A SPECULATION. 



231 



English, is well known. The speculator had 

 it translated into Spanish, and arrived at 

 Granada with a large edition of (on dii) two 

 thousand copies, one volume each ; price one 

 dollar ; to be sold in all the cities of Central 

 America, for the instruction of the natives, to 

 the prejudice of English, and for the benefit 

 and glory of his own pocket and France. 



The speculation was an excellent one, for 

 the whole edition was sold off in a few days ; 

 it was bought up by French and Spanish 

 merchants and shopkeepers, to disseminate 

 through the whole country, and, as every- 

 body believes, in a half-barbarous country, 

 that what is in print must be true, so every 

 one I spoke to firmly believed that this 

 atrocious book was fact. Some idea may be 

 formed of the book when the first line of it ran 

 thus : — " The English cannot fight ; they can 

 only assassinate /" and the whole tenor of the 

 volume was either the same or much worse. 

 There is not a crime on the statute book that 

 was not made to appear as the common mode 

 of English life. 



I went with others to the soi-disant French 

 Consul's, and having paid my dollar, opened 

 the book, and on reading the first line, told 

 him in Spanish, politely but very plainly, and 



