The captain paused. His delivery during the latter part of the narrative had been hurried and broken; he was evidently much excited by the recapitulation of the stirring scenes in which he had mingled. With visible effort he resumed—
"Ah, Mexico,estrella del mundo! Well might thy beauty and brilliancy dazzle the judgment of the poor cura. Hidalgo seemed to lose his head. Instead of marching at once upon the city,he sent General Ximenes with a summons to it to surrender. Ximenes, the greatest poltroon that ever disgraced an epaulet, came back with the most exaggerated stories of the formidable preparations that were making to receive us. This disconcerted Hidalgo; and on the top of that out came a whole regiment of priests and shavelings, sent by the Viceroy, and they talked to Hidalgo about hell-fire and such like, till he swore it would be the most frightful sacrilege to deliver up Mexico, the seat of our holy religion and of all piety, to thegente irracionale. Moreover, we learned that Callija had beaten Sanchez at Queretaro, and effected a junction with Cadena. Holy Virgin!" groaned Jago. "Hidalgo acted like a madman. Instead of taking possession of Mexico with his hundred and ten thousand Indians and four thousand troops of the line, which he might have done without opposition, he ordered a retreat, after we had been a whole day staring at the city like gaping idiots. Vanegas was already on the start for Vera Cruz with his two thousand men. Allende, all of us, begged, prayed, entreated; but it was of no use—retreat we did, and at Aculco ran right into the jaws of Calleja and Cadena.
"I was in Allende's division," continued Jago. "That chief sent General Ximenes with a despatch to Hidalgo, and I was ordered to attend him. His excellency, Hidalgo that is to say, was stationed on the hill of Aculco, surrounded by his staff; and close beside him were the fourteen cannons that composed our whole artillery. It was on the 7th of November. We were scarcely fifty paces from Allende and his aide-de-camps, when Ximenes turned to me and handed me the despatch, which was written on an agave leaf.
"'Go,' said he, 'and deliver this to General Hidalgo.'
"I stared at him in astonishment.
"'But, General'——said I.
"'But me no buts. I served ten years in his majesty's troops and never used the word. Away with you.'
"The style had altered. Our oppressors and enemies were suddenly converted into his majesty's troops. I said nothing, however, but went forward with the despatch, while the general turned back. To say the truth, he looked rather knocked up—and no wonder, for it was the rainy season, the roads were dreadfully bad, our marches had been long and fatiguing, and time for rest scanty. Perhaps, too, he had no stomach for the bullets of the Gachupins, who now appeared advancing like walls of polished steel from the direction of Aculco. It was curious to observe the astonishment and childish delight of our Indians, who for the first time in their lives beheld an army drawn up in rank and file, with its artillery and cavalry. They danced and jumped about for joy; and soon began to use their slings, and hurl showers of stones at the Spaniards, who had halted, evidently startled and intimidated by our numbers. But the stones and arrows whistled about their ears, and there was nothing for it but to fight. As I was riding across, at full gallop, to Hidalgo's position, the Spanish skirmishers spread themselves out along the cactus hedges and over the aloe fields, and puffed and popped away. The firing soon became warm, as more miquelets and caçadores joined in it; and from out of every ditch and hollow, from behind each bush and tree, the bullets came whistling. Suddenly, in the background, there glared a dozen streams of fire, looking white in the broad daylight, and accompanied by a light grey smoke, and down went few score of Indians, never to stand up again in this life. The infernal music became each moment louder. The smoke was thickest and the fire hottest around the rising ground on which Hidalgo had stationed himself, with our regiments of Zelaya and Valladolid in his front, the Reyna and Principe cavalry covering the flanks. As I approached the hillock, a body of ten thousand Indians, furious at the murderous fire kept up by the enemy's artillery, rushed forward like a herd of wild buffaloes, bearing down all opposition by their mere mass and weight. The foremost had already reached the guns, and as they had never before in their lives seen such things, what did the poor devils dobut take off their straw hats and try to stop up the mouths of the cannon! Just then up came a regiment of the enemy's cavalry, dashed amongst them, and scattered them like chaff. All was confusion on this part of the line; but our troops in front of the hillock still stood firm and unbroken.
