this conditional censure, we are still inclined to believe, that, in
spite of our deductions on the score of exaggeration, we have still
given too easy credit to the accounts furnished by the enemy, of the
rashness with which the Spaniards engaged in pitched battles, and of
their dismay after defeat. For the Spaniards have repeatedly proclaimed,
and they have inwardly felt, that their strength was from their
cause--of course, that it was moral. Why then should they abandon this,
and endeavour to prevail by means in which their opponents are
confessedly so much superior? Moral strength is their's; but physical
power for the purposes of immediate or rapid destruction is on the side
of their enemies. This is to them no disgrace, but, as soon as they
understand themselves, they will see that they are disgraced by
mistrusting their appropriate stay, and throwing themselves upon a power
which for them must be weak. Nor will it then appear to them a
sufficient excuse, that they were seduced into this by the splendid
qualities of courage and enthusiasm, which, being the frequent
companions, and, in given circumstances, the necessary agents of virtue,
are too often themselves hailed as virtues by their own title. But
courage and enthusiasm have equally characterized the best and the worst
beings, a Satan, equally with an ABDIEL--a BONAPARTE equally with a
LEONIDAS. They are indeed indispensible to the Spanish soldiery, in
order that, man to man, they may not be inferior to their enemies in the
field of battle. But inferior they are and long must be in warlike skill
and coolness; inferior in assembled numbers, and in blind mobility to
the preconceived purposes of their leader. If therefore the Spaniards
are not superior in some superior quality, their fall may be predicted
with the certainty of a mathematical calculation. Nay, it is right to
acknowledge, however depressing to false hope the thought may be, that
from a people prone and disposed to war, as the French are, through the
very absence of those excellencies which give a contra-distinguishing
dignity to the Spanish character; that, from an army of men presumptuous
by nature, to whose presumption the experience of constant success has
given the confidence and stubborn strength of reason, and who balance
against the devotion of patriotism the superstition so naturally
attached by the sensual and disordinate to the strange fortunes and
continual felicity of their Emperor; th