, a number of Spanish
Americans invited the imprisoned monarch to come to their lands to reign his empire in
safety.
Both the English and the Spanish plans, of course, came to naught, which is likely
why scholars have not paid them serious attention. Yet these discussions about the possible
removal of the seat of government to America tell us much about popular understandings
of the nature of imperial states during this period. They complicate traditional
* Email: [email protected] 1
understandings about the primacy of imperial centers, understandings that have been nursed by teleological historical narratives that trace the emergence of the independent nation-state and have limited our abilities to acknowledge the existence of evidence that does not fit within those narratives. And although recent scholarship has argued that both the British and Spanish early modern imperial states were both highly decentralized, this scholarship has yet to account for the seemingly contradictory simultaneous persistence of imperial centers. This essay considers these issues by analyzing the discourse about moving the capital of the empire in the British and Spanish worlds during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Keywords
British Empire; Spanish Empire; American colonies; imperial capital; seat of government; translatio imperii
2
Introduction
In The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776), Edward Gibbon asserted that “[i]f a savage conqueror should issue from the deserts of Tartary, he must repeatedly vanquish the robust peasants of Russia, the numerous armies of Germany, the gallant nobles of France, and the intrepid freeman of Britain.” He predicted that “[s]hould the victorious barbarians carry slavery and desolation as far as the Atlantic Ocean, ten thousand vessels would transport beyond their pursuit the remains of civilized society; and Europe would revive and flourish in the
American world, which is already filled with her colonies and institutions.”1 Gibbon was not alone in considering the possibility that Europeans facing difficulties at home could set up shop in their American colonies. In a similar vein, Adam Smith wrote in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, published the same year as Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, that the eventual removal of the seat of government from London to America was likely. Smith was not referring to the English fleeing an invading army, as was Gibbon. Rather, he believed that the when the economy of the American colonies produced more than England herself, the seat of the
British Empire would “naturally remove itself to that part of the empire which contributed most to the general defence and support of the whole.” Based on the current growth rate of the colonial economy, Smith surmised that this might happen “in the course of little more than a century.”2
More than thirty years after Gibbon and Smith made these remarks, the Portuguese royal family went beyond such theoretical musings when they, together with 10,000–15,000
Portuguese nobles and their servants, fled Napoleon’s army on 29 November 1807 to seek refuge in Portugal’s colony of Brazil. This was the first time a monarchy transferred its center of power 3
from metropolis to colony. Only a few months later it appears to have inspired a similar escape plan – one that was never implemented – for the Spanish Bourbons after the French invaded
Spain.
The seats of the governments of Spain and of England obviously never moved to
America, thus explaining the dearth of scholarly attention paid to contemporary discussions about these potential moves. Yet a critical consideration of how these possibilities were articulated and entertained on both sides of the Atlantic contributes to a properly nuanced understanding of how political power was envisioned in the early modern British and Spanish worlds, one that is consistent with recent challenges to more traditional, teleological narratives that culminate in the establishment of the nation-state. The work of scholars like David Hancock,
Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, Alejandra Irigoin, and Regina Grafe shows that early modern Atlantic empires had much in common, in particular a high degree of decentralization.3 The view emerging from these studies runs counter to the traditional view of the Spanish imperial state as different from its British counterpart in that the former, in contrast to the latter, imposed a high degree of top-down centralized control in its American territories. Economic historians Regina
Grafe and Alejandra Irigoin, for example, have shown that instead of a tyrannical Spanish
Monarchy that exploited its American territories by exercising an economic program that emphasized large-scale extraction of prime materials, the Spanish Monarchy lacked a centralized fiscal system capable of doing so. It was local elites who not only controlled revenue collection but also exercised great control over how that revenue was spent, with a whopping 95% of it remaining in the Indies. As a result, “Spanish and Spanish American subjects were deeply invested in imperial governance,” and “the power of the Crown to enforce any centralist designs” was inherently limited.4 4
This view of how power functioned in the American territories of the Spanish Monarchy approximates our understanding of how power worked in the British colonies. Grafe and Irigoin describe the Spanish model as a “stakeholder empire” and the British model as a “shareholder empire,” extending John Elliott’s observation that political autonomy devolved to British colonists in the Americas via territorial assemblies “partly because voting was an established feature of joint stock companies, and was therefore likely to be transferred with relative ease to colonial settlements operating under company charters.”5 According to Grafe, the function of
Madrid as capital of a “shareholder empire” was to “mediate” not mandate, much like how
English (and later British) officials in London negotiated with elites of the American colonies.6
More generally, this line of research also encourages us to complicate our understanding of the shape of early modern empires. John Elliott famously argued that these were composite monarchies, or conglomerates of separate kingdoms ruled independently, and according to different laws and customs, by one central authority.7 Recent scholarship, however, asserts that early modern imperial states are more accurately described as “polycentric” or “multi-nodal” in nature, with elites residing in multiple nodes of power – located in a network of cities throughout the empire – who “negotiated away resistance” with the central authority.8 In a polycentric empire, the hierarchy among nodal-cities is virtually flat, with the role of the imperial capital being to mediate with the elites at the nodes.9
This relatively new scholarly consensus about the decentralized nature of power in the early modern imperial state has neglected to examine not only debates about moving imperial centers, but also the persistence of these centers in the context of these debates. We know that
Madrid, selected by Philip II as capital city only in 1561, functioned as a political capital, but the dualism of the Spanish economy – characterized by a coastal economy connected to the 5
Mediterranean and the Atlantic that had few linkages with the economy of the interior – prevented it from becoming a commercial capital like London was.10 Yet to fully understand the dynamics of imperial capitals in the early modern imperial state more research on their specific administrative functions is necessary.
We know that for some contemporary actors, moving the capital to America was a remote possibility; for others, like Smith, it was an inevitability. This essay considers the contexts of these beliefs and suggests that the status of London and Madrid as imperial centers in the popular imagination of many citizens of the Atlantic world was less fixed than is usually acknowledged. This challenge to the privileged status of these capitals emphasizes what Tony
Ballantyne describes as the web-like structure and substance of empires in the early modern world. They were “both fragile, prone to crises where important threads are broken or structural nodes destroyed, yet also dynamic, being constantly remade and reconfigured through careful thought and effort: the image of the web reminds us that the structure of empire was constantly reworked and remade.”11 This essay asserts that imperial capitals were not immune to this dynamic of reworking and reimagining.
