3235. Robert Southey to John Rickman, [c. 25 January 1819] ⁠* 

My dear R.

Thank you for a succession of proof sheets, [1]  every one of which operates upon me like the crack of a whip in the air upon a willing horse. – I have been lucky enough by means of Neville White to get a history of B Ayres Tucuman & Paraguay lately printed at B Ayres, [2]  – which I first saw mentioned in the report of the Yankee Commissioners. [3]  Nothing could arrive more opportunely, it gives me information where I most wanted it, & in the most satisfactory manner confirms [MS missing] view which I had taken upon of those points that are most disputed. In this work of Funes is the only account which has ever appeared of the tremendous insurrection of the Peruvians – In under one of the Inca blood, in 1782–3. In two instances they demolished the fortifications of a Spanish towns by bringing a river to bear upon them. [4]  – It is very evident to me that if the Indians were as active & as powerful now as they were forty years ago, the end of these civil wars would be that they would destroy the surviving Spaniards & lay the country waste. But I suspect that since the expulsion of the Jesuits, [5]  spirits have been introduced among them freely, & that this is add xxx <xx> has contributed to destroy them, almost as much as their own cursed practises of abortion & infanticide. The B Ayres historian however speaks of them as still formidable.

God bless you

RS.