is seasonable
assistance, and presented to the English Admiral a jewel which was
popularly said to be worth near twenty thousand pounds sterling. There
was no difficulty in finding such a jewel among the hoards of gorgeous
trinkets which had been left by Charles the Fifth and Philip the Second
to a degenerate race. But, in all that constitutes the true wealth of
states, Spain was poor indeed. Her treasury was empty; her arsenals were
unfurnished; her ships were so rotten that they seemed likely to fly
asunder at the discharge of their own guns. Her ragged and starving
soldiers often mingled with the crowd of beggars at the doors of
convents, and battled there for a mess of pottage and a crust of bread.
Russell underwent those trials which no English commander whose hard
fate it has been to cooperate with Spaniards has escaped. The Viceroy
of Catalonia promised much, did nothing, and expected every thing. He
declared that three hundred and fifty thousand rations were ready to be
served out to the fleet at Carthagena. It turned out that there were not
in all the stores of that port provisions sufficient to victual a single
frigate for a single week. Yet His Excellency thought himself entitled
to complain because England had not sent an army as well as a fleet, and
because the heretic Admiral did not choose to expose the fleet to utter
destruction by attacking the French under the guns of Toulon. Russell
implored the Spanish authorities to look well to their dockyards, and to
try to have, by the next spring, a small squadron which might at least
be able to float; but he could not prevail on them to careen a single
ship. He could with difficulty obtain, on hard conditions, permission to
send a few of his sick men to marine hospitals on shore. Yet, in spite
of all the trouble given him by the imbecility and ingratitude of a
government which has generally caused more annoyance to its allies than
to its enemies, he acquitted himself well. It is but just to him to
say that, from the time at which he became First Lord of the Admiralty,
there was a decided improvement in the naval administration. Though
he lay with his fleet many months near an inhospitable shore, and at a
great distance from England, there were no complaints about the quality
or the quantity of provisions. The crews had better food and drink
than they had ever had before; comforts which Spain did not afford were
supplied from home; and yet the charge was not great