placid face, whilst the peasants passed through the gate; and the
officer, completely restored to good-humour by the prospect of a dainty
supper and pleasant flirtation with Don Basilio's pretty daughters,
proceeded to the discussion of his dinner, which just then made its
appearance.
Crossing the river, the party of peasants who had met with this brief
delay, rode along for a mile or more without a word being spoken amongst
them. Presently they came to a place where three roads branched off, and
here the lame peasant, who had continued to ride in rear of the others,
separated from them, with an abrupt "adios!" Old Samaniego looked round,
and his shrivelled features puckered themselves into a comical smile.
"Is that your road to Berriozar, neighbour?" said he. "It is a new one,
if it be."
The person addressed cast a glance over his shoulder, and muttered an
inaudible reply, at the same time that he thrust his hand under the
vegetables that half filled his panniers.
"If you live in Berriozar, I live in heaven," said Samaniego. "But fear
nothing from us. _Viva el Rey Carlos!_"
He burst into a shrill laugh, echoed by his companions, and, quickening
their pace, the party was presently out of sight. The lame peasant, who,
as the reader will already have conjectured, was no other than Baltasar
de Villabuena, rode on for some distance further, till he came to an
extensive copse fringing the base of a mountain. Riding in amongst the
trees, he threw away his pannier, previously taking from it a large
horse pistol which had been concealed at the bottom. He then stripped
the bandage from his leg, bestrode his mule, and vigorously belabouring
the beast with a stick torn from a tree, galloped away in the direction
of the Carlist territory.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: The blockade system, as it was called, much extolled at the
time, did not prevent the occurrence of various Carlist expeditions into
Castile and Arragon, any more than it hindered large bodies of rebels
from establishing themselves, under Cabrera and others, in Catalonia and
Arragon, where they held out till after the pacification of the Basque
provinces. If any hope was really entertained of starving out the
Biscayan and Navarrese Carlists, or even of inconveniencing them for
supplies of food, it proved utterly fallacious. Although two-thirds of
Navarre, nearly the whole of Guipuzcoa, and a very large portion of
Alava and Biscay Proper, consist of mountains, so great is the fertility
of the valleys, that the Carlists never, during the whole struggle,
experienced a want of provisions, but were, on the contrary, usually far
better rationed than the Christino troops; and, strange to say, the
number of sheep and cattle existing at the end of the war, in the
country occupied by the Carlists, was larger than at its commencement.
Money was wanting, tobacco, so necessary to the Spanish soldier, was
scarce and dear, but food was abundant, although the number of mouths to
be fed was much greater, and of hands to till the ground far less, than
in time of peace. This, too, in one of the most thickly populated
districts of Spain, and in spite of the frequent foraging and
corn-burning expeditions undertaken by the Christinos into the Carlist
districts, especially in the plains north of Vittoria and the valleys of
southern Navarre.]
HOW THEY MANAGE MATTERS IN "THE MODEL REPUBLIC."
In the present doubtful state of our relations with the American
Republic, many anxious eyes are of course being directed across the
Atlantic, and much speculation excited as to the present policy and
ultimate designs of that anomalous and ambitious people. Since increased
facilities of communication have brought the two continents into closer
union, and afforded their respective inhabitants more frequent
opportunities of observing each other's political and social
arrangements, it cannot, we think be said with truth, that those of the
United States have risen in favour with the enlightened minds of Europe,
least of all with those of England. For the obvious failings of that
Republic are of a kind eminently adapted to shock minds cast in the
European mould; while her virtues, however appropriate to the
transatlantic soil in which they flourish, do not either so readily
suggest themselves to the notice of the Old World, or, when fully
realized, command a very extraordinary degree of respect. We do not very
highly appreciate the liberty which appears to us license, nor the
equality which brings with it neither good manners nor good morals, nor
the vast material progress which occupies the energies of her people, to
the exclusion of more elevating pursuits. There are moreover griefs
connected with the United States which come peculiarly home to British
interests and prejudices; the existence of slavery, for instance, in its
most revolting form, in direct opposition to the spirit of their
institutions, and to the very letter of that celebrated declaration
which is the basis of all their governments; the repudiation or
non-payment of debts contracted for the purposes of public works, of
which they are every day reaping the advantages; and the unprincipled
invasion of our Canadian frontier by their citizens during the late
disturbances in that colony. Within the last few months, more
particularly, they have committed many and grievous offences against
their own dignity, the peace of the world, and the interests of Britain.
