202 CONVERSATIONS WITH A SPANISH LIBERAL. 



Upon this vague charge, the prefect, without assigning any reason, 

 immediately ordered Merino to appear before him. Merino on his 

 arrival was very unceremoniously received ; for, without explaining 

 to him why and wherefore he had been called to appear, he was 

 threatened with a dungeon, and even a gibbet, if he dared revolt 

 against the authority of the Cortes. What a superficial knowledge 

 did this conduct betray of Merino's character* ! Deeply wounded in 

 his pride, and terrible in his cold-blooded revenge, he only answered 

 his interrogator by one of those freezing looks, which in him conveys 

 so much meaning. From that moment he vowed revenge against 

 the government of the Cortes from that moment may be dated all 

 the injury he has done the constitutional cause, and which he is still 

 doing in Old Castile, of which he is the king, the god burning with 

 indignation. Merino quitted the prefecture, and, returning to his 

 hotel, mounted his horse, and galloping to Cogollos, about a league 

 off, he raised his well-known war-cry, of ' To arms !' Before night, 

 he was already on the road to Lerma, at the head of 400 peasants, 

 who, at his voice, had quitted their habitations, their fields, their 

 ploughs, their wives and children all, in fact, to follow a being whose 

 apparition produced on them a species of fascination. The next day, 

 his force amounted to 1,400 men, armed with knives, scythes, and 

 arquebuses ; and, with this undisciplined but devoted band, he cap- 

 tured thirty soldiers of the regiment of Seville, who were immediately 

 shot at Fontesso. 



"By the different accounts from Spain, it appears that the Curahas 

 been often defeated. But what has been gained by this ? Nothing. 

 He may be beaten again and again ; but what will be the result ? 

 Nothing, we repeat; absolutely nothing. His bands spring up, 

 hydra-like, on every side ; while, like him of old, he appears to be 

 gifted with the power of changing stones into men. The immortal 

 Empecinado, Espinosa, Valde*, Amor, Oberon, have all been sent in 

 pursuit of him, have beaten, destroyed, pulverised his soldiers but all 

 in vain ; the next day Merino re-appears at the head of a larger force 

 and is more formidable than ever. 



" The space of forty leagues, which separates Burgos from Madrid, 

 is for him a region of safety. He will proceed from town to town, 

 from village to village, with only three or four followers, without 

 the slightest apprehension for his personal safety, otherwise than from 

 the troops sent in pursuit of him. 



" Merino's favourite system de guerre is to ravage every thing with 

 fire and sword that belongs to the government against which he is in 

 arms. When the fancy takes him, he no more spares the couriers of 

 foreign cabinets than those of his own government. But should any 

 of his followers plunder the house of any one not actually in arms, 

 whatever may be his political opinions, they are sure to expiate their 

 crime with their lives. None are all evil ; even Merino's character is 

 redeemed by some noble traits. Robbery and plunder are strictly 

 forbidden in his bands, while he himself is perhaps at once the least 

 selfish and most unambitious man in the world. During the wars of 

 independence at Quentanapilla, he become the master of an immense 

 treasure belonging to the French, for he had captured a convoy the 