What makes a city “great” and precedents for transferring of the seat of government
In the late sixteenth century theorists began to define the “grandezza” of a city in economic, not military, terms. Giovanni Botero was one of the principal writers behind this shift.12 His Delle cause della grandezza delle città, published in 1588 and translated into English in 1606, defines
“grandezza di città” as “non lo spatio del sito, o’l giro delle mura; ma la moltitudine de gl’habitanti, e la possanz a loro” (not the largenes of the [site] or the [circuit] of the walles; but 6
multitude and number of Inhabitants and their power.)13 While Botero never explicitly defined a
“multitude,” his “great city” was clearly home to a large population. He also asserted that the inhabitants’ power derived from the presence of royal authority in the city and commercial activity. London adhered more closely to Botero’s specific criteria, and Madrid less so given that it did not function as the commercial capital of the Monarchy, as discussed above. Robert
Burton’s description of London in 1730 as “the chiefest Emporium or Town of Trade in the
World” is fairly typical in this regard.14
Yet such descriptions of other, non-capital cities in the Americas were not uncommon.
By 1760 Philadelphia and New York were among the British Empire’s largest cities. Even as early as 1730, when Philadelphia’s population was only about 12,000, it was considered an important trading center and residents viewed their city as great in terms of Botero’s schema.15
Titan Leeds’ 1730 almanac, for example, dubbed it the “fav’rite seat” of the “Goddess of
Numbers.”16 The residents of the viceroyalty of Peru’s capital city, Lima, also understood theirs to be a “great city,” as Alejandra Osorio has persuasively demonstrated. This, despite the fact that in 1700, Lima’s population was only an estimated 35,000, significantly smaller than
Madrid’s 150,000 and London’s 550,000.17 Seventy years earlier, one Lima resident, the
Franciscan friar Buenaventura de Salinas y Córdova, boldly claimed in 1630 that Lima was
“head among the most illustrious cities of this [New] World and Spain.”18 Bernardo de
Balbuena’s representations of Mexico City, the capital city of the viceroyalty of New Spain, are even more bold in their praise. In his 1604 epic poem La grandezza mexicana, Balbuena portrays
Mexico City as the geographical center of a global commercial network linking Europe,
America, and Asia. It is, he said, the “centro de perfección, del mundo el quicio” (center of perfection, the hinge of the world.)19 Addressing the city directly, Balbuena writes: “En ti se 7
junta España con la China / Italia con Japón, y finalmente / un mundo entero en trato y disciplina” (In you Spain joins with China / Italy with Japan, and finally / an entire world comes together in commerce and order.)20
As these examples suggest, cities throughout the empire were often touted as having achieved “grandezza” in Botero’s sense. With regard to the act of transferring a capital from one place to another, history provided plenty of examples for those living in the Spanish and British empires. In 1970 Arnold Toynbee explained the inherently ephemeral nature of a capital city:
Since a capital city is, by definition, the seat of government of a state with which the
capital is not coextensive, the state’s territory is likely to include other cities besides the
capital, and it is open to the government of the state, at its sovereign pleasure, to transfer
its seat to some other city if, for one reason or another, some other city suits it better than
the capital of the day. [...] A city that is a capital has had this role conferred on it by
choice, and the choice is revocable.21
The seat of government moved in a variety of circumstances, including one that corresponds to the cases of England, Spain, and their American possessions: when a capital is “the seat of a
[once] smaller state which has been the nucleus out of which the present state has grown.”22
Toynbee points to the examples of Thebes and Rome, all of which were once capitals of smaller states that designated a new capital city after gaining new territory.
A few precedents were likely especially relevant to the British and Hispanic protagonists under consideration here. When Scotland unified with England in 1707, the Act of Union effectively transferred its parliament to London/Westminster. One of the Scottish arguments against unification was that moving the seat of government to the south would drain Scotland of resources.23 It would seem these fears were justified given the widely acknowledge decline of 8
Edinburgh after the Act of Union. An anonymous pamphlet published in 1737 asserted that “one visible cause” of “the declining State of the City of Edinburgh” was “its Distance from the Seat of Government, and the want of Parliaments and Privy Council, which before the Union brought up to it every Year almost all our Nobility, and the richest Part of our Gentry.”24 The relevant point for our purposes is that the Scottish experience at the beginning of the eighteenth century may help explain the high level of English anxiety about the possibility of the government transferring from London to America, a possibility that was discussed with increasing urgency after 1760.25
After the union of the Spanish and Portuguese crowns in 1580, Felipe II governed from
Lisbon for three years, and he was encouraged by some of his advisers, in addition to some
Portuguese, to permanently move the only recently established capital of the Spanish Monarchy to Lisbon. While the capital never moved, it was proposed repeatedly over the course of many years, even during the reign of Felipe IV (1621–1640).26
Later, when Spaniards faced the French army’s march on Madrid in February 1808, they surely had in mind the recent example of the flight of the Portuguese from Lisbon to Brazil. This event surely served as a tested course of action for Spanish Bourbons facing a similar threat.
Although details surrounding the Spanish plan are somewhat vague, most historians agree that
Spanish Prime Minister Manuel Godoy considered moving the royal family first to Andalucía and then to New Spain if necessary. While King Carlos IV appears to have initially approved of the plan, it was abandoned after strong resistance surfaced. Some historians have argued that even after it was initially scrapped, Godoy secretly continued to pursue the plan.27 Napoleon himself was aware of the potential flight of the Spanish royal family, a prospect he viewed as 9
unfavorable because it would leave him only in possession of Spain and not of its more valuable colonies.28
London to America
By the 1760s the idea that the British capital might move circulated widely in the British world.
