1823.] The French Crusade against the Spanish Constitution. 



387 



themselves and their dynasties, shall 

 keep them safe. Such are the grounds 

 of their policy : sandy and shifting, 

 it must be admitted ; but still they are 

 tiie grounds. 



'I'he crusade against Spain is a part 

 of that system, and it is the first in 

 which it has been tried upon a large 

 and powerful state. It is therefore 

 interesting in itself; and it is doubly 

 interesting to the people, and indeed 

 to the government, of this country ; 

 because, out of the representative form 

 of our government originally sprung 

 all that which has given them so much 

 alarm. It is, taking it generally, the 

 first, or at most the second, instance of 

 interference with a free sovereign and 

 independent state, when that state had 

 not, according to the established law 

 of nations, or the judgment of common 

 sense, done any wrong; but when, on 

 the other hand, it had done precisely 

 that which was right; when it was not 

 offering the slightest injury, or giving 

 the least rational cause of complaint, 

 to any nation or government in the 

 world ; and when it had not been 

 guilty of the slightest violence or out- 

 rage at home. 



Political questions are best judged 

 of by analogies drawn from ordinary 

 life. Now, suppose one man were first 

 to bribe the servants of another to 

 murder him ; and then, when he found 

 that not to succeed, to enter his house 

 with an armed force, for the purpose 

 of dragging him forth to the gallows 

 over the mangled and bleeding bodies 

 of his children, who had fallen in his 

 defence ; and this merely because the 

 man had retrenched the useless part of 

 bis expenditure, for the express pur- 

 pose of getting those children better 

 educated and provided for. Suppose 

 this, is there a man in England whose 

 blood would not curdle with disgust 

 at the folly, and boil with indignation 

 at tlie injustice, of so monstrous an 

 interference? liut the interference 

 of i'rance with Spain is just as foolish, 

 as unjust, and as monstrous, as that 

 which is here supposed. Ought there, 

 then, to be a nation in Europe which 

 shcmid not ring the word " beware" in 

 the cars of the inhuman dotard ; and, 

 if he would not listen to the tongue, 

 thunder it to him from the cannon's 

 mouth ? 



But how stands the case ? Why, all 

 the powers of Contin< ntal I''uro|ir, — 

 that is all the governments, — with tho 

 cxcrplion of i'ortugal, who having sin- 

 nod alter the same ia-shion as Spain, 



must, after the same fashion, succeed 

 or suffer ; of Turkey, who has enough 

 to do at home, and whose idols, be- 

 sides, are not of the same family with 

 the borghs of the Muscovite; and of 

 those tolerated cities and patches of 

 land, which the great despots wear 

 like buttons and frogs upon their impe- 

 rial and royal mantles: with the ex- 

 ception of these, — and it is, in fact, no 

 exception at all,— all the powers of 

 Continental Europe are backing the 

 invader, and hallooing him on. Mean- 

 while we, among whom is to be found 

 the parent stem of that representative 

 form of government, against which the 

 Gaul, and the Hun, and the Kalmuc, 

 are whetting their knives and muster- 

 ing their hordes, have contented our- 

 selves w iih a negociation by His Grace 

 of Wellington. Woe to our diplomacy! 

 It has been the grave of our power 

 ever since it turned back the steel of 

 Marl borough on the heigh t of Ardennes, 

 The shores of America and the rock of 

 Lisbon bear witness, that, be it with 

 freemen or with slaves, we are ever 

 foiled in negociation. The spirit of 

 Washington w ould weep, and the little 

 demon of Cintra would grin with de- 

 light, when they saw our hero on the 

 way to Verona; the former, at the 

 death-blow aimed at his parent, and 

 the latter at the birth of a brother. If 

 we had been to negociate for freedom, 

 the time was when the field of Water- 

 loo was yet reeking with blood, and 

 when he who had made the despots 

 tremble and crouch was in our hands ; 

 and the Duke of Wellington ought 

 not to have been our negociator. 

 Whatever may be that nobleman's 

 talents in war. (and there the fact can 

 never be known, as there is no means 

 of separating him from the army under 

 his comm;ind,) his diplomatic talents 

 are very limited. His " Memorandum 

 for Lord Fitzroy Somerset," laid on 

 the table of the Hou.se of Parliament 

 on the 14th of April, shows how crude 

 and limited is hits knowledge of princi- 

 ples ; and the fact of his being unable 

 to express him.self even tolerably upon 

 the most common-place subjects, is 

 evidence against his practical talent. 

 There is another element which wo 

 would fain add ; and that is, the proba- 

 bility that our negociator was too ho- 

 nest for those with whom he had to 

 deal : for we would not wish even to 

 hint, that he, any more than his prede- 

 cessors at former congresses, was too 

 familiar with the continental system, 

 or too fond of iL 



It 