"'Where is he?' enquired a Spanish major, who at that moment rode up beside me, leaning forward in his saddle, his feet firm in the stirrups, his hand clutching his charger's mane. I knew not whom he meant; but he had scarcely uttered the words when he slid gently off his horse into the dust. A bullet had struck him—his race was run. My horse was nearly dead with fatigue. I jumped off and got upon that of the Spaniard. Scarcely was the exchange effected, when I heard a harsh high-toned voice, like that of a gallinazo, issuing from the centre of a cloud of smoke.
"'Adelante!Forward!' it cried.
"I knew the tones; they were those of Mexico's destroying angel. I gave my horse the spur; but I was already in the middle of the enemy's lancers, who swept me along with them as a whirlwind does a feather. On a sudden there appeared through the smoke the horses' heads and glittering sabres of the patriot cavalry. There was a crash—a few dozen pistol-shots—a hundred thousand curses; the Spaniards had charged and broken through them.
"'Adelante!' again screamed the sharp screeching voice. 'Adelante! Muera la gavilla! Por la honra de su Magestad, y de la santissima Virgen, y del Redentor de Atolnico!'
"A Spaniard always thinks first of his king, then of the Virgin, and in the last place of his God; and Calleja is a true Spaniard. He was deadly pale, and seemed rather to hang than sit upon his saddle; from his right wrist dangled his sabre; his left hand held a rosary and a relic of some kind, which he kissed repeatedly, while his face was horribly distorted with rage and anxiety.
"The regiments of Zeluya and Valladolid stood like walls; when a man fell, one of the officers sprang from the centre of the square to supply his place.
"'Adelante, soldados, por la honra de su Magestad!' croaked Calleja, who was foaming and writhing with fury. At that moment up came another swarm of at least ten thousand Indians from the left wing, eager to seek safety behind the soldiers from the murderous fire of the artillery. The regiment of lancers wheeled to the right, allowed the Indians to pass, and then, lowering their lances, drove the defenceless mob upon the bayonets of their own friends. In an instant the squares were broken.Adios, Mexico!
"The cries of rage of the patriots, and the shouts of triumph of our foes, still ring in my ears. Thanks to the goodness of my horse, I escaped the slaughter that ensued: and, taking the road to Guanaxato, soon found myself with Allende, the only one of our generals who had not lost all judgment and presence of mind. But he was no longer the same man; a ghost, a skeleton, was he; the last eight days had turned his hair white. He still hoped, however, to make head against the enemy and save Guanaxato. With five thousand Indians, and eight hundred recruits, he gave them battle. We fought like lions over their whelps—but all in vain! The odds were too great. Hidalgo in his panic had already fled to Guadalajara, and left us in the lurch. We were obliged to follow.
"Four days after the battle of Marfil, Allende said to me—'Jago, for God and the saints' sake, go back to Guanaxato, and see how it fares with the unfortunate city! Go, Jago, for heaven's sake, go!'
"His hair stood on end, and the sweat broke out on his forehead, as he spoke. I understood what was passing in his mind, and shuddered. Taking fifty mounted Indians with me, I set out, though I would as soon have gone to hell itself. Guanaxato had received us on our advance with open arms; fourteen hundred Gachupins had fallen at the storming of the Alhondega. After that, its fate was no longer doubtful. But I had not expected any thing so bad as I found.
"Allende had ordered me to use haste, and I obeyed his orders. On the second day after leaving him, we rode into Burras, four leagues from Guanaxato. A solitary Zamba showedherself like a spectre at the door of the venta. She was the first human being we had seen during our two days' march, and the only one in the whole village.
