at, from the armies of such a
people a more manageable enthusiasm, a courage less under the influence
of accidents, may be expected in the confusion of immediate conflict,
than from forces like the Spaniards, united indeed by devotion to a
common cause, but not equally united by an equal confidence in each
other, resulting from long fellowship and brotherhood in all conceivable
incidents of war and battle. Therefore, I do not hesitate to affirm,
that even the occasional flight of the Spanish levies, from sudden panic
under untried circumstances, would not be so injurious to the Spanish
cause; no, nor so dishonourable to the Spanish character, nor so ominous
of ultimate failure, as a paramount reliance on superior valour, instead
of a principled reposal on superior constancy and immutable resolve.
Rather let them have fled once and again, than direct their prime
admiration to the blaze and explosion of animal courage, in slight of
the vital and sustaining warmth of fortitude; in slight of that moral
contempt of death and privation, which does not need the stir and shout
of battle to call it forth or support it, which can smile in patience
over the stiff and cold wound, as well as rush forward regardless,
because half senseless of the fresh and bleeding one. Why did we give
our hearts to the present cause of Spain with a fervour and elevation
unknown to us in the commencement of the late Austrian or Prussian
resistance to France? Because we attributed to the former an heroic
temperament which would render their transfer to such domination an evil
to human nature itself, and an affrightening perplexity in the
dispensations of Providence. But if in oblivion of the prophetic wisdom
of their own first leaders in the cause, they are surprised beyond the
power of rallying, utterly cast down and manacled by fearful thoughts
from the first thunder-storm of defeat in the field, wherein do they
differ from the Prussians and Austrians? Wherein are they a People, and
not a mere army or set of armies? If this be indeed so, what have we to
mourn over but our own honourable impetuosity, in hoping where no just
ground of hope existed? A nation, without the virtues necessary for the
attainment of independence, have failed to attain it. This is all. For
little has that man understood the majesty of true national freedom, who
believes that a population, like that of Spain, in a country like that
of Spain, may want the qualities needful to fig