We have heard their chief magistrate defy Christendom, and inform the
world that the American continent is, for the future, to be held as in
fee-simple by the United States; we have seen Texas forcibly torn from
feeble Mexico, and the negotiations on the subject of Oregon brought to
a close by a formal declaration, that the American title to the whole of
it is "clear and unquestionable." They have displayed, in the conduct of
their foreign relations during the past year, a vulgar indifference to
the opinion of mankind, and an overweening estimate of their own power,
which it is at once ludicrous and painful to behold. Nor is there reason
to believe that these blots on the escutcheon of a nation, so young and
so unembarrassed, are either deeply regretted or will be speedily
effaced. We see no reaction of national virtue against national
wrongdoing. For the cause of this great Republic is not, as in other
countries, dependent upon the will of the one man, or the few men, who
are charged with the functions of government, but on the will of the
great mass of the people, deliberately and frequently expressed. The
rule of the majority is in America no fiction, but a practical reality;
and the folly or wisdom, the justice or injustice of her public acts,
may, in ordinary times, be assumed as fair exponents of the average good
sense and morals of the bulk of her citizens.
We are not of those who charge the democratic institutions of the United
States as a crime upon their people, or who think that, in separating
themselves from the British crown, they were guilty of a deliberate
wickedness which has yet to be expiated. Whether that separation was
fully justified by the circumstances of the time, is a question upon
which we do not propose to enter: but having so separated, it does not
appear that any course was left open to them but that which they have
pursued. Through the negligence of the mother country, no pains had been
taken to plant even the germs of British institutions in her American
colonies, and the War of Independence found them already in possession
of all, and more than all, of the democratic elements of our
constitution; while the feeling of personal attachment to the sovereign
had died out through distance and neglect, and the influence of the
aristocracy and the church was altogether unknown. Even in Virginia,
where, in consequence of the existence of domestic slavery on a large
scale, and the laws of primogeniture and entail, a certain
aristocratical feeling had sprung up, a jealousy of the British crown
and parliament showed itself from first to last, at least as strongly as
elsewhere; and the ink of the Declaration of Independence was scarcely
dry, before those laws of property were repealed, and every vestige of
an Established Church swept away. Nothing then remained, in the absence
of Conservative principles and traditions, but to construct their
government upon the broadest basis of Democracy; accordingly, the
triumph of that principle was complete from the first. The genius of
progressive democracy may have removed some of the slender barriers with
which it has found itself accidentally embarrassed; but it has not been
able to add any thing to the force of those pithy abstractions which
were endorsed by the most respectable chiefs of the Revolution, and
which remain to sanctify its wildest aspirations.
All men, therefore, in America--that is, all _white_ men--are "free and
equal;" and every thing that has been done in her political world for
the last half century has gone to illustrate and carry out this somewhat
intractable hypothesis. Upon this principle, the vote of John Jacob
Astor, with his twenty-five millions of dollars, is neutralized by that
of the Irish pauper just cast upon its shores. The _millionaire_ counts
one, and so does the dingy unit of Erin, though the former counts for
himself, and the latter for his demagogue and his priest. The exclusion
of women and negroes from this privilege remains, it is true, a _hiatus
valde deflendus_ by the choicer spirits of the democracy. It is thought,
however, that the system will shortly be completed by the addition of
these new constellations. At this moment, in prospect of a convention to
re-tinker the constitution, two agitations are going on in the state of
New York--one to secure the "Political Rights of Women;" the other to
extend those which negroes, under certain grievous restrictions, already
enjoy. The theory of virtual representation has been held up to these
two classes of citizens with as little success as to our own Radicals.
Both negroes and women throw themselves upon the broad fact of their
common humanity, and indignantly demand wherefore a black skin or a
gentle sex should disqualify their possessors from the exercise of the
dearest privilege of freemen.
Now, however absurd this system may appear to us in the abstract, and
however strongly we should resist its application to our own political
case, we believe, as we said before, that the Americans have no choice
in the matter but to make it work as well as possible, and that it is
for the interest of the world, as well as for their own, that it should
so work. The preservation of peace, and our commercial relations with
the United States, are far more important to us than the triumph of an
idea. We are quite content, if they will permit us, to remain on the
best of terms with our transatlantic descendants, and to see them happy
and prosperous in their own way. We even think it fortunate for mankind
that the principle of self-government is being worked out in that remote
region, and under the most favourable circumstances, in order that the
civilized world may take note thereof, and guide itself accordingly. It
is, we know, a favourite theme with their demagogues, that the glory and
virtue and happiness of Yankee-doodle-doo have inspired the powers of
the rotten Old World with the deepest jealousy and hatred, and that
every crown in Europe pales before the lustre of that unparalleled
confederacy. Nothing can be wider of the truth, pleasing as the illusion
may be to the self-love of the most vainglorious people under the sun.
