ABSTRACT
Substantially composed on or just before 14 February 1812 when an untitled version of the poem, minus stanza 4, was sent to Elizabeth Hitchener (BL add.MS 37496 f. 90: Hitch. MS) with the comment: ‘Have you heard, a new republic is set up in Mexico. I have just written the following short tribute to its success’ (L i 253). Stanza 4 may have been already written but tactfully omitted because in the same letter S. was acclaiming ‘The society of peace and love!’ and stressing the ‘spirit of peace toleration and patience’ of his Irish enterprise, then under way. In Esd the poem was originally headed ‘To the Republicans of New Spain’, but the last two words were altered to read ‘North (lit. ‘Nouth’) America’, no doubt to avoid any colonialist taint (Spain had conferred the viceregal title of ‘New Spain’ on her North and Central American possessions in 1535). No republic was proclaimed until 6 November 1813 in Mexico, where a bloody partisan war was still being waged by Morelos, and it is possible that S., or his source, had confused Mexico with Venezuela, who had declared her independence on 5 July 1811 in a proclamation later translated in full in Annual Register (1811), ‘State Papers’ 331–4. But Venezuela had been virtually independent since April 1810 whereas S.’s poem describes a desperate sacrificial struggle such as that taking place in Mexico (lines 6–10, 45–50); moreover the ‘wild and winding shore’ (line 4) suggests the long Mexican coastline. For details of American independence movements see John Lynch, The Spanish American Revolutions 1808–1826 (1973) 312–15. S.’s information came from brief glances at American papers which may have anticipated Morelos’s declaration. On 10 March S. wrote to Elizabeth Hitchener: ‘The Republic of Mexico proceeds & extends. I have seen American papers, but have not had time to read them. -I only know that the spirit of Republicanism extends in South America, and that the prevailing opinion is that there will soon be no province which will recognize the ancient dynasty of Spain’ (L i 272). Thus the poem comprehends all the anti-colonialist struggles in America (lines 21–2), perhaps including (as Cameron suggests: Esd Nbk 203) that of the United States against Britain. This war which began 18 June 1812 may have done so before the poem was copied into Esd, so influencing the title.