If the seat of empire were to move, its new plausible home was most commonly thought to be some American city such as Philadelphia or New York. Adam Smith cogently explained the logic behind such a move in 1776: the colonies were growing in population and prosperity at such a rapid rate that it was a matter of time before their economy overpowered that of the motherland. The seat of government would then naturally move to the center of power as if it exerted a gravitational pull.29 One of the early sources for this argument was Benjamin
Franklin’s pamphlet, “Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind,” written in 1751 and widely circulated before it was published in 1755. Franklin himself never made the claim that the
British capital could or would move, although Josiah Tucker, the Dean of Gloucester (1758–
1790) who frequently wrote on contemporary political and economic issues, accused him of harboring that opinion. Instead, it was enough for Franklin to predict that the population of the colonies would double every twenty-five years, a prediction that profoundly affected the British imagination and contributed to speculation about the removal of the capital to America.30 As the late Leo Lemay concluded, “All who read [Franklin’s pamphlet] carefully realized that if
America remained part of the British Empire, the seat of power would move to North
America.”31
It is quite possible that John Adams was one such reader of Franklin’s “Observations,” for five weeks after its publication, he conjectured that the “seat of Empire” might move to 10
America. “Soon after the Reformation,” he wrote, “a few people came over into this new world for Concience sake. Perhaps this (apparently) trivial incident, may transfer the great seat of
Empire into America. It looks likely to me.”32 Thomas Pownall, Minister of Parliament, ex- governor of Massachusetts, and friend of Franklin, also discussed the issue. Writing in 1768, he foresaw that:
the removing of the Seat of the Empire to America or not, depends on the progressive
encrease of the territories, trade and power of the American Colonies; if continued in the
same unnatural separate rival and dangerous state, in which they are at present. –That this
is an event not to be avoided.33
In a letter to Franklin from this same period, Pownall communicated a popular objection to granting the Americans “the rights, privileges, and powers of the realm,” in the hopes that
Franklin could help him “obviate it.” As Pownall summarized, if the colonies were granted equal representation in Parliament,
we must grant to them all the powers of trade and manufacturing. […] If so, perchance
the profits of the Atlantic commerce may converge to some centre in America; to Boston,
New York, Philadelphia, or to some of the isles. If so, then the natural and artificial
produce of the colonies, and in course of consequences the landed interest of the colonies,
will be promoted; while the natural and artificial produce and landed interest of Great
Britain will be depressed to its utter ruin and destruction; and, consequently, the balance
of power of government, although still within the realm, will be locally transferred from
Great Britain to the colonies. Which consequence, however it may suit a citizen of the
world, must be folly and madness to a Briton.34
11
Franklin skirts the issue of the possible transfer of the seat of government in his response to
Pownall.35 Instead, he asks, “Which is best (supposing your case) to have a total separation, or a change of the seat of government?” He then critiques the assumption underlying the objection, again remaining silent on the issue of the possible transfer of the seat of government. “It by no means follows,” Franklin contends, “that promoting and advancing the landed interest in
America will depress that of Britain; the contrary has always been the fact.”36
Regarding Josiah Tucker’s false accusations that Franklin espoused the removal of the capital to America, Tucker ridiculed the notion in a 1766 pamphlet where he parodied the purported support of British Americans for the transcontinental move:
“What! An Island! A Spot such as this to command the great and mighty Continent of
North America! Preposterous!” Let us no longer be subjected to the paltry Kingdom of
Great Britain, you say, but let the seat of empire be transferred to Great America.37
Franklin’s notations in the margins of this paragraph in his copy of Tucker’s text label it “a silly
Speech Mr. Dean has made for us.” At the end of the text, Franklin quips, “The Author of this
Pamphlet Dean Tucker, has always been haunted with the Fear of the Seat of Government being soon to be removed to America.” Franklin then continues to characterize Tucker’s writings “on
Commerce” as containing “some just Notions in Matters of Trade and Police, mix’d with many wild chimerical Fancies, totally impracticable.”38
Despite Franklin’s opinions, as the eighteenth century progressed the subject of moving the capitol of the empire to America drew increasing attention, in part perhaps because it fed into an existing narrative of translatio imperii et religionis that had been growing in popularity in the
British world.39 According to this timeworn narrative, one universal and dominant empire is 12
hosted by one state at a time, each state rising and then falling, at which time empire then moves westward to inhabit a new state. By the eighteenth century, the “universal” character of the empire in the translatio narrative had become less important, and the string of empires that often populated the standard story included those of the east (often Persia, Assyria, and/or Babylon) followed by Greece, Rome, Germany, and then either France, Spain, or England. Not long after
Europeans settled in the New World, some began to claim that America would become the future site of empire. An October 1767 article in a London newspaper articulates the translatio trope with striking clarity:
Indeed Providence in its great chain of matter, seems to link establishment to revolution,
and the revolution of nations have manifestly appeared to go with the Sun, from East to
West; and the earliest existence of nations we know to have been in the East, and
continued in a regular chain or concatination [sic] of monarchy, from Assyria to the
present seedling empire of Peniacola [sic]. Let us therefore look round and see what has
been; and we may in like manner expect a constant succession of the like effects, and
from the same great cause that has not permitted even the remains of nations, that
heretofore have made neighbouring kingdoms tremble; but like the rolling of the ocean,
where wave invelopes wave, so nations have swallowed up nation, while the last
confirms its empire on the ruins of other expiring states. England has had its meridian – it
will perhaps never know an equal altitude, but may continue declining Westward, till it
sets in America, and New York be to London what Byzantium was to Rome.40
The unmistakable dynamic of translatio imperii described in this passage culminates in the rise of America – and specifically of New York as the new seat of imperial government – and the ruin of London, a point driven home by the comparison of London to post-imperial Rome. 13
Two fictional London publications from 1769 illustrate how the translatio narrative reinforced ideas about the possible transfer of the capital to America. The first, published in The
Literary Register, details the touristic visit of two Americans to London nearly two hundred years in the future, in 1944. These American travelers find London, “this once imperial city”
(founded by the Romans no less), in ruins:
[O]ur astonishment was inexpressible, to find this once imperial city, which was founded
by Claudius Caesar, the capital of Europe […] and which, but two hundred years ago,
contained a million of people; whose […] conquering arms had subdued a great part of
Asia, enslaved Africa, and was sovereign of North, but now imperial, America. I say, to
find this ancient, and once most august city, now fallen to a similar decay and ruin with
Balbec, Persepolis, […] Athens, and Rome, caused me to reflect on the transitory state of
all things in this world.41
The author, “Rationalis,” calls this “imperial” realm “the American empire.” The “posterity” of
London’s “merchants” and “traffickers,” he argues, “are [sic] now scattered over the whole world, and more especially to the American empire, whither they were followed by most of our artisans and mechanics, and which is the real cause of your [American] power and grandeur.”42
This scene is at odds with Franklin’s assertion that the great growth of the American colonies does not imply the decline of England or London. Instead, Rationalis focuses on identifying the cause of American growth (and English decline) as the removal of economic actors to “the
American empire.”
The same theme is featured in the futuristic Private Letters from an American in England to his Friends in America, also published in London in 1769. According to the advertisement for this book, 14
These Letters are supposed to be written toward the close of the eighteenth century, by a
young American; who is stimulated by curiosity to pay a visit to the country of his
ancestors. The seat of government is transferred to America; and England is an almost
deserted depopulated nation.43
Upon arriving in Plymouth the traveler concludes, “this must have been an harbour of great consequence a century back.” He then quotes Ovid in a maudlin allusion to the translatio imperii: “And corn grows now where Troy town stood.”44
If British writers considered the potential transfer of the capital to America, so too did writers in the colonies. And just as with the British writers who addressed the notion, American writers did not necessarily take up the argument out of a desire for political independence. Many loyalists, such as Daniel Leonard and Charles Inglis, agreed with the same logic used by Adam
Smith in 1776, viewing the future transfer of the seat of government as a natural consequence of economic and demographic factors. Inglis, an Anglican minister based in New York, is best known today for his anonymous attack on Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, which was first printed in New York (but not published) in 1776 with the title The Deceiver Unmasked and under the pen name “A Loyal American.”45 Inglis’s pamphlet, published a few months later in
Philadelphia under the title The True Interest of America Impartially Stated, in Certain Strictures on a Pamphlet Intitled Common Sense, argued for a reconciliation between the metropolis and its colonies. The closing section envisions the possibility that the British parliament might someday rule from America, but asserts that this “smiling prospect” will be ruined if Americans insist on independence.
