The style of this paper shows how strong an impression had been made on foreign nations by the unfortunate events of the late session.  The King, it was plain, was no longer considered as the head of the government.  He was charged with having committed a wrong; but he was not asked to make reparation.  He was treated as a subordinate officer who had been guilty of an offence against public law, and was threatened with the displeasure of the Commons, who, as the real rulers of the state, were bound to keep their servants in order.  The Lords justices read this outrageous note with indignation, and sent it with all speed to Loo.  Thence they received, with equal speed, directions to send Canales out of the country.  Our ambassador was at the same time recalled from Madrid; and all diplomatic intercourse between England and Spain was suspended.

It is probable that Canales would have expressed himself in a less unbecoming manner, had there not already existed a most unfortunate quarrel between Spain and William, a quarrel in which William was perfectly blameless, but in which the unanimous feeling of the English Parliament and of the English nation was on the side of Spain.

It is necessary to go back some years for the purpose of tracing the origin and progress of this quarrel.  Few portions of our history are more interesting or instructive; but few have been more obscured and distorted by passion and prejudice.  The story is an exciting one; and it has generally been told by writers whose judgment had been perverted by strong national partiality.  Their invectives and lamentations have still to be temperately examined; and it may well be doubted whether, even now, after the lapse of more than a century and a half, feelings hardly compatible with temperate examination will not be stirred up in many minds by the name of Darien.  In truth that name is associated with calamities so cruel that the recollection of them may not unnaturally disturb the equipoise even of a fair and sedate mind.

The man who brought these calamities on his country was not a mere visionary or a mere swindler.  He was that William Paterson whose name is honourably associated with the auspicious commencement of a new era in English commerce and in English finance.  His plan of a national bank, having been examined and approved by the most eminent statesmen who sate in the Parliament house at Westminster and by the most eminent merchants who walked the Exchange of London, had been carried into execution with signal success.  He thought, and perhaps thought with reason, that his services had been ill requited.  He was, indeed, one of the original Directors of the great corporation which owed its existence to him; but he was not reelected.  It may easily be believed that his colleagues, citizens of ample fortune and of long experience in the practical part of trade, aldermen, wardens of companies, heads of firms well known in every Burse throughout the