The _prestige_ which America and her institutions once undoubtedly
enjoyed in many parts of Europe is rapidly fading away, as each
successive post brings fresh evidence of her vices and her follies. We
can, indeed, recollect a time when the example of the model Republic was
held up for admiration in the most respectable quarters, and was the
trump-card at every gathering of Radical reformers. But now the scene is
changed--now, "none so poor to do her reverence." Even Chartist and
Suffrage-men, Mr Miall and the Northern Star, have at last
---- "forgot to speak
That once familiar word."
They turn from her, and pass away as gingerly as the chorus in the Greek
play from the purlieus of those ominous goddesses--
[Greek: as tremomen legein
chai parameibometh
aderchtos aphotos]--
Mr O'Connell himself can find no room in his capacious affections for
men who repudiate their debts, burn convents, "mob the finest pisantry,"
and keep a sixth of their population in chains in the name of liberty!
If "the great unwashed" on the other side of the Atlantic, will only
consent to send men to their councils of moderately pure hearts and
clean hands, they may rest assured that any conspiracy which the united
powers of kings, nobles, and priests may devise against them, will take
little by its motion. But they do just the reverse, as we shall
presently show. The profligacy of their public men is proverbial
throughout the states; and the coarse avidity with which they bid
against each other for the petty spoils of office, is quite
incomprehensible to an European spectator. To "make political capital,"
as their slang phrase goes, for themselves or party, the most obvious
policy of the country is disregarded, the plainest requirements of
morality and common sense set aside, and the worst impulses of the
people watched, waited on, and stimulated into madness. To listen to the
debates in Congress, one would think the sole object of its members in
coming together, was to make themselves and their country contemptible.
Owing to the rantings of this august body, and the generally unimportant
character of the business brought before it, little is known of its
proceedings in Europe except through the notices of some passing
traveller. But its shame does not consist merely or chiefly in the
occasional bowie-knife or revolver produced to clinch the argument of
some ardent Western member, nor even in the unnoted interchange of
compliments not usually current amongst gentlemen. Much more deplorable
is the low tone of morality and taste which marks their proceedings from
first to last, the ruffian-like denunciations, the puerile rants, the
sanguinary sentiments poured forth day by day without check or censure.
This is harsh language, but they shall be judged out of their own
mouths. We have before us a file of the _Congressional Globe_, the
official record of the debates in both Houses, extending from December
12 to January 15. During this period the Oregon question was called up
nearly every day, and we propose to give some specimens, _verbatim et
literatim_, of the spirit in which it has been discussed. We shall give
notices of the speakers and their constituents as we go along, to show
that the madness is not confined to one particular place or party, but
is common to Whig and Democrat, to the representatives of the Atlantic
as well as of the Western states. Most of our European readers will, we
think, agree with us, that, considering the entire absence of
provocation, and the infinitely trivial nature of the matter in dispute,
these rhetorical flourishes are without parallel in the history of
civilized senates.
What is commonly called Oregon, is a strip of indifferent territory
betwixt the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. It is separated from
both the American and British possessions by an arid wilderness of great
extent, or by many thousands of miles of tempestuous navigation, _via_
Cape Horn. Since 1818, the claims of both parties to this region have
been allowed to lie in abeyance under a convention of joint occupancy,
if the advantages enjoyed in common by a handful of traders and trappers
of both nations can be so called. The settlers from both countries are
still numbered by hundreds, and the soil is very ill adapted to
agricultural purposes; in short, it is the last thing in the world that
a decent nation would get into a passion about. Still, as the previous
administration had gained much glory by completing the robbery of Texas
from Mexico, Mr Polk has thought fit to illustrate his by an attempt to
squeeze and bully the sterner majesty of England. Accordingly, in his
message, he boasts of having offered less favourable terms than his
predecessors; and these being of course rejected, retires with dignity
upon the completeness of the American title, and intimates that the time
is at hand when the rights of his country must be asserted, if
necessary, by the sword. All this is new light to all the parties
concerned; this tempest in a tea-pot is of Mr Polk's own particular
brewing; the real Oregon being a little political capital, as aforesaid,
for himself. So far he has been eminently successful, for the fierce
democracy howls forth its applause upon the floor of Congress, in manner
and form as followeth:--
Mr Cass, _Democratic_ senator from Michigan, an _insolvent_ western
state, opened the ball on the 12th of December. He is said to aspire to
the presidential chair, and is already a full general of militia. We
give him his civil title, however, because we find him so set down in
the _Globe_, which knows best what the military one is worth. There is
nothing remarkable in his speech, except the fuss which he makes about
national honour. He may find it lying in the ditch, much nearer home
than Oregon--
"As to receding, it is neither to be discussed nor thought of. I
refer to it but to denounce it--a denunciation which will find a
response in every American bosom. Nothing is ever gained by
national pusillanimity. The country which seeks to purchase
temporary security by yielding to unjust pretensions, buys present
ease at the expense of permanent honour and safety. It sows the
wind to reap the whirlwind. I have said elsewhere what I repeat
here, that it is better to fight for the first inch of national
territory than for the last. It is better to defend the doorsill
than the hearth-stone--the porch than the altar. _National
character is a richer treasure than gold or silver_, and exercises
a moral influence in the hour of danger, which, if not power
itself, is it surest ally. _Thus far ours is untarnished!_" &c.
