her title, but that title never becomes weak.  What is ridiculous in the eyes of the statesmen of Paris and London is eminently commonplace in those of the statesmen of Madrid, who are the most industrious of builders, Chateaux en Espagne employing their energies.  Although it is more than two centuries since Portugal threw off the Spanish yoke, they have never yet given up the hope in Spain of adding that spirited little kingdom to the Peninsular monarchy.  They would absorb it, as so many other kingdoms have been absorbed by the power that has issued its decrees from Madrid and Valladolid.  The attack made by Spain on Morocco was a silly affair, and was resolved upon only to convince the world that Spain could make war abroad, a point in which the world felt but small interest, as at that time it was not thought that the Spaniards would seriously endeavor to regain their old American possessions.  That what had been lost through one class of errors would be sought through resort to another class of errors, it entered not the minds of men to conceive.  They would as soon have thought of Spain making a demand on Holland, with the view of restoring in that country the rule that was lost there in the days of Alva and Parma, as of her entering upon a war for a second conquest of Mexico.  Nor would they have been astonished by the breaking out of such a war, had it not been for the breaking down of the American Republic.  America’s calamity was Spain’s opportunity.  She had been successful in her crusade against the modern Moors, because bad government had unfitted those Mussulmans to make effectual resistance to her well-led and well-appointed armies, which were supported by well-equipped ships.  Then, flushed with victory, and beholding America in convulsions, she resolved to direct her energies against Mexico, where, unfortunately, bad government had done its work even more perfectly than it had been done in Morocco.  The Spaniards are a brave and a spirited people, but their conduct in St. Domingo and their attack on Mexico cannot be cited as evidence of their bravery and spirit.  They never would have dared to move against the Mexicans, if our condition had remained what it was but eighteen months ago; and yet they had just as good cause to assail them in the summer of 1860 as they now have in the winter of 1862.  All the grounds of complaint that they have against Mexico were in existence then,—­but we heard of no modern Spanish Armada at that time, and might then as rationally have expected to see a French fleet in the St. Lawrence as a Spanish fleet in the Mexican Gulf.  The American sword was then sharp, and the American shield broad, and so Spain stayed her chivalrous hand.  Her conduct is as bad as was our own, when we “picked a quarrel” with Mexico, and bestowed upon her weak back the blows we should have visited on the stout shoulders of England.  Our Mexican contest was the effect of our fear of a stronger adversary.  We had brought the Oregon