"'All is quiet, señores,' said she in a hollow shuddering tone, pointing with her meagre hand towards the neighbouringcañada, or gully. I looked into it. Holy God! it was blood red; filled with a crimson slime. It was running with gore.
"'For three days past,' grinned the Zamba, 'it runs thus.'
"I threw away the glass of aguardiente she had brought me, for it smelled of blood. Thousands, hundreds of thousands of gallinazos, coyotes, and zepilots, were arriving from all quarters, and prowling, running, and flying in the direction of the unfortunate town.
"It was a cool November morning on which we approached Guanaxato; the air was clear and transparent, the heavens were a bright blue; over the cañada there floated a cloud of light greyish vapour that extended a full league; here and there, this vapour seemed to assume a reddish tinge, and then a steam like the smoke of burning sulphur gave such a look of chaos to the atmosphere, that it seemed as if the devils of all the seventeen hells had been roasting beneath. Now and then a flame flickered out of the vapour; it was a foul and revolting spectacle.
"It was over the suburb of Guanaxato, Marfil by name, and over Guanaxato itself, the rich city of 60,000 inhabitants, that this long bank of exhalation hung like a pall. What the place resembled when we entered it, I can hardly say, for Calleja had been there, and had sat in judgment on the devoted town. In city and suburb, in the mines and founderies, all was hushed; not a blow of a hammer was heard, not a wheel was turning; no footsteps nor voice broke the unnatural stillness. We entered the suburb, and the signs of the festival of blood began to multiply themselves; dead bodies became more plentiful; here and there the cañada was choked up with them; while, in other places, broken baggage waggons, dead mules and horses, were lying in picturesque confusion. Wolves and carrion birds were tearing and rending the bodies of the unfortunate patriots. From one wall near the entrance of the town a hundred Indians were hanging; a little further on, a like number had been literally torn in pieces as if by wild horses, and their heads and limbs lay scattered about, so frightfully mangled that even the coyotes turned aside and left them. A fine feast day must that have been for Calleja, thought I—but pshaw! we had as yet seen nothing.
"The bridge over the cañada had been broken down, but a new one replaced it; the piles consisted of human bodies, upon which boards were laid. We were now in the city itself. Truly, they had made clean work of it. Of the thousands of houses that had nestled themselves along the banks of the stream, nought remained but fragments of blackened wall and smoking timber. Among these ruins were other things, fat stinking things, stumps and shapeless masses, which lay scattered, and in some places piled up, amid the reeking embers. We took them at first for stones and pieces of rock; but we were mistaken. They were the roasted carcasses of Guanaxato's wretched inhabitants—hideous lumps! the feet, hands, and heads burnt away, the bodies baked by the fire. In many of the huts, or at least on the places where the huts had stood, heaps of these bodies had burnt together in one pestilential mass, and now emitted an unbearable stench. Not a living human creature to be seen, but thousands of wolves and vultures; although even these neither snarled nor screamed, but seemed almost as if they felt the desolation by which they were surrounded. My Indians did not utter a word; our mules scarcely dared to set their feet down; they pricked their ears, bristled up their manes, refused to advance, stayed, and some even fell. No wonder. Their path lay over corpses!
"We reached the Plaza Mayor. It was there that Calleja had held his chief banquet, and wallowed with his Spaniards in Mexican blood. We waded through a red slime which covered the whole square to the depth of six inches; the bodies were heapedup like maize sacks. In the Alhondega we found a thousand young girls in a state—God be merciful to our poor souls! The Gachupins had first brutally outraged, and then slain them, but slain them in a manner—Jesus, Maria, y José!Can it be true that Spaniards are born of woman? Señores! on the market-place alone, fourteen thousand Mexicans, young women, matrons and children, and men both young and old, had been butchered with every refinement of cruelty. It would have taken too much powder to have shot them, quoth Calleja, and forsooth the rebels were not worth the outlay.