[I]n the rotation of human affairs, a period may arrive, when (both countries being
prepared for it) some terrible disaster, some dreadful convulsion in Great-Britain, may 15
transfer the seat of empire to this western hemisphere – where the British constitution,
like the Phoenix from its parent's ashes, shall rise with youthful vigour and shine with
redoubled splendor.
But if America now shall mistake her real interest – if her sons, infatuated with
romantic notions of conquest and empire […] should adopt this republican’s scheme:
They will infalibly [sic] destroy this smiling prospect.46
Daniel Leonard also considered possible the transfer of the seat of government to America. In the course of an exchange of letters printed in Boston newspapers with “Novanglus” (John Adams),
Leonard (who assumed the name “Massachusettensis”) wrote in January 1775:
After many more centuries shall have rolled away, long after we, who are now bustling
upon the stage of life, shall have been received to the bosom of mother earth, and our
names forgotten, the colonies may be so far increased as to have the balance of wealth,
numbers and power, in their favour, the good of the empire make it necessary to fix the
seat of government here; and some future George, equally the friend of mankind, with
him that now sways the British scepter, may cross the Atlantic, and rule Great Britain, by
an American parliament.47
Adams labeled Leonard’s ideas about a future English king reigning from America “an agreeable flight of fancy,” illustrating that the notion of a capitol transfer – and thus implicitly the subject of the primacy of London as imperial capital – was not unanimously accepted, but rather the object of debate.48
Madrid to America
16
Other than a proposal made in 1748 by a Jesuit priest for the Pope and Spanish King to flee corrupt Europe and find asylum for the church and the monarchy in New Spain, the possibility that the capital of the Spanish Monarchy would be transferred to America first arose in response to France’s invasion of Spain.49 Anticipating the invasion of Napoleon’s forces, the royal family fled to Aranjuez, a town about 50 kilometers to the south of Madrid. There it prepared to move further south to Andalucía and, perhaps, eventually to one of Spain’s American territories. This purported plan to flee, in the words of one historian, “ha quedado como uno más de los muchos misterios” (has remained one more of the many mysteries) surrounding events leading up to the abdication of Charles IV in favor of his son Ferdinand.50 The apparent architect of the plan,
Prime Minister Manuel Godoy, later denied its existence, saying that it was a rumor designed to dupe the people.51 Still, a number of contemporaries documented it, and most historians agree that it was considered.52
After Napoleon removed the Spanish Bourbons from power, the war on the Peninsula continued, and the real possibility that Spain might fall victim to the French caused some
Spaniards, as well as others, to consider in some form or other the removal of the seat of government to America as a last-ditch course of action that might safeguard the Spanish nation.
One of the most notorious plans was proposed by Luis Gutiérrez, a Spanish writer and publisher, who posed as Don Francisco Godínez de Pareja, Barón de Agra, in front of English authorities starting in September 1808. This imposter duped English Foreign Secretary George Canning into believing that he was the secret emissary of King Ferdinand who purportedly wished to set up a regency in Mexico so that Spain could find refuge in the event that Spain fell to France. Agra gave to Canning forged letters addressed to the British government from Ferdinand VII and his brother the Infante Don Carlos. Along with those letters, Agra conveyed to Canning Ferdinand’s 17
supposed instructions to the viceroy of New Spain regarding the formation of a regency in the king’s name. According to the forged documents, Ferdinand ordered that after said regency was established, a representative be sent to St. Petersburg to negotiate his release, his return to the throne of Spain, “o, al menos [su] elevación al trono imperial de México” (or, at least [his] elevation to the imperial throne of Mexico), where he must be recognized as “soberano […] en asilo [y] protector de América” (sovereign […] in asylum [and] protector of America.)53 When
Canning insisted Agra consult with the newly formed Spanish Central Junta, Agra left England and was eventually unmasked as a charlatan seeking financial gain.
The fact that Agra’s plan had seduced Canning points to its essential plausibility in the eyes of those who were involved in this odd episode. As Navas-Sierra asserts, Gutiérrez’s ruse
“planteó a Canning, en un momento de máxima incertidumbre sobre el futuro de la Península, una alternativa válida para el manejo inmediato de los asuntos con España” (posed to Canning, in a moment of maximum uncertainty about the future of the Peninsula, a valid alternative for the immediate handling of matters with Spain.)54 It was Canning himself who had recently organized the evacuation of the Braganzas from Portugal, which was a boon to British economic interests.
