he two first the fourth, to all the
preceding; and, as to the fifth, he could form no idea of their
proportion. Indeed, it appeared to me, that his conjectures as to the
others, were on loose grounds. He said he knew from good information,
there were three hundred thousand inhabitants in the city of Mexico. I
was still more cautious with him than with the Brazilian, mentioning it
as my private opinion (unauthorized to say a word on the subject
otherwise) that a successful revolution was still at a distance with
them; that I feared they must begin by enlightening and emancipating
the minds of their people; that, as to us, if Spain should give us
advantageous terms of commerce, and remove other difficulties, it was
not probable that we should relinquish certain and present advantages,
though smaller, for uncertain and future ones, however great. I was led
into this caution by observing that this gentleman was intimate at the
Spanish ambassador's, and that he was then at Paris, employed by Spain
to settle her boundaries with France, on the Pyrenees. He had much the
air of candor, but that can be borrowed; so that I was not able to
decide about him in my own mind.

Led by a unity of subject, and a desire to give Congress as general a
view of the disposition of our southern countrymen, as my information
enables me, I will add an article which, old and insulated, I did not
think important enough to mention at the time I received it. You will
remember, Sir, that during the late war, the British papers often gave
details of a rebellion in Peru. The character of those papers
discredited the information. But the truth was, that the insurrections
were so general, that the event was long on the poise. Had Commodore
Johnson, then expected on that coast, touched and landed there two
thousand men, the dominion of Spain in that country would have been at
an end. They only wanted a point of union, which this body would have
constituted. Not having this, they acted without concert, and were at
length subdued separately. This conflagration was quenched in blood;
two hundred thousand souls, on both sides, having perished; but the
remaining matter is very capable of combustion. I have this information
from a person who was on the spot at the time, and whose good faith,
understanding, and means of information, leave no doubt of the facts.
He observed, however, that the numbers above supposed to have perished,
were on such conjectures only as