"We had seen enough," continued Jago, over whose cheeks burning tears were now running, while his voice was choked with rage. "It was not the first time we had seen bloodshed, and our stomachs could bear something, but this was too much. We turned back to Guadalajara more dead than alive.
"What followed is scarce worth relating. We strove to make another stand, brought down forty-three cannons from San Blas, and fortified ourselves at the bridge of Calderon; but all in vain! The angel of death had marked us for his prey; Guanaxato had quenched our courage; we were no longer the same men. At one moment there seemed still a chance of victory and revenge. Our Indians, who fought like tigers, although without order or discipline, made a desperate charge upon Calleja's army. The whole line gave way; the fight was won. At that very instant an ammunition-waggon blew up; the Indians thought that Satan himself was come amongst them, were seized with a panic, and took to flight; the Gachupins plucked up courage; a fresh regiment, which Calleja had kept in reserve, charged vigorously. All was over.
"It was plain that Hidalgo's star had set. He fled, poor fellow! was betrayed and delivered up by his own countrymen. Butbasta!The account was closed for the year one thousand eight hundred and eleven."
The patriot captain's animated narrative had not failed to make a lively impression on his hearers, at the same time that it worked a remarkable change in his own appearance. Strongly excited by the recollections it called up, the disagreeable and rather mean expression of his tawny physiognomy vanished, his forehead seemed to expand, and a sarcastic and scornful smile that at times played over his features gave him an air of superiority to his hearers, as, with that extraordinary flexibility of organ that is to be remarked in southern nations, he narrated the various stirring events of the first patriot campaign; the struggles and sufferings of his countrymen, the unbounded cruelty and excesses of their ruthless oppressors. There was a pause when he finished speaking, which was shortly broken by the report of a musket in the adjacent wood. Jago started, and listened. A second and a third report followed.
"Misericordia! Los Gachupinos!" shouted the captain, springing upon a fragment of rock, and rolling his eyes wildly around. "They are upon us! Run, Mateo, Hippolito! See what they are, and whence they come. Run, I say! Have you lead at your heels?"
The two Zambos set themselves in motion, but presently paused, and seemed unwilling to proceed. Jago drew a small silver whistle from his girdle, and blew it with all the power of his lungs.
"The saints be with us," he exclaimed, "and thou in particular, blessed St Martin! If they come from the direction of Tesmelucos, then are we peppered and salted. Holy Virgin of Guadalupe! A silver candlestickand ten wax tapers, an inch thick, so soon as I can obtain them, if thou wilt deliver us from this strait!"
He was interrupted in his ejaculations by the sound of a volley of small arms from the wood, and the next instant a herd of half-naked Indians, Metises and Zambos, with scarcely any clothing but sheepskins round their bodies, and straw-hats upon their heads, rushed out from under the trees, closely pursued by the dragoons of the regiment of España, who began to gallop along the edge of the plateau, and surround the open space on all sides. The arrieros, at the very first beginning of the firing, had placed their mules and themselves in safety behind the rock, concealed in the thicket of dwarf-oak and pines. Jago had spoken once or twice to them and to the servants in a low and urgent tone, but his whisperings produced no visible effect.
"Por todos santos!" cried he to his Indians, "to the right, children,Nombre de Dios!or you are all lost.Jesus Maria!they do not hear!"
The unfortunate patriots, who had been surprised during their siesta, now came running out of the wood in great numbers, with the remainder of the squadron of dragoons at their heels. Upon finding themselves cut off from the path down the barranca, they set up a frightful howl, and dispersed to the right and left, vainly endeavouring to escape the troopers, who formed line, and, with furious sabre-cuts, and loud shouts of "Viva el Rey!" drove the fugitives before them like a flock of sheep.
Don Manuel, who remained beside his mules and attendants, had at first witnessed this inhuman hunt with more curiosity than sympathy; but when the dragoons began to cut and slash among the defenceless Indians, the scene evidently became painful to him; his eyes flashed, his cheeks glowed, his features expressed the utmost indignation and anger.