Canning surely saw that “a friendly Bourbon viceroy in Mexico might serve [British] long-term interests better than the divided and demanding juntas in the peninsula, whose chances of survival now looked uncertain.”55 Indeed, in May 1808 Secretary of State for War and the
Colonies Lord Castlereagh had already written a letter to Lieutenant-General Sir Hew
Dalrymple, leader of the British forces at Gibraltar, in which he detailed his hopes “that Cadiz would become the refuge and rallying-point for the Spanish patriots, and that Dalrymple would facilitate their passage to South America where they would secure the colonies against French influence.”56 King George himself expressed the same idea that the Spanish Monarchy might flee 18
to America in the instructions he issued in October 1808 to his new ambassador to Spain, John
Hookham Frere. In the event that Spain were to fall to France, he tells his ambassador, “Spanish
America would serve as a safe asylum for the Spanish monarchy […], and thus, when propitious, you should call the Spanish government’s attention to the advisability of assuring this refuge in time.”57 More than two years later, in June 1810, the British government was still talking about the Spanish finding an asylum in America when it informed its governor of Curaçao, Brigadier
General John T. Layard, that in the event that Napoleon managed to claim victory in Spain,
his Majesty will feel himself bound by the same principles which have influenced his
conduct for the last two years in the cause of the Spanish nation, to afford every
assistance to the provinces in America which may render them independent of French
Spain, may afford a place of refuge to those Spaniards who in disdaining to submit to
their oppressors may look to America as to their natural asylum, and may preserve the
remains of the monarchy for their unfortunate Sovereign, if it should ever be his lot under
such circumstances to recover his liberty.58
The extent of the French threat to Spain’s existence cannot be overstated. By December
1811 the only areas of Spain the French did not control were the Isla de León, Galicia, and the region near Alicante.59 In the words of José Blanco White, the staunch Spanish republican living in exile in London, Spain “está á punto de ser borrado del catálogo de las naciones, y condenado a no existir, sino en la memoria de los hombres, y en los anales del heroísmo” (is about to be erased from the catalog of nations and condemned to not exist except in the memory of men and the annals of heroism.)60 Somewhat paradoxically, however, Blanco White simultaneously saw
Spanish America as a potential preserver of the Spanish nation. If the French were victorious, he predicted in August 1810, “jamas habria visto el universo surcar los mares expedicion mas 19
gloriosa que la que llevara en su seno á la nacion española, a quien le sobran payses en que existir feliz, gloriosa, é independiente, aun quando perdiera aquellos á quienes debe su nombre”
(the universe will never have seen such a glorious expedition sail the seas as that which will carry in its breast the Spanish nation, which has more than enough countries in which to exist happily, with glory and independence, even if it were to lose that country to which it owes its name.)61
A similar notion was expressed by Blanco White’s contemporary, Gaspar Melchor de
Jovellanos, Spain’s most preeminent figure of the Enlightenment and a member of the Junta
Central. After the Junta Central was replaced on 1 February 1810 by the regency, Jovellanos wrote his Memoria en defensa de la Junta Central in an attempt to exonerate himself and the work of the Junta. In this document, published in La Coruña in 1812, Jovellanos confessed that he had harbored the belief that Spain “could salvage the patria in her new continent.” He explains his thinking, which may well have been influenced by Adam Smith, whose work he translated, in the following passage:
Creia, en fin, que cuando en los profundos designios de la Providencia estuviese
condenado el viejo continente de España á ser presa del tirano de Europa, ella sola, 20
insuperable y firme en sus propósitos, podria salvar la patria en su nuevo continente; y
dejando sembrados el rencor y la fidelidad en el corazon de sus hijos cautivos, para que
brotasen en tiempo mas dichoso, pasar á aquellos dilatados países con la constitucion y
las leyes que hubiese dictado para hacerlos felices, á renovar en medio de ellos sus
juramentos de constante amor al desgraciado Fernando VII, y de eterno odio y
detestacion á Bonaparte y su infame dinastía (emphasis added).
In the end I thought that when, according to the profound design of Providence, the old
continent of Spain was condemned to be prisoner to the tyrant of Europe [Napoleon], she
alone, insurmountable and firm of purpose, could salvage the patria in her new continent;
and leaving sown the rancor and loyalty in the heart of her captive children, so that she
could flourish in more happy times, she might pass to those distant countries with the
constitution and laws that were dictated to make them happy, she might renew among
them their oaths of continual love for the disgraced Ferdinand VII, and of continual
hatred for Bonaparte and his vile dynasty (emphasis added).]62
Jovellanos, like Blanco White, believed it possible for Spain to flee the Iberian Peninsula and survive in the Americas. The similarity of Jovellanos’s words here to those of Adam Smith, quoted at the beginning of this essay, reflects their similar views of their respective monarchies, which they saw as capable of surviving the transfer abroad of their respective imperial centers.
Europeans were not alone in envisioning how Spain might survive in America. A variety of Spanish Americans offered their lands as asylum either specifically to King Ferdinand VII or to all Spaniards. One such American was Melchor de Talamantes, the Peruvian cleric who had been commissioned by the viceroy of New Spain, José de Iturrigaray, to survey the boundaries of 21
Texas and Louisiana. News that the Spanish monarch had surrendered the throne to Napoloen was published in the Gazeta de México on July 16, 1808. One week later, Talamantes lobbied for the creation of a “national congress” to govern in the Spanish king’s absence, as regional juntas had been doing in Spain. In the course of his argument, in which he asserted that the viceroy lacked the authority to govern without a legitimate king, Talamantes imagined the possible future for Spaniards:
Si llega el caso, como lo esperamos, de que la metrópoli recobre su primera libertad, ¡qué
gloria será para los que han gobernado este reino devolverlo a nuestros Reyes en el
estado más floreciente que sea posible! Y si se frustrasen en esta parte todos nuestros
empeños, ¡qué consuelo será para nuestros hermanos y amigos los españoles de Europa,
saber que viniendo a México encontrarán aquí una nueva patria, con las mismas leyes,
usos, costumbres y religión, y que serán recibidos con aquella predilección y ternura que
inspiran las desgracias de las personas que no son más amadas! Esta es la obra que la
Providencia ha destinado para los actuales jefes y padres de la patria: ellos van a plantar
la semilla de un árbol que dará el refrigerio y abrigará con su sombra a toda la nación.
In the event, as we hope, that the metropolis recovers its liberty, how glorious it will be
for those who have governed this kingdom to return it to our kings in the most prosperous
state possible! And if all our efforts in this are frustrated, what solace it will be to our
brothers and friends the European Spaniards to know that coming to Mexico they will
find here a new patria, with the same laws, customs, and religion, and that they will be
received with that favor and tenderness that inspire the misfortunes of those who are not
more loved! This is the work Providence has destined for the current fathers of the patria: 22
they will plant the seed of a tree that will shelter all the nation with its consoling
shadow.63
The image of Mexico as the site of the tree that will provide shelter for “all the nation” suggests that it will become the next center of power within the empire. Talamantes speaks in general terms here about asylum for Spaniards and “the [Spanish] nation,” and although he does not specifically address the question of the transfer of the seat of government, it is clearly implied.
