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An English Utilitarian Looks at Spanish-American Independence: Jeremy Bentham’s Rid Yourselves of Ultramaria*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Jonathan Harris
Jonathan Harris*
Affiliation:
University College London, London, England
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Extract

On August 31 1832, when news arrived of the death of the English utilitarian philosopher and jurisconsult, Jeremy Bentham, the Guatemalan Statesman José del Valle introduced a resolution to the congress of the Central American Republic requesting all its members to wear mourning as a mark of respect. He also took the opportunity to bestow fulsome praise on Bentham, not only as the sage who had taught the art of legislation and government, but also as the defender of Spanish-American independence.

Few would dispute the first claim. Bentham’s work on the science of legislation, Traités de législation, had been translated into Spanish and was widely read throughout Spanish America. Francisco Santander was said to have always had a copy open on his desk and it was adopted as a basic text for study at University level in Buenos Aires and Santiago. Many of Bentham’s other works enjoyed similar esteem and his opinions on what constituted good government were constantly cited and debated in the assemblies of the new republics.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , October 1996 , pp. 217 - 233
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1996

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Footnotes

*

This article is a revised version of a paper given at a seminar at University College London in February 1994. It is partly based on material from the Bentham Manuscripts, University College London and the British Library (abbreviated hereafter as UC and BL, respectively.

References

1 Marure, Alejandro, Efemérides de los hechos notables acaecidos en la Republica de Centro-América, des el año de 1821 hasta el de 1842 (Guatemala City: Imprenta de la Paz, 1844), p. 31;Google Scholar Bumgartner, Louis E., José del Valle of Central America (Durham: Duke University Press, 1963), p. 267.Google Scholar

2 del Valle, José, “Elogio de Bentham,” in El pensamiento económico de José del Valle, Rodríguez, J. Valladares, ed. (Tegucigalpa: Publicaciones del Banco Central de Honduras, 1958), pp. 133–7, esp. p. 133 Google Scholar: “Ya cesó de ser … el defensor celoso de nuestra independencia, el que demonstró el interés que tenían las metrópolis en la emancipación de las colonias, el que escribió obras luminosas para que aprendesemos a calcular bienes y males antes de ser legisladores.”

3 Traités de législation civile et pénale, 3 vols. (Paris, 1802) had been edited from Bentham’s manuscripts by Etienne Dumont and published in French. It was translated into Spanish by Ramón Salas and published as Tratados de legislación civil y penal, 5 vols. (Madrid, 1821–22).

4 Theodora L. McKennan, “Benthamism in Santander’s Columbia,” The Bentham Newsletter, 5 (May, 1981), 29–43, esp. 33; McKennan, Theodora L., “Jeremy Bentham and the Colombian Liberators,” The Americas, 34:4 (April 1978), 460–75, esp. 469;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Dinwiddy, J.R., “Bentham and the Early Nineteenth Century,” The Bentham Newsletter, 8 (June 1984), 15–33 Google Scholar, esp. 22–23, reprinted in Radicalism and Reform in Britain, 1780–1850 (London: The Hambledon Press, 1992), pp. 291–313, esp. 302–3.

5 Bumgartner, José del Valle, p. 217; Collier, Simon, Ideas and Politics of Chilean Independence 1808–1833 (Cambridge: The University Press, 1967), pp. 174–75;Google Scholar Hale, Charles A., Mexican Liberalism in the Age of Mora 1821–1853 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), pp. 148–87;Google Scholar Rodríguez, Mario, The Cádiz Experiment in Central America, 1808–1826 (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1978), pp. 198, 216.Google Scholar

6 “Ultramaria” was a strange coinage of Bentham’s own, probably based on the Spanish word ultramar.

7 Bentham’s Rid Yourselves of Ultramaria (hereafter referred to in the footnotes as RY) can now be found in Colonies, Commerce and Constitutional Law: Rid Yourselves of Ultramaria and other writings for Spain and Spanish America, Schofield, Philip, ed. The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham (Oxford: The University Press, 1995), pp. 1–194.Google Scholar

8 Williford, Miriam, Jeremy Bentham on Spanish America (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980), pp. 44–68.Google Scholar

9 Braun, Carlos Rodríguez, “‘Libraos de Ultramar.’ Bentham frente a España y sus colonias,” Revista de Historia Económica, 3:3 (Fall 1985), pp. 497–509;CrossRefGoogle Scholar “Pensamiento económico y cuestión colonial en el siglo clásico: los casos de Bentham y Marx” (Ph.D. diss., Universidad Complutense, Madrid, 1984). RY is also discussed in the same author’s La cuestión colonial y la económica clásica (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1989), pp. 114–28.

