he one was a people which, by the
help of the surrounding ocean and its own virtues, had preserved to
itself through ages its liberty, pure and inviolated by a foreign
invader; the other a high-minded nation, which a tyrant, presuming on
its decrepitude, had, through the real decrepitude of its Government,
perfidiously enslaved. What could be more delightful than to think of an
intercourse beginning in this manner? On the part of the Spaniards their
love towards us was enthusiasm and adoration; the faults of our national
character were hidden from them by a veil of splendour; they saw nothing
around us but glory and light; and, on our side, we estimated _their_
character with partial and indulgent fondness;--thinking on their past
greatness, not as the undermined foundation of a magnificent building,
but as the root of a majestic tree recovered from a long disease, and
beginning again to flourish with promise of wider branches and a deeper
shade than it had boasted in the fulness of its strength. If in the
sensations with which the Spaniards prostrated themselves before the
religion of their country we did not keep pace with them--if even their
loyalty was such as, from our mixed constitution of government and from
other causes, we could not thoroughly sympathize with,--and if, lastly,
their devotion to the person of their Sovereign appeared to us to have
too much of the alloy of delusion,--in all these things we judged them
gently: and, taught by the reverses of the French revolution, we looked
upon these dispositions as more human--more social--and therefore as
wiser, and of better omen, than if they had stood forth the zealots of
abstract principles, drawn out of the laboratory of unfeeling
philosophists. Finally, in this reverence for the past and present, we
found an earnest that they were prepared to contend to the death for as
much liberty as their habits and their knowledge enabled them to
receive. To assist them and their neighbours the Portugueze in the
attainment of this end, we sent to them in love and in friendship a
powerful army to aid--to invigorate--and to chastise:--they landed; and
the first proof they afforded of their being worthy to be sent on such a
service--the first pledge of amity given by them was the victory of
Vimiera; the second pledge (and this was from the hand of their
Generals,) was the Convention of Cintra.

The reader will by this time have perceived, what thoughts were
uppermost in m