The Indians were caught as in a trap; precipices on the one side, an implacable and bloodthirsty enemy on the other. Each moment dragoons made their appearance out of the wood by ones and twos, driving more fugitives before them. At last, when the latter found themselves pressed together in one dense body, they made a desperate effort to break through their enemies and gain the entrance of the barranca. But the dragoons saw their object, and hastened to frustrate it. Strengthening their ranks on that side, they completely surrounded the Indians, and commenced an indiscriminate and barbarous slaughter. The more the victims sought to escape their persecutors, the more dense became their mass, and the more fatal the blows of the Spaniards. There were between five and six hundred of the patriots. On a sudden, and as if by a general impulse, the unfortunate wretches threw themselves upon their knees, raised their clasped hands, and, in heart-rending tones, sued for mercy.
"Cuartel! par el amor de Dios, cuartel!"
"Buen viage à los infiernos!" was the savage reply of the dragoons, and heads and hands fell in all directions.
"Infernal villains!" exclaimed Don Manuel, overcome by his indignation at the barbarity of the soldiery. And hardly were the words spoken, when, by an incontrollable impulse, he raised the pistols he still held in his hands, and fired them at the dragoons; then hurrying to one of the mules, he snatched another brace from the holsters attached to the saddle.
"Por el amor de Dios! Por la santissima madre!Think of your mother, think of the count, of Elvira!" implored Alonzo, throwing his arms round his young master.
"Stand off!" shouted the youth fiercely; "or by the living God I shoot you on the spot, sooner than let this inhuman butchery continue."
Pushing the servant violently from him, he sprang forward and discharged his two other pistols. Two dragoons fell from their saddles.
"Holy virgin!" exclaimed the old serving man, "he will be the ruin of himself, of his family, of all of us. But it is too late to back out. Take good aim, Pedro, Cosmo." And the three men fired their carbines, while Jago and the muleteers, hastily following their example with their trabucos, half a dozen of the Spaniards bit the dust.
A short pause ensued. The shots from the thicket had come like athunderbolt upon the inhuman dragoons and their victims. The latter stared for a few seconds wildly around them, as if uncertain whence came the unexpected succour. Their indecision was put an end to by Jago.
"Abajo con ellos!" shouted he in a voice of thunder. "Down with the dogs!"
And at the word, the Indians, rousing from their apathy, threw themselves upon the dead and wounded Spaniards, wrested their weapons from them in spite of the murderous blows of the other dragoons, and in their turn assumed the offensive. Don Manuel's blood was now thoroughly heated with the fight. Every shot that was fired at this elevation of ten thousand feet above the sea, rolled and rattled its echoes round the hills in long-continued thunder, and added to the din and excitement of the scene.
"Are you loaded?" cried the young nobleman, as he shot down the first man of a detachment which was advancing to attack the new foe in his ambush. Servants and muleteers followed his example, five more saddles were emptied, and immediately the Indians threw themselves upon the fallen, regardless of wounds, and seized their sabres and carbines. The fight grew more furious in proportion as the sides became more equal.
"Thanks be to God and to your Señoria, our time is come!" murmured Jago. And with the cry of "Death to the Gachupins!" he sprang from his cover, and fell with a tiger's leap upon the dragoons. The latter began to lose ground; for while twenty patriots, now well armed, found them occupation in front, hundreds of others attacked them on the flanks and in rear, climbing upon the cruppers of the horses, clasping the riders round the body, and dragging them from the saddle. Even the wounded twined their bleeding and mutilated limbs round the horses' legs, and made their sharp teeth meet in the very muscle of the brutes, till the groans of pain of the latter were heard mingling with the cries of the combatants. It was a frightful group; the Indians were become incarnate fiends. The dragoons had no room to use their weapons; they could scarcely move; men and horses were intertwined with Indians, who clung to them like so many anacondas. Hardly ten minutes had elapsed, and there were not thirty men left on their horses.