10 Braun, “Libraos,” pp. 503–8; Braun, Cuestión colonial, pp. 122–28.

11 Braun, “Libraos,” pp. 508: “Bentham abandona la obra a medio terminar en 1823….”

12 Ibid., p. 502: “Parece como si Bentham hubiese empezado por la cuestión colonial y, al percibir la importancia del problema constitucional, hubiese desviado su atención hacia éste, del que habiá mucho que decir.”

13 Schwartz, Pedro and Braun, Carlos Rodríguez, “Bentham on Spanish protectionism,” Utilitas, 4:1 (May 1992), 121–32, esp. 125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Bentham to Lord Holland, 13 Nov. 1808, The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, January 1802-December 1808, J.R. Dinwiddy, ed. The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham (Oxford: The University Press, 1988), no. 2014, pp. 567–73. A copy of a passport for Bentham addressed to the Spanish authorities by Lord Holland is preserved in BL Add. Ms. 33, 544, fol. 418. In general, see Williford, Bentham on Spanish America, pp. 3–14; J.R. Dinwiddy, “Liberal and Benthamite circles in London, 1810–1829,” in Andres Bello—The London Years ed., J. Lynch (London: The Richmond Publishing Co., 1982), pp. 119–36.

15 Piccirilli, Ricardo, Rivadavia y su tiempo, 2 vols. (Buenos Aires: Editores Peuser, 1943), 1:305–25;Google Scholar Schwartz, Pedro and Braun, Carlos Rodríguez, “Las relaciones entre S. Bolívar y J. Bentham,” in Bolívar y Europa, ed., Filippi, A. (Caracas: Ediciones de la Presidencia de la República, 1986), pp. 445–60;Google Scholar McKennan, “Bentham and the Colombian Liberators,” pp. 460–61; Williford, Bentham on Spanish America, pp. 114–36.

16 Williford, Miriam, “Utilitarian Design for the New World: Bentham’s Plan for a Nicaraguan Canal,” The Americas, 27:1 (July 1970), 75–85;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Williford, Bentham on Spanish America, pp. 15–30, 87–98.

17 The constitution had been drawn up and proclaimed at Cádiz on March 19, 1812, while the town was under siege by the French and the king, Ferdinand VII, was Napoleon’s prisoner at Bayonne. On his return in 1814 Ferdinand had abrogated the constitution but the events of January 1820 obliged him to restore it, and it remained in force during the “Liberal Triennium” of 1820–23: Lovett, Gabriel H., Napoleon and the Birth of Modern Spain, 2 vols. (New York: The University Press, 1965), 1:361–406;Google Scholar Miguel Artola Gallego, La España de Fernando VII, vol. 26 of Historia de España, Ramón Menéndez Pidal, ed. (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe S.A., 1968), pp. 471–510; Fehrenbach, Charles W., “Moderados and Exaltados: the liberal opposition to Ferdinand VII, 1814–1823,” Hispanic American Historical Review, 50:1 (Feb. 1970), 52–69;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Rodríguez, Cádiz Experiment, pp. 75–100.

18 See, for example, Morning Chronicle (London), Sept. 4, 1820; The Works of Jeremy Bentham, ed., John Bowring, 11 vols. (Edinburgh: William Tate, 1838–43), 10:514. In general on the reception of Bentham’s ideas in Spain see: Pedro Schwartz, “La influencia de Jeremías Bentham en España,” Información Comercial Española, 517 (Sept. 1976), 37–57; Dinwiddy, “Bentham and the Early Nineteenth Century,” pp. 20–22, and in Radicalism and Reform in Britain, pp. 299–302.

19 Diario de las actas y discusiones de las Cortes. Legislatura de 1820 y 1821, 13 vols. (Madrid, 1821), 9:5; El Español Constitucional (London), 24 (Aug. 1820), 157; Morning Herald (London), Nov. 7, 1820, copied at UC, xxii, 101b; Morning Chronicle, Aug. 3 and Nov. 23, 1820, copied at UC, xxii, 85, 105–7.

20 Argüelles to Bentham, Dec. 1820 and Toreno to Bentham, Aug. 1821, The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, July 1820—December 1821, S.R. Conway, ed. The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham (Oxford: The University Press, 1994), no. 2736, pp. 251–3 and no. 2789, p. 368.

