f which I am
capable, and after much reflection drawn from the knowledge,
military as well as political, which I have been able to
acquire in my long career, I think that, in order to escape
the great losses with which we are threatened, there remains
nothing but the means which I am about to have the honor of
exhibiting to your Majesty.

"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 infantas 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 proposition of Count d'Aranda to the king was not
taken into consideration, which, according to him, was "disastrous to
all, and especially to the people of America, who in this way would have
obtained independence, without struggle or anarchy."[85] 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," has become a
"colossus."

D'Aranda was not alone in surprise at the course of Spain. The English
traveller Burnaby, in his edition of 1796, 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 by slow and imperceptible steps to the final loss of all her
rich possessions in America."[86] This was not an uncommon idea. One of
John Adams's Dutch correspondents, under date of 14th September, 1780,
writes he has heard it said twenty times, that, "if America becomes
free, it will some day give the law to Europe; it will seize our islands
and our colonies of Guiana; it will seize all the West Indies; it will
swallow Mexico, even Peru, Chili, and Brazil; it will take from us our
freightin