This statement of the relative value of "national character" as compared
with the precious metals, will be very edifying to the creditors of
Michigan.
Mr Serier, _Democratic_ senator from Arkansas, another _insolvent_
western state, is a still richer representative of the majesty of the
American senate. This state is the headquarters of the bowie-knife,
revolver, and Judge Lynch _regime_, and Mr S.'s education in these
particulars does not appear to have been neglected.
"It has been her (Great Britain's) bullying that has secured for
her the respect of all Europe. _She is a court-house bully; and in
her bullying, in my opinion, lies all her strength._ Now, she must
be forced to recede; and _like any of our western bullies, who,
when once conquered, can be kicked by every body, from one end of
the country to the other_, England will, in case she do not recede
from her position on this question, receive once more that salutary
lesson which we have on more than one occasion already taught her."
* * "I should like very much indeed to hear any one _get on the
stump_, in my part of the country, sir, and undertake to tell us
that the President had established our claims to Oregon, and made
it as plain as the avenue leading to the White House; but inasmuch
as there is great danger that Great Britain may capture our ships,
and burn our cities and towns, it is very improper for us to give
notice that we will insist upon our claim. _I need hardly say that
such a one, if he could be found, would be summarily treated as a
traitor to his country._" * * * *
No doubt of it. Furthermore, Mr Serier cannot think of arbitration,
because--
"When I see such billing and cooing betwixt France and England, and
when I think the Emperor of Russia may not desire to have so near
his territory a set of men who read _Paine's Rights of Man_, and
whistle 'Yankee doodle,' I feel disposed to settle the matter at
once by force of gunpowder. I consider the President acted
wisely--very wisely--in keeping the case in its present position,
and in giving intimation of taking possession after twelve months'
notice, and then to hold it. Yes, sir, to hold it by the force of
that rascally influence called gunpowder. That's my opinion. These
are plain common-sense observations which I have offered."
What a love of a senator! We put it to the House of Lords--have they any
thing to show like unto this nobleman of the woods?--We will now, with
the permission of our readers, introduce them for a few moments to the
House of Representatives. Mr Douglas, a _Democratic_ representative from
Illinois, another _insolvent_ western state, wants to know why Great
Britain should not be bullied as well as Mexico.
"He did hope that there would be no dodging on this Oregon
question. Yes; that there would be no dodging on the Oregon
question; that there would be no delay. There was great
apprehension of war here last year--but of war with Mexico instead
of Great Britain; and they had found men brave, and furious in
their bravery, in defying Mexico and her allies, England and
France, who now had an awful horror in prospect of a war with Great
Britain. He (Mr D.) had felt pretty brave last year with reference
to Mexico and her allies, and he felt equally so now. He believed
if we wished to avoid a war upon this Oregon question, _the only
way we could avoid it was preparing to give them the best fight we
had on hand_. The contest would be a bloodless one; we should avoid
war, for the reason that Great Britain knows too well: if she had
war about Oregon, farewell to her Canada."
Our next extract will be from the speech of Mr Adams, a _Whig_
representative from, we regret to say, Massachusetts, which is in every
respect the pattern state of the Union. We are willing to believe that
in this single case the orator does not represent the feelings of the
majority of his constituents. Mr Adams has filled the Presidential
chair, and other high offices; and, while secretary of state, permitted
himself to say on a public occasion, that the madness of George the
Third was a divine infliction for the course that monarch had pursued
towards the United States. The ruling passions of his life are said to
be, hatred to England and to his southern brethren; and he thinks that
war would gratify both these malignant crotchets at once, as the former
would, in that contingency, lose Canada, and the latter their slaves. He
urges that notice to terminate the convention of joint occupation should
be given, and then observes--