of his minister, and for the hearing of all
Europe, that his army of Portugal had 'DICTATED THE TERMS OF ITS
GLORIOUS RETREAT.'

I have to defend my countrymen: and, if their feelings deserve
reverence, if there be any stirrings of wisdom in the motions of their
souls, my task is accomplished. For here were no factions to blind; no
dissolution of established authorities to confound; no ferments to
distemper; no narrow selfish interests to delude. The object was at a
distance; and it rebounded upon us, as with force collected from a
mighty distance; we were calm till the very moment of transition; and
all the people were moved--and felt as with one heart, and spake as with
one voice. Every human being in these islands was unsettled; the most
slavish broke loose as from fetters; and there was not an individual--it
need not be said of heroic virtue, but of ingenuous life and sound
discretion--who, if his father, his son, or his brother, or if the
flower of his house had been in that army, would not rather that they
had perished, and the whole body of their countrymen, their companions
in arms, had perished to a man, than that a treaty should have been
submitted to upon such conditions. This was the feeling of the people;
an awful feeling: and it is from these oracles that rulers are to learn
wisdom.

For, when the people speaks loudly, it is from being strongly possessed
either by the Godhead or the Demon; and he, who cannot discover the true
spirit from the false, hath no ear for profitable communion. But in all
that regarded the destinies of Spain, and her own as connected with
them, the voice of Britain had the unquestionable sound of inspiration.
If the gentle passions of pity, love, and gratitude, be porches of the
temple; if the sentiments of admiration and rivalry be pillars upon
which the structure is sustained; if, lastly, hatred, and anger, and
vengeance, be steps which, by a mystery of nature, lead to the House of
Sanctity;--then was it manifest to what power the edifice was
consecrated; and that the voice within was of Holiness and Truth.

Spain had risen not merely to be delivered and saved;--deliverance and
safety were but intermediate objects;--regeneration and liberty were the
end, and the means by which this end was to be attained; had their own
high value; were determined and precious; and could no more admit of
being departed from, than the end of being forgotten.--She had
risen--not merely to be free