CONVERSATIONS WITH A SPANISH LIBERAL. 



cause ; so they are literally fighting you see, pro aris el focis, for 

 such an order of things as is incompatible with a system of good go- 

 vernment, that would place upon the same footing the privileges of . 

 every province of Spain." 



" From what you have just told me, then, it is evident that the cele- 

 brated Rodil will have some harder work cut out for him than he met 

 with in his late military promenade in Portugal." 

 . " Jose Ramon Rodil," continued my Spanish friend, " is, as you 

 say, indeed an extraordinary man, the ultimum Romanorum, the last 

 of a species which Spain alone has produced; and who, in the 

 closing scene of her dominion in South America, displayed the ter- 

 rible energy, unshaken firmness of character, and atrocious cold- 

 blooded cruelty, that so peculiarly distinguished the warriors of the 

 Cortez and Pizarro schools. 



" The close of the general war saw Rodil a lieutenant-colonel ; and 

 without hopes of promotion at home, he went out to South America. 

 Long will the dark-eyed maiden of the valleys of Peru continue to 

 grow pale at the name of Rodil. Humanity shudders at the recital 

 of his atrocities ; he hunted down the unfortunate patriots as if they 

 had belonged to a distinct species. f Con que amigo,' said the general, 

 with freezing irony, one day, to a patriot officer who had just been 

 brought in prisonner ; ' Con que estas patrioto ? So you are a pa- 

 triot? one of those, too, whose devise is independence or death/ 

 The patriot officer, with folded arms, directed a look of withering 

 scorn at his country's oppressor, but made no reply. ' Well/ con- 

 tinued Rodil, in the same tone of bitter raillery, ' as independence is 

 a thing perfectly out of the question, you can have no objection to my 

 countersigning your passport for the next world, or in other words, 

 to my qualifying you for the latter condition of your national motto.' 

 And then, turning to an orderly officer, he said, with the most perfect 

 nonchalance, * Matta-le.' The unfortunate officer was immediately 

 led out, and in a few minutes the fire of a platoon convinced the 

 general that his victim had, by means of his passport, passed the barrier 

 of eternity. 



"It is to be regretted," continued my narrator, " that Rodil should 

 have tarnished his bright military fame by acts of atrocious cruelty, 

 such as I have narrated to you, for he is really a brave and expe- 

 rienced soldier ; and his heroic defence of the castles of Callao will 

 occupy a distinguished place in the annals of sieges. After the battle 

 of Ayacucho he refused to ratify that article of the capitulation en- 

 tered into by Generals Canterac and Sucre, to deliver up the fortress 

 of Callao, of which he was at the time governor ; and made pre- 

 parations for a vigorous defence : and such indeed it proved ; he held 

 out this fortress for upwards of eighteen months, exposed to almost 

 constant bombardment from the batteries of the patriots, to famine, 

 and the dreadful effects of a contagious fever, that proved even more 

 fatal than the fire of the enemy. The miseries and privations of 

 the unfortunate inhabitants and garrison during this siege almost 

 baffle description. Suffice it to say, that out of 4,000 persons, many 

 of them belonging to the first families in Lima, who had adhered to 

 the royalist cause, not a tithe escaped. More than once the troops un- 