Don Manuel had beheld with horror this outbreak of Indian fury. Springing forward he shouted to the patriots, in a loud voice, to desist.
"Death to the traitor!" cried the Spanish commandant, who was still fighting desperately at the head of the remnant of his squadron. "Muera!" repeated he, as he fired off his last pistol at Manuel. He missed him, and had just raised his sabre to repair the badness of his aim, when a blow from a club brought horse and rider to the ground.
"Hold your hands!" cried the young nobleman. "Hold, and give quarter!"
"El tiempo de la mansedumbre se ha pasado!" muttered Jago and his Indians. "The day of mercy is long gone by."
"By the eternal God, I will split the skull of the first who strikes another blow!" shouted Manuel.
But his endeavours to suspend the slaughter were fruitless. His voice was drowned amid the furious yells of the Indians. At that very moment the vesper bells from Cholula came sounding up the mountain, and those of the various villages of the plain chimed in with an indescribably peaceful and soothing harmony.
"Ave Maria!" exclaimed a hundred Indian voices. "Ave Maria!" repeated Metises and Zambos; and all, friends and foes, let their blood-dripping hands sink, and bending their wild, excited gaze upon the earth, clasped and kissed the medals of the Virgin of Guadalupe which were hung round their necks, and in tones of musical monotony began to pray—"Ave Maria, audi nos peccadores!" All heads were bowed, all hands folded; and, kneeling upon the corpses of the slain, these raging foes implored, in humble formula, forgiveness for themselves and their erring fellow-creatures.
The shades of evening had spread themselves over valley and plain; in the barranca it was already darkest night; but the mountains of the Sierra Madre still glowed in the red rays ofthe setting sun, their snow-capped summits flaming aloft like gigantic beacons. At the same time multitudes of eagles and vultures rose upon the wing, mingling their screams with the groans of the dying and the agonized cries of the wounded. Every circumstance seemed to unite to render the scene in the highest degree sublime and horrible.
The bells ceased ringing, and scarcely had the echoes of their last chime died away, when the Indians arose from their devotional posture, gazed at each other for a moment with lowering and significant glances, and then, without uttering a word, sprang upon the few remaining dragoons with an eager rage and greed of blood, that scarcely seemed human. In a few seconds not one of the Spaniards was left alive. To a man they had been stabbed and strangled by their inveterate and unappeasable foes.
The principal incident of the preceding chapter is, we apprehend, of peculiar dramatic merit and boldness of conception. A young nobleman, whose predilections and prejudices are strongly enlisted on the side of the oppressors, has the better feelings of his nature roused into action by the cruelties he sees inflicted on the oppressed, and, forgetful of selfish interests, strikes boldly in on the weaker side. The moment of excitement over, a reaction takes place, the stronger, perhaps, on account of the cruel reprisals exercised by the uncivilized Indians, and still more ferocious half-castes; and while the patriots are rifling the dead bodies of the dragoons, and their chief is reading some papers he has found in the pocket of the Spanish commandant, Don Manuel bitterly deplores the act of precipitation that has blasted all the hopes of his love and ambition.
While the various actors in the scene are thus employed, Jago's practised ear detects a faint murmur and rattle in the barranca, occasioned by the approach of another squadron of cavalry under command of the Conde Carlos. The dragoons, alarmed by the firing, have left their horses below and slung their heavy boots over their shoulders, in order to arrive more speedily to the assistance of their comrades. By a skilful disposition of his Indians, the patriot captain surrounds the Spaniards before they emerge from the difficult road up the barranca, and while they are panting and exhausted with the steep ascent. This is effected in spite of a desperate attempt of Don Manuel to warn them of their danger. At the moment, however, that they are, to all appearance, about to be exterminated by a volley from the patriots, Jago cries out to hold and give quarter, for that they are Creoles and friends. Count Carlos, with a cry of "Viva el Rey!" rushes forward to charge the foe, but his men hang back, and resist all his efforts to make them advance. Jago gives him proofs of the destruction of the other squadron, and offers him and his men their lives, and honourable treatment as prisoners of war. These conditions the Conde is compelled to accept; but, previously to doing so, he demands whose word is plighted to him for their due fulfilment. Jago descends the rocky path, and whispers a few words in his ear, the effect of which is to make Carlos start back and salute the patriot captain with far more respect than a young aristocrat could have been expected to show to a mule-driver.