In August 1809 Quito’s Supreme Junta suggested that the imprisoned Ferdinand VII would “recupere la Península, ó venga á imperar en América” (either regain the Peninsula or come and reign in America.)64 About a week later, Juan Pío Montúfar, the Marqués de Selva
Alegre, reiterated this point, ending a speech he delivered to the Junta by exclaiming,
¡Viva nuestro rey legítimo y señor natural don Fernando VII!, y conservémosle a costa
de nuestra sangre esta preciosa porción de sus vastos dominios libre de la opresión
tiránica de Bonaparte, hasta que la divina misericordia lo vuelva a su trono, o que nos
conceda la deseada gloria de que venga a imperar entre nosotros” (Long live our
legitimate and natural lord Don Ferdinand VII! And at the cost of our blood let us keep
this precious portion of his vast dominions free from the tyrannical oppression of
Bonaparte, until divine mercy restores him to his throne or concedes to us the longed for
glory that he come to reign among us.)65
A similar notion is expressed in a political tract that circulated in Santiago, Chile in 1811. This pamphlet, penned by “José Amor de la Patria,” instructed citizens to form such an independent junta:
para cuando [Fernando VII] venga a reinar entre nosotros. […] Si el tirano [...] lo deja
que venga a reinar entre nosotros; si por algún acontecimiento afortunado él puede 23
romper las pesadas cadenas que carga y refugiarse entre sus hijos de América, entonces
vosotros, americanos, le entregaréis estos preciosos restos de sus dominios, que le habéis
conservado como un depósito sagrado” (for when [Ferdinand VII] comes to reign among
us. […] If the tyrant [Napoleon] […] allows him to come reign among us; if by some
fortunate event he can break the heavy chains he bears and seek refuge among his
children of America, then you, Americans, will entrust to him these precious remains of
his dominions, which you have conserved for him as a sacred trust.)66
Also in 1811, the Mexican Deputy to the Spanish Cortes, Ignacio Beye de Cisneros, suggested that the Spanish Monarchy could escape to America and govern its remaining realms from there if the French were ultimately victorious on the Peninsula.67 This appears in Beye de
Cisneros’s plan, built on previous proposals by the Conde Aranda and Godoy himself, to form provincial, independent juntas in America.68 Jaime Rodríguez notes that this plan
did not threaten the existence of a composite monarchy, such as the Spanish Monarchy.
Indeed, the king of Portugal – the ruler of another composite monarchy – had moved his
capital to Rio de Janeiro in 1807 to escape from the French invaders.69
As these examples illustrate, many Spanish Americans during this period considered the possibility that the seat of the Spanish Monarchy would be transferred to America if France conquered the Peninsula.
Some in Mexico even appear to have believed that Ferdinand VII himself wanted to escape the liberal politics of Spain and come to Mexico to govern his empire unfettered by
“desagrecidos y traidores” (ungrateful and treacherous) Spaniards who “solo quieren y aprecian el gobierno constitucional” (only want and appreciate constitutional government.) These words are said to have been written by Ferdinand VII in a letter of dubious authenticity dated 24 24
December 1820 to the Conde de Venadito, Don Juan Ruiz de Apodaca, then viceroy of New
Spain.70 According to Benson’s summary of this letter, Ferdinand “believed he would be well received and could govern the empire as he thought best under his divine right.”71 The letter addresses Apodaca and his vassals of New Spain, proposing that “si vos me sois tan adicto como se me ha informado por personas veraces [...] yo meditaré el modo de escaparme incógnito y presentarme cuando convenga.” (if you all are as in need of me as I have been informed by trustworthy people [...] I will think on a method of escaping undetected and presenting myself [in
Mexico] when it is convenient.)72
Despite the dubitable authenticity of this document, many contemporaries considered it credible. For them, it was plausible that the Spanish monarch would govern not from Madrid but from one of his American kingdoms. The Mexican statesman and historian Carlos María de
Bustamante, who participated in many of the events leading up to independence, considered the letter authentic and reprinted it in a historical work he published years later. The Spanish diplomat and former secretary to Carlota Joaquina in Brazil, José Presas, also reproduced the letter in his own account, printed in 1828, of the causes of the political break between Spain and her colonial possessions. Although Presas thought the letter involved a horrible idea, he clearly believed it was authentic and worried that the king might “pull a Braganza.” Presa argued that anyone who would counsel the king to emigrate to Mexico must either be “un estúpido que ignoraba las ocurrencias del reino de Nueva España, ó un perverso que queria ver á su Rey espuesto á ser víctima de aquellos disidentes” (a stupid person who was ignorant of events in the kingdom of New Spain, or someone depraved who wanted to see his King exposed to being the victim of those [American] dissidents.) Presas concluded, “por desgracia el Rey lo creyó de buena fé” (unfortunately the King believed it in good faith), and he wrote his letter to Apodaca to 25
launch such a plan.73 It should come as no surprise that this interpretation of the Apodaca letter was reiterated in the twentieth century, by which time nation-based historical meta-narratives had become entrenched.74
Conclusion: Questioning the fixity of imperial centers
In Europe and the Americas, both British and Spanish citizens responded to what they viewed as threats to the current status quo – the rising dominance of Britain’s American colonies and
Napoleon’s invasion of Spain – by suggesting that the seats of government be transferred to their respective colonies abroad. While these suggestions were never acted upon, the fact that the possibility was broached is nonetheless important. As mentioned earlier, the Portuguese decision
– made under intense pressure from both the British and the French – to move its imperial capital to Brazil in 1807 is history’s lone instance of a metropolis transferring its center to a colonial territory.75 The idea Portuguese of decamping from Europe had been proposed a variety of times, each time in response to a perceived threat to Portugal. The first instance was shortly after 1580 when Spain’s Philip II claimed his right to the Portuguese throne and Portugal was ruled by the
Spanish Monarchy.76 The second instance was in 1691, when the Jesuit missionary António
Vieira, who believed that America would be home to a messianic Portuguese empire, advised the crown to go to Brazil to escape the constant threat of Spanish intervention. (Vieira’s advice went unheeded, and the royal family sought refuge in France, as it had done in the 1580s).
Less than fifty years later the plan resurfaced yet again. This time it was proposed by the
Portuguese ambassador to Paris, Luiz da Cunha, who was particularly concerned by the increasing threat of English domination. Cunha contended that problems posed by Portugal’s 26
constant insecurity and marginal status in Europe could finally be obviated if the Portuguese royal court moved to Brazil where large deposits of gold and diamonds had been discovered in the late seventeenth century and where the Portuguese king could rule as “Emperor of the West.”
As Kirsten Schultz explains, while Cunha’s plan was not followed, “his idea that the key to a renewal of the Portuguese crown’s global power was the development of America’s potential became the basis for forging a new imperial politics in the second half of the eighteenth century.” This involved creating a Portuguese system that in theory did not distinguish among the peoples of its different territories in Europe, America, Africa, and Asia, although the claim that royal sovereignty was the unifying force of the empire was consistently challenged. Under the reforms of Prime Minister Marquis of Pombal (1750–1777) and Minister of the Navy and
Overseas Affairs (1796–1801) Rodrigo de Souza Coutinho, the monarchy claimed to be based not on a “geographic and political hierarchy” but on the principle of unity centered in the figure of the king.77 Because power in the Portuguese empire was in theory not geographically based but centered in the monarch himself, the seat of government could conceivably be located in any of the empire’s parts.