21 Bentham to Sir Samuel Bentham, March 27, 1820, The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, January 1817—June 1820, S.R. Conway, ed. The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham (Oxford: The University Press, 1989), no. 2599, p. 413; Bentham, Works, Bowring, ed. 8:460-554 and 10:513-17; Morning Chronicle, April 18, 1820.

22 Robertson, W.S., “The Policy of Spain Towards its Revolted Colonies, 1820–23,” Hispanic American Historical Review, 6:1-3 (Feb.-Aug. 1926), 21–44;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Costeloe, M.P., Response to Revolution. Imperial Spain and the Spanish American Revolutions, 1810–1840 (Cambridge: The University Press, 1986), p. 88.Google Scholar

23 UC, vii, 11a. It was originally entitled “Emancipation Spanish, an exhortation to the Spanish people” and did not receive its final title until late 1820.

24 Bentham to Blaquiere, Aug. 28, 1820, Bentham, Correspondence, 1820–1, no. 2682, pp. 48–9.

25 Bentham to Etienne Dumont, Oct. 24, 1821, Bentham, Correspondence, 1820–1, no. 2815, p. 413; Bentham to Simón Bolívar, Dec. 24, 1820, Bentham, Correspondence, 1820–1, no. 2734, p. 247.

26 “Though long in hand, it has never yet been completed such have been the changes which the scene has been continually undergoing and such the interruptions that the work has suffered from intermediate ones.” Bentham to José de San Martín, May 31 to June 6, 1822, UC, xii, 65–81, esp. 73.

27 Bentham to Bolívar, June 4, 1823, Archivio Histórico Nacional de Bogotá, Secretaría del Interior y de Relaciones Exteriores, vol. 159, fols. 83–326v; The Iberian Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham: A Provisional Edition, Pedro Schwartz, ed. 2 vols. (London and Madrid: privately printed, 1979), 2: no. 205, p. 850. For a full account of the writing of RY, see Philip Schofield’s editorial introduction to Colonies, Commerce and Constitutional Law, pp. xviii-xlii, xliv-lvii.

28 In Letter 18 he set out to discuss the terms on which the colonies might be given independence and the way in which these terms might be communicated, but dealt only with the first point: RY, p. 137.

29 Braun, “Libraos,” pp. 503, 506.

30 It was privately printed and circulated among Bentham’s friends. In 1830 it was re-published with the title Emancipate Your Colonies! Addressed to the National Convention of France, Ao 1793, shewing the uselessness and mischievousness of Distant Dependencies to a European State. He adopted a similar position in “Colonies and Navy,” a fragmentary essay, written about 1790 and now published in Jeremy Bentham’s Economic Writings, W. Stark, ed. 3 vols. (New York: Burt Franklin, 1952), 1:211-18, esp. 217–18.

31 Bentham to Blaquiere, June 5, 1820, Bentham, Correspondence, 1817–20, no. 2639, p. 458.

32 Bentham to Blaquiere, Aug. 28, 1820, Bentham, Correspondence, 1820–1, no. 2682, p. 49.

33 Townsend, Joseph, A Journey through Spain in the Years 1786 and 1787, 3 vols. (London, 1792, 2nd ed.).Google Scholar

34 RY, p. 7; Townsend, Journey, 2:181; Guillaume Thomas François Raynal, Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes, 7 vols. (Paris, 1774), 3:408. The debate over whether Spain profited or lost by the separation of South America continues: I. Fontana, “Colapso y transformación del comercio exterior español entre 1792 y 1827,” Moneda y Crédito, no. 115 (Dec. 1970), pp. 3–23; Costeloe, Response, pp. 150–70; Schwartz and Braun, “Bentham on Spanish protectionism,” pp. 126–27.

35 RY, p. 25.

36 RYp., 29.

37 RY pp. 23–4.

38 Bentham clearly had a copy of the Spanish constitution in front of him as he wrote. The translation cited here is from The Pamphleteer, 22:43 (Jan. 1823), 62–87, esp. 63. For the original see: Constitución política de la monarquía española. Promulgada en Cádiz á 19 de marzo 1812, 2 vols. (Cádiz, 1812); Colección de los decretos y órdenes generales, 10 vols. (Madrid, 1820–3), 2:98-164.