Considering that neither Spain nor Mexico are very safe countries for Don Manuel after what has occurred, Jago offers to have him put safely on board an English or American vessel; but the young man is too much agitated to decide upon any thing. Preparations are now made to leave the scene of the recent conflict, previously to which, however, many of the dragoons join the ranks of the patriots. To this Count Carlos objects, as contrary to the conditions.
"It is the men's own wish," replied Jago in a jesting tone. "We fight for liberty, Conde, and it were hard measure to refuse it to our new allies."
And smiling significantly, he lifted up his voice and sang—
"Amigos, la libertadNos llama a la lid,Juremos por ellaMorir como el Cid!"
"Good God!" exclaimed the count, "that voice! Pedrillo!"
Before Carlos has recovered fromhis surprise at recognising the voice of the masked cavalier who played so important a part in the earlier scenes of the book, the patriots divide into three parties, and set off in as many different directions, singing in chorus the song which their leader had commenced. Carlos and Manuel find themselves separated alike from each other, and from the mysterious and Protean patriot captain. We shall attach ourselves to the fortunes of Don Manuel, and extract the chapter which records his night march, and terminates this episode.
In the same wild and abrupt manner in which the song had commenced, did it suddenly cease as the party entered the forest, the intricacies and ravines of which it required all their attention to thread with safety. No more torches were left alight than were absolutely necessary to find the way over and along the dangerous fissures and precipices which met them at every turn. Here and there were still to be seen traces of the paths hewn in the rock by the unspeakable labour of Cortes' infatuated allies—paths by which that daring adventurer had brought his handful of men, his horses and guns, over the Sierra, and which had recently conducted the Spanish major and his squadron to their less successful coup-de-main. Hours were consumed in clambering up and down this rough and dangerous ground, and not a word was uttered by the patriots until they arrived in a valley at a considerable distance below the platform they had left. A shrill whistle was then heard, followed by a wild howl resembling that of the caguar, whereupon the party halted a short time, and then again started off at a rapid pace. Their path now led through lofty woods and tangled thickets, overgrown with a mantle of creeping plants, so closely entwined and intricate, that they might well have deterred the most daring hunter from attempting to force a passage. The stunted oaks and pines had been replaced by palm and tamarind trees, the sharp cold had given way to a moderate degree of warmth. Over the adjacent ravines, billows of mist were floating, and from time to time were wafted towards the wanderers by a puff of the night breeze, rendering the darkness that surrounded them yet more intense. Now and then Indians emerged, with rapid but silent step, from the clefts and passes of the mountain, and joined the party; others left it and disappeared with the same noiseless dispatch. No voice was heard, no command given; there was every appearance of the blindest obedience, without any visible chief.
Hitherto our young Don had given no sign of his existence. He had followed mechanically wherever he had been led, over mountain and valley, through ravine and forest, until, on a sudden, the brilliant spectacle of fifty torches, flaring along a rocky ridge, and illuminating the depths of a fearful precipice, roused him into life and consciousness. Before he had time to enquire where he was, or whither they were taking him, a whistle was heard, and at the same moment he was seized by a pair of powerful arms, and placed upon the shoulders of a gigantic Indian, who tucked the young man's legs under his arms, and trotted away with his burden as though it had been a feather.
"Vigilancia!" suddenly exclaimed a voice, and the party paused for an instant: in the silence the roar of a mountain torrent was heard, ascending, as it seemed, from the very bowels of the earth. The climate, which had been alternately cold and temperate, as the march had lain over highground, or through ravines and hollows, had now suddenly become of a tropical heat.