Although neither the British nor the Spanish acted to move the seat of government from the metropolis to a colony as Portugal’s empire had, in both imperial states the status of the seat of government was similarly questioned during a period of crisis. The wheel-and-hub model that until recently was traditionally applied to Atlantic empires obscured the relevance of this questioning, and even that it occurred in the first place. Yet new scholarship emphasizing the decentralized nature of early modern imperial states has not yet fully examined this issue, as well as the endurance of imperial centers. Tony Ballantyne’s emphasis on the web-like nature of empires is helpful in allowing us to rethink this phenomenon. He argues that empires in the early 27
modern period are “dynamic, being constantly remade and reconfigured through concerted thought and effort.” Foregrounding this dynamism prepares us to bring into our field of vision the debates of the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries about moving the seats of government discussed in this essay. These debates support our developing understanding of the geographies of power that were envisioned by citizens of both the British and Spanish world, including both the real flexibility of power in the early modern imperial state and the simultaneous persistence of the administrative centers of empire.
Notes
1. Gibbon, The Decline and Fall, 510.
2. Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 625–626.
3. Hancock, Oceans of Wine; Cañizares-Esguerra, “Hybrid Atlantics”; Irigoin and Grafe,
“Bargaining for Absolutism.” In this essay, I use the terms “imperial state(s)” and “empire(s).”
With regard to Spain, I also use the term “monarchy” as contemporaries usually did. For an informed discussion, complete with references, of the issue of terminology with regard to Spain and Britain see, Kumar, Visions of Empire, 149–154; Koebner, Empire, 55–56.
4. Grafe and Irigoin, “A Stakeholder Empire,” 637.
5. Elliott, Empires, 135; quoted in Grafe and Irigoin, “A Stakeholder Empire,” 610.
6. Grafe, Distant Tyranny, 243; Grafe, “Spain is Not Different,” 11. On negotiating between metropolis and peripheral elites and on “the creation of authority through negotiation” in the
British world, see Greene, “Transatlantic Colonization,” 269.
7. Elliott, “A Europe of Composite Monarchies.” 28
8. Cardim et al., Polycentric Monarchies. Regarding the scholarly consensus of the “composite monarchy” versus “polycentric monarchy,” I would add that at least one scholar has suggested both models “[capture] different aspects of what was a complex imperial reality.” García, review of Polycentric Monarchies, 259.
9. Grafe, “On the Spatial Nature,” and Grafe, Distant Tyranny, xvi and passim.
10. Ringrose, Madrid and the Spanish Economy, 14.
11. Ballantyne, Orientalism and Race, 15. Also see Ballantyne, “Race and the Webs of Empire.”
12. Fitzmaurice, “The Commercial Ideology,” 792.
13. Botero, Delle cause, 1. The translation is taken from the English edition printed in London in
1606. [Botero], A Treatise, 1.
14. Burton, A New View, 312.
15. This population figure is based on Holmes’ estimate for 1731. See Holmes, The Annals of
America, 551.
16. [Leeds], The Genuine Leeds Almanack, no page number.
17. Osorio, Inventing Lima, 24. For the populations of London and Madrid, see Lachmann,
Capitalists in Spite of Themselves, 52.
18. Cited in Osorio, Inventing Lima, 8.
19. Balbuena, La grandeza mexicana, 62. Translations are mine unless otherwise noted.
20. Ibid., 91.
21. Toynbee, Cities on the Move, 68.
22. Ibid.
23. James Hodges, for example, warned in 1703 that after unification “[Scottish] Nobility and
Gentry will undoubtedly purchase Places of Residence near London for the Convenience of their 29
Affairs, Attendance in Parliament, and waiting at Court in prospect of Preferment.” Hodges reasoned that this would cause monies originally spent in Scotland “to be spent in England,” thereby “by Degrees greatly impoverish[ing] that Kingdom, and discourag[ing] all manner of
Trade and Manufactures.” [Hodges], The Rights and Interests, 75.
24. Proposal for Retrieving the Sinking State, 4.
25. See Bannet, “London, Saved by the Revolution?”
26. Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 32. For the argument to transfer the capital to Lisbon made in 1619 by a local merchant to Felipe III, when the king visited the city, see Lauaña, Viage,
32.
27. See Stein and Stein, Crisis in an Atlantic Empire, 32. For the possible removal of the royal family to America, see Izquierdo Hernández, Antecedentes y comienzos, 288 note 1, 297, 299;
Martí Gilabert, El motín de Aranjuez, 89–93, 119 note 158, 121; Chastenet, Godoy, Master of
Spain, 186.
28. Camille de Tournon-Simiane, one of Napoleon’s agents in Spain, reported the Spanish crown’s move to Aranjuez, where it supposedly prepared to move further south to the coast. In that event, wrote Tournon, “al primer revés que experimente tendrá el recurso del mar, de
América” (“upon the first setback it encounters it will have recourse to the sea, to America”), quoted in Stein and Stein, Crisis in an Atlantic Empire, 29; Izquierdo Hernández, Antecedentes y comienzos, 299.
29. Regarding the Newtonian influence in this argument, see Dickey, “Doux-commerce,” 306 and 306 note 179.
30. It is worth noting the similarity of observations previously made by Montesquieu in his Spirit of the Laws (1748) with regard to the imbalance between Spain and her American colonies. “The 30
Indies and Spain are two powers under the same master,” he wrote, “but the Indies are the principal one, and Spain is only secondary. In vain policy wants to reduce the principal one to a secondary one; the Indies continue to attract Spain to themselves.” Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, 396. For an insightful argument about the influence of Montesquieu’s observations about decreases in Spanish population on British debates, see Paquette, “The Image of Imperial
Spain,” starting at 189.
31. Lemay, The Life of Benjamin Franklin, 240. Even though Adam Smith’s library housed two copies of Franklin’s “Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind,” a fact that might incline us to easily accept the notion that Franklin’s ideas influenced Smith, Lemay is extremely careful in coming to that conclusion. Lemay notes that Smith and Franklin knew many of the same intellectuals who wrote about the colonies and relevant economic matters: “Franklin and
Smith had many sources in common; therefore the fact that something in Smith’s Wealth of
Nations appeared previously in Franklin’s ‘Observations’ does not prove that Smith echoed
Franklin. Nevertheless I believe that Franklin’s observations influenced Smith.” Ibid., 606. He then goes on to provide a painstaking analysis to support his claim (606–609).
32. Adams, “To Nathan Webb,” 5.
33. Pownall, The Administration of the Colonies, 168. Pownall several times revised and expanded his text, first published in 1764 as a pamphlet. This quote first appears in the fourth edition published in 1768.
34. Undated letter from Pownall to Benjamin Franklin. Sparks, The Works of Benjamin Franklin,
374, italics in original. According to Dickey, this letter can be dated to 1767 or 1768. Dickey,
“Doux-Commerce and Humanitarian Values,” 307. 31
35. I do not find evidence that corroborates Dickey’s conclusion that Franklin responds to
Pownall by saying that either America will declare independence or the seat of government will be transferred. Ibid.