39 Bentham, Jeremy, Constitutional Code, vol. 1, Rosen, F. and Burns, J.H., eds. The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham (Oxford: The University Press, 1983), pp. 18–19;Google Scholar Rosen, F., Jeremy Bentham and Representative Democracy (Oxford: The University Press, 1983), pp. 200–20.Google Scholar

40 RY, p. 52.

41 RY, pp. 53–4.

42 RY, pp. 53–61.

43 RY, p. 64.

44 RY, p. 65.

45 RY, p. 68.

46 RY, pp. 73–5.

47 RY, pp. 76–85. Bentham drew his information on relative populations from the following sources: Censo Español executado de órden del Rey comunicada por el Excelentísimo Señor Conde de Floridablanca, primer Secretario de Estado y del Despacho, en el año de 1787 (Madrid, 1787); Hassel, Georg, Allgemeines europäisches Staats—und Address-Handbuch für das Jahr 1816, 2 vols. (Weimar, 1816), 2: pt. 1, pp. 310–12.Google Scholar

48 RY, pp. 82–3.

49 Articles 35 to 103 of the constitution laid down the complex procedure for the election of deputies by parish, district and provincial electoral meetings: Rodríguez, Cádiz Experiment, pp. 79–80.

50 RY, p. 81; Morning Chronicle, March 25, 1820, copied at UC, clxii, 50; C.R. Berry, “The Election of the Mexican Deputies to the Spanish Cortes, 1810–1822,” in Mexico and the Spanish Cortes, 1810–1822: Eight Essays, N.L. Benson, ed. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1966), pp. 14, 28.

51 RY, pp. 84–5.

52 RY, p. 86.

53 RY, pp. 26, 89.

54 RY, pp. 93–4.

55 RY, pp. 94–100.

56 RY, pp. 101–13.

57 RY, pp. 117–53.

58 RY, pp. 154–6.

59 RY, pp. 157–62.

60 RY, pp. 166–84.

61 RY, p. 189.

62 RY, p. 192.

63 Blaquiere, Edward, An Historical Review of the Spanish Revolution (London, 1822), p. 565;Google Scholar Williford, Bentham on Spanish America, pp. 48–9; McKennan, “Bentham and the Colombian Liberators,” p. 475.

64 Journal of John Flowerdew Colls, Bentham’s Secretary, 1821–5, BL Add. Ms 33,563, Feb. 12, March 13, 22 and 29, April 23 1822; Bentham to Mora, Nov. 15–17 1820, Bentham, Correspondence, 1820–1, no. 2713, p. 153; Bentham to Bernardino Rivadavia, June 15 1822, UC, xii, 387.

65 Journal of John Colls, 1821–5, BL Add. Ms 33,563, Feb. 12 1822; Bentham to Núñnez, Feb. 12 1822 in Luis Silvela, Discurso de recepción … como miembro de la Real Academia de Ciencias Morales y Políticas, en Abril de 1894 (Madrid: Imprenta de los hijos de M.G. Hernández, 1894), pp. 80–2. For Bentham’s relationship with Núñez, see Kenny, Courtney, “A Spanish apostle of Benthamism,” Law Quarterly Review, 11:42 (April 1895), 175–84.Google Scholar

66 Bentham to Etienne Dumont, May 26 1822, Dumont MSS, Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire, Geneva, 33/V, fol.26; Journal of John Colls, 1821–5, BL Add. Ms 33,563, June 6, 1822.

67 Bentham to Bolívar, Dec. 24 1820, Bentham, Correspondence, 1820–1, no. 2734, p. 247; Bentham to José de San Martin, May 31-June 6, 1822, UC, xii, 73; Bentham to Bernardino Rivadavia, June 15 1822, UC, xii, 387.

68 Walton, W., An Exposé on the Dissentions of Spanish America (London, 1814), pp. 262–63;Google Scholar King, James F., “The Coloured Castes and American Representation in the Cortes of Cádiz,” Hispanic American Historical Review, 33:1 (Feb. 1953), 33–64;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Berry, “Election ol deputies,” p. 29; Anna, Timothy E., Spain and the Loss of America (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983), pp. 70–1, 78–9.Google Scholar

69 de Guerra, José Moreno, Manifiesto a la Nacion Española y particularmente a las futuras Cortes de 22 y 23 sobre las causas que han paralizado la revolución y la marcha de las Cortes de 20 y 21. (Cádiz, 1822), p. 17;Google Scholar José María Queipo de Llano y Ruíz de Saravía, Conde de Toreno, Historia del levantamiento, guerra y revolución en España (Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, no. 64, 1953), p. 393.