country would
afford a fine field for the energy and enterprise of all the lawless
spirits of the South, who could be precipitated upon it to the great
gain of their countrymen; and England, in pursuance of her great
Christian principle of creating markets for cotton and cottons, would
encourage the Confederates to enter Mexico. But if Mexico should be
converted into an orderly country, and have an army capable of treating
buccaneers as the Spanish army treated Lopez and his followers, it would
be no place for the discharged soldiers of Davis and Stephens. They
would have to stay at home, and they would make of that home a hell. The
welfare of the North would be promoted by the misery of the Southrons,
who ought to be made to pay the full penalty of their extraordinary
crime. Without provocation, and making of that want of provocation an
absolute boast, they have brought war upon their country, and are
endeavoring to spread its flames over the world. The misery they have
wrought is incalculable, and no narrative of it, let it be as minute and
as detailed as it could be made, will ever furnish a full picture of it.
It would be but the merest justice, that men who make war in the spirit
of wantonness be compelled to drink off the red cup they have filled, to
the very lees. Such would probably be their doom, should they prevail.
The least successful thing to them would be success.

It is not certain, however, that the revival of Spanish power is to be
lasting in its nature; and if Spain should fall as suddenly as she has
risen, the way to Mexico would be open to the Southrons, who might then
and there add so tremendously to the dominions of King Cotton as to make
him even more powerful than ever he has been in the imagination of his
votaries,--and they have ranked him only one step below the Devil.
Spanish revivals are so much like certain other revivals, that they are
apt to be followed by reaction, leaving the unduly excited subject in a
worse condition than ever. European affairs, too, may demand Spain's
attention, and require her to leave Mexico to take care of herself.
Europe is full of causes of war, occasion for waging which must soon
arise. The American war has tended to the promotion of peace in Europe,
but that cannot be much longer maintained. Let war break out in Europe,
and Spain would probably feel herself called upon to assume a principal
part in it, and then the Southern Confederacy would be at liberty to
s