London.
Our cause gains ground daily. The great, indeed the only ostensible
object of my mission is nearly fulfilled; but I have another charge and
attraction which I am now about to explain to you. You know that my
acquaintance with the English language and country arose from my sister's
marriage with Mr. Falkland. After the birth of their only child I
accompanied them to England: I remained with them for three years, and I
still consider those days among the whitest in my restless and agitated
career. I returned to Spain; I became engaged in the troubles and
dissensions which distracted my unhappy country. Years rolled on, how I
need not mention to you. One night they put a letter into my hands; it
was from my sister; it was written on her death-bed. Her husband had
died suddenly. She loved him as a Spanish woman loves, and she could not
survive his loss. Her letter to me spoke of her country and her son.
Amid the new ties she had formed in England, she had never forgotten the
land of her fathers. "I have already," she said, "taught my boy to
remember that he has two countries; that the one, prosperous and free;
may afford him his pleasures; that the other, struggling and debased,
demands from him his duties. If, when he has attained the age in which
you can judge of his character, he is respectable only from his rank, and
valuable only from his wealth; if neither his head nor his heart will
make him useful to our cause, suffer him to remain undisturbed in his
prosperity _here_: but if, as I presage, he becomes worthy of the blood
which he bears in his veins, then I conjure you, my brother, to remind
him that he has been sworn by me on my death-bed to the most sacred of
earthly altars."
Some months since, when I arrived in England; before I ventured to find
him out in person, I resolved to inquire into his character. Had he been
as the young and the rich generally are--had dissipation become habitual
to him, and frivolity grown around him as a second nature, then I should
have acquiesced in the former injunction of my sister much more willingly
than I shall now obey the latter. I find that he is perfectly acquainted
with our language, that he has placed a large sum in our funds, and that
from the, general liberality of his sentiments he is as likely to
espouse, as (in that case) he would be certain, from his high reputation
for talent, to serve our cause. I am, therefore, upon the eve of seeking
him out. I understand that he is living in perfect retirement in the
county of -------, in the immediate neighbourhood of Mr. Mandeville, an
Englishman of considerable fortune, and warmly attached to our cause.
Mr. Mandeville has invited me to accompany him down to his estate for
some days, and I am too anxious to see my nephew not to accept eagerly of
the invitation. If I can persuade Falkland to aid us, it will be by the
influence of his name, his talents, and his wealth. It is not of him
that we can ask the stern and laborious devotion to which we have
consecrated ourselves. The perfidy of friends, the vigilance of foes,
the rashness of the bold, the cowardice of the wavering; strife in the
closet, treachery in the senate, death in the field; these constitute the
fate we have pledged ourselves to bear. Little can any, who do not
endure it, imagine of the life to which those who share the contests of
an agitated and distracted country are doomed; but if they know not our
griefs, neither can they dream of our consolation. We move like the
delineation of Faith, over a barren and desert soil; the rock, and the
thorn, and the stings of the adder, are round our feet; but we clasp a
crucifix to our hearts for our comfort, and we fix our eyes upon the
heavens for our hope!