36. Sparks, The Works of Benjamin Franklin, 375.
37. Tucker’s accusations against Franklin in this vein appear in Tucker, A Series of Answers, 58–
59; Tucker, An Humble Address, 40. This quote is from “Marginalia in a pamphlet by Josiah
Tucker.”
38. Ibid.
39. See Dickey, “Doux-commerce and Humanitarian Values,” 306; Hinkhouse, The
Preliminaries, 106–107. For how the concept of translatio imperii was appropriated in British
American political discourse in the eighteenth century, see Shalev, Rome Reborn and Bartosik-
Vélez, The Legacy of Christopher Columbus.
40. “The American Police, No. 11.” Also quoted in Hinkhouse, The Preliminaries, 107.
41. Rationalis, “Remarks,” 98.
42. Ibid, 99.
43. Private Letters, n.p.
44. Ibid., 8.
45. Philip Gould asserts that The Deceiver Unmasked “was printed but never published” due to
“its inflammatory title” and “likely because of fear of Patriot reprisals.” Gould, Writing the
Rebellion, 118.
46. [Inglis], The True Interest of America, 71.
47. Adams, Novanglus, and Massachusettensis, 172–173.
48. Ibid., 94. 32
49. Carranza, La transmigración de la Iglesia. It should also be noted that some historians have suggested that during the War of Spanish Succession (1701–1714) Philip V considered transferring the Spanish court to New Spain, although I have found scant evidence to corroborate this claim. The Mexican politician and writer Lucas Alamán, for example, asserts that Godoy’s plan to save the royal family was the same project “que un siglo ántes concibió Felipe V, cuando creyó perdida su causa en la peninsula, durante la guerra de sucesion” (that one century earlier
Felipe V conceived, when he believed his cause was lost on the Peninsula during the War of
Succession). Alamán, Historia de México, 166. Also see Henry Kamen, who quotes Queen
Marie Louise (in English), presumably in 1706, although Kamen fails to give a date or citation:
“If we ever had to abandon Spain, we would emigrate to America and establish the throne in
Peru.” Kamen, Philip V of Spain, 74. Kamen’s source appears to be Coxe, Memoirs of the Kings of Spain, 40. Coxe in turn refers to Torcy, Mémoires, 2. Torcy identifies the place of potential refuge as the “Indes Occidentales,” while Coxe refers to “Peru and Mexico” and Kamen refers to
“Peru.”
50. Navas-Sierra, “Gran Bretaña,” 526.
51. Godoy, Memorias críticas, vol. 2, 480.
52. La Parra López, Manuel Godoy, 380–392; Corona, Revolución y reacción, 352–356; Ciges
Aparicio, España, 150.
53. The original documents relevant to Foreign Secretary Canning’s interactions with the Baron de Agra are archived in the Public Record Office in London (Foreign Office series). They are quoted in fragments by both Navas-Sierra (in the original Spanish) and Murphy (translated into
English). Navas-Sierra, “Gran Bretaña,” 515–516. Murphy, “Canning and the Baron de Agra,”
36. I provide the translation of the second quotation here as Murphy does not include it. 33
54. Navas-Sierra, “Gran Bretaña,” 529.
55. Murphy, “Canning and the Baron de Agra,” 36.
56. Muir, Britain and the Defeat of Napoleon, 37. Muir references Castlereagh’s letter, which is located in the War Office papers at The National Archives, Kew (henceforth TNA).
57. I quote Navas-Sierra’s summary of the King’s instructions. Navas-Sierra, “Gran Bretaña,”
529. He cites the Instructions of 5 October 1808 in FO 185/15, TNA, as well as Ramírez de
Villa-Urrutia, who concludes: “En estos consejos al Goberno español pudo influir la misión del supuesto Barón de Agra á Londres y la apócrifa carta de que fué portador.” Ramírez de Villa-
Urrutia, Relaciones entre España e Inglaterra, 247.
58. “Spanish Colonies,” 383.
59. Esdaile, “Latin America,” 62.
60. Blanco White, El Español, 30 July 1810, 313.
61. Blanco White, El Español, 30 August 1810, 377.
62. Jovellanos, “Memoria,” 505. Emphasis added.
63. Talamantes, “Idea del congreso nacional,” 96.
64. “Manifiesto,” 8.
65. Pío Montúfar, “Arenga,” 48.
66. Amor de la Patria, “Catecismo político cristiano,” 217.
67. For background on this, see Benson, The Provincial Deputation, 39; Rodríguez, “We Are
Now,” 250–51.
68. For an overview of these proposals, see Ramos, “Los proyectos de independencia.”
69. Rodríguez, “We Are Now,” 251. 34
70. Both Rodríguez and Benson refrain from judgment as to the letter’s authenticity. See
Rodríguez, “La transición de colonia a nación,” 285. The latter limits herself to saying:
“A manuscript copy signed simply Fernando, without his rubric, to this effect is in the
Benson Latin American Collection at the University of Texas. It is written on paper
having the same watermark as that of other recognized orders signed by Ferdinand VII.
The authenticity of this letter is challenged by some writers, but historians who have
reproduced it in full, such as Carlos María de Bustamante, El Nuevo Bernal Díaz del
Castillo o sea historia de la invasion de los angloamericanos en México, I, 135–136,
believed it to be authentic.” Benson then cites other historians who weigh in on the
document’s authenticity. See Benson, The Provincial Deputation, 167, n. 68.
Bustamante, I would add, records the date of the letter as 24 October 1820. Bustamante, El
Nuevo Bernal, 154. (I quote here from the document included in Bustamante.) Carlos Villanueva argues that it was Apodaca who made the proposal in question to Ferdinand VII. Villanueva, La monarquía en México, 56.
71. Benson, The Provincial Deputation, 40.
72. Bustamante, El nuevo Bernal, 154–155.
73. Presas, Juicio imparcial, 83.
74. See, for example, Villanueva, La monarquía en América, 210.
75. Regarding British pressure, see Hall, British Strategy in the Napoleonic War, 106, 134.
76. Schultz, Tropical Versailles, 16.
77. Ibid., 22, 26.
Acknowledgements 35
I thank Amy Wlodarski, Nicholas Bonneau, and Cara Kinnally for their assiduous feedback on earlier versions of this essay. I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewers, whose suggestions greatly improved this essay, and to Eve T. Bannet, who shared her paper about British anxiety regarding the possible transfer of the capital, which she delivered at the 2014 Society of Early
Americanists conference, “London and the Americas, 1492–1812.”
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Note on Contributor
Elise Bartosik-Vélez is Associate Professor of Spanish at Dickinson College, Carlisle,
Pennsylvania, USA.
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