Let us suppose that our own Land had been so outraged; could we have been content that the enemy should be wafted from our shores as lightly as he came,—­much less that he should depart illustrated in his own eyes and glorified, singing songs of savage triumph and wicked gaiety?—­No.—­Should we not have felt that a high trespass—­a grievous offence had been committed; and that to demand satisfaction was our first and indispensable duty?  Would we not have rendered their bodies back upon our guardian ocean which had borne them hither; or have insisted that their haughty weapons should submissively kiss the soil which they had polluted?  We should have been resolute in a defence that would strike awe and terror:  this for our dignity:—­moreover, if safety and deliverance are to be so fondly prized for their own sakes, what security otherwise could they have?  Would it not be certain that the work, which had been so ill done to-day, we should be called upon to execute still more imperfectly and ingloriously to-morrow; that we should be summoned to an attempt that would be vain?

In like manner were the wise and heroic Spaniards moved.  If an Angel from heaven had come with power to take the enemy from their grasp (I do not fear to say this, in spite of the dominion which is now re-extended over so large a portion of their Land), they would have been sad; they would have looked round them; their souls would have turned inward; and they would have stood like men defrauded and betrayed.

For not presumptuously had they taken upon themselves the work of chastisement.  They did not wander madly about the world—­like the Tamerlanes, or the Chengiz Khans, or the present barbarian Ravager of Europe—­under a mock title of Delegates of the Almighty, acting upon self-assumed authority.  Their commission had been thrust upon them.  They had been trampled upon, tormented, wronged—­bitterly, wantonly wronged, if ever a people on the earth was wronged.  And this it was which legitimately incorporated their law with the supreme conscience, and gave to them the deep faith which they have expressed—­that their power was favoured and assisted by the Almighty.—­These words are not uttered without a due sense of their awful import:  but the Spirit of evil is strong:  and the subject requires the highest mode of thinking and feeling of which human nature is capable.—­Nor in this can they be deceived; for, whatever be the immediate issue for themselves, the final issue for their Country and Mankind must be good;—­they are instruments of benefit and glory for the human race; and the Deity therefore is with them.