THE MONARCHICAL PLANS OF GENERAL SAN MARTÍN E. LARRABURE Y UNANUE EXTRACTED from Les Archives des Indes et la Bibliothèque Colombine de Séville: Renseignements sur leurs richesses bibliographiques et sur l'exposition d'anciens documents relatifs à l'Amérique, pp. 51-56, and presented to the Panama-Pacific Historical Congress, by Señor Don E. Larrabure y Unanue, President of the Historical Institute of Lima (Peru), former Minister for Foreign Affairs and Vice-President of the Republic. I propose in this paper to give an account of one of the most important files which I examined at Seville. It is classified as: Audiencia de Lima, Expediente sobre el levantamiento del Perú. Año 1821. Legajo No 28. Est. 3. Caj. 1. It contains chiefly manuscripts and a very few printed documents. Among the latter, there is one of sixteen folio pages, printed at Lima in the "Casa de Expositos," 1820. It is a Manifesto of the meetings which had been held in the city of Miraflores to examine the dealings with General San Martín and the documents presented by those who had been concerned therein. It is well known that these negotiations failed. "I infinitely regret," said General San Martín to Viceroy Pezuela, in a letter written at Chincha, October 5, 1820, "that your Excellency is not authorized to work for peace, except on the impossible condition of swearing allegiance to the Spanish Constitution. . . .” "This statement is confirmed two days later by the viceroy, who declares in fact that he does not have the said authorization. Next come other documents, some originals and some copies, useful in studying the history of those efforts toward peace which, in Peru as in the other American countries, always failed for the same reason, namely the absurd pretension of Ferdinand VII, who was then a mere plaything of court politics, that the American peoples should renounce the right to govern themselves. Next is docketed the correspondence between the new viceroy of Lima, La Serna, and General San Martín in 1820, various notes, instructions for the celebration of the armistice, and other papers, even later in date than the proclamation of independence in the main square of Lima on July 28, 1821, as well as documents relating to the capitulation of the Callao fortresses in September 1821. But what is even more important than all these, is a bundle of papers which is marked: Reserved. To-day, in historical material, there is no longer any such thing as "Reserved." I remember a prominent Venezuelan historian, somewhat hostile to General San Martín, who said, in speaking of the general's conferences with the royal deputy, Manuel Abreu: "It will not be posible to determine that (i.e., what took place in these conferences), until the correspondence of Abreu in the Spanish Archives is studied." 1 Well, this correspondence has recently been in my hands, and everything in it (if the Venezuelan critic will pardon me) redounds to the honor of General San Martín. After the word Reserved, there is added a short note: "Manuel Abreu, sent out for the pacification of Peru, forwards from Lima, under date of November 6, 1821, an account of the events which took place during the negotiations with the dissidents, and encloses the gazettes of this City up to September 21, 1821, together with other printed documents." A complete copy of this very interesting autograph document would take a great deal of space in this brochure, and I prefer to extract from it what is of greatest importance. The envoy Abreu reports to his government: that, since Nepeña, he observed enthusiasm for the cause of independence; that the authorities had orders to treat him, as he passed through, as if he were "General San Martín himself;" that the Spanish prisoners were well treated, and charged him to thank the said general on their behalf; that the general sent Sres Arenales and 1 Carlos A. Villanueva, Ferdnando VII y los nuevos Estados. P. Ollendorff, Paris, 1914. |