"Where are we?" enquired Don Manuel of his bearer, as the latter at last sat him down upon his feet.
"Callad!Silence!" replied the Indian, pointing down into the depth below, from which a shout was heard, scarcely audible in the noise of the torrent. "Callad!" he repeated, as he fixed his lasso dexterously under Don Manuel's arms, and, lifting him over a rock, lowered him to a depth of thirty feet. Himself following by the like means, he perched the young man upon his shoulders in the same unceremonious manner as before, and began a rapid descent into the frightful barranca.
"Vigilancia!" cried a voice. "Half a foot's breadth and no more; the Virgin help those who require a whole one."
"Silencio!" commanded a second speaker. "Caballitos for the Creoles; a good journey to the Gachupins."
The warning and the command had alike reference to an unhewn tree-trunk thrown across the gulf that was now to be traversed. The order had hardly been given, when Manuel found himself transferred to the shoulders of a fresh Indian, who, without looking to the right or left, trotted, rather than walked over the perilous bridge. In the awful chasm beneath them, the water chafed and roared, concealed from view by the most luxuriant foliage and creeping plants. On the further side of the bridge, several Indians were already standing.
"Eres Criollo?Are you a Creole?" said a rough voice in rear of Don Manuel, and then the shaking of the tree-trunk gave notice that a second caballito, with a man upon his back, was accomplishing the dangerous passage. Again the question was put, but this time the answer was scarcely out of the mouth of the unfortunate Spaniard, when the exclamation of "Maldito, Gachupin!" and an agonized cry of "Jesus Maria y José!" were accompanied by a heavy fall and rattle amongst the branches. Manuel, who was now in safety on the farther side of the barranca, gazed shudderingly after the unhappy wretch, whose death scream rose shrill and wild from the depths of the abyss. Before he had time to utter a word, he was again seized and carried along as rapidly and unceremoniously as if he had been a child of two years' old. A few more single shrieks were heard, each more faint and distant, until at last they ceased altogether.
The heat of theterra caliente, which the party had recently entered, began to change rapidly into the cold of thetierra fria, while a wreath of white fog round the summit of a neighbouring mountain indicated the approach of dawn. In the barrancas it was still dark night. Here and there appeared heaps of snow, which became more numerous as the climbers ascended, until at last the whole mountain was one field of ice. As the daylight increased, a mass of snow-covered mountain appeared upon the left, spreading out like a huge winding-sheet, while to the right a still loftier peak caught the first beams of the morning sun. But the beams were pale, and the tints grey; all around was mist and icy cold.
"Por Dios!" exclaimed Don Manuel; "Where is the Conde Carlos? Where are Alonzo, Cosmo?"
"Forward!" commanded a voice.
"I ask where is the Conde Carlos?" repeated the young nobleman, who remarked, to his horror, that the party, which had set out more than four hundred strong, now consisted only of seventy Indians and twenty or thirty dragoons. He had been unconscious, owing to the darkness and to his agitation of mind, of the separation that had taken place upon the plateau. No answer was vouchsafed to his question. They had arrived at the edge of a deep precipice, which stopped their further progress.
"Lassos!" cried the same voice as before.
One of the Indians fastened the end of his lasso round his own body, gave the ring at the other extremity to a comrade, and was lowered over the precipice. A second lasso was made fast to the ring of the first, a third, a fourth, a fifth were added in like manner, until the Indian had disappeared in the fog, and it was only known by his shout when he hadfound a footing. Another Indian, and another, followed in the same way, with as much safety and speed as if they had been so many cotton bales let down from the top floor of a warehouse.
"Vuestra Señoria," said one of the patriots to Don Manuel, pointing to this new kind of ladder, and making a sign to an Indian. The next moment the young nobleman also had vanished in the mist. Man followed man, and the last who went down gave each of the five guides a cigar, laid his finger on his lips, and hastened after his companions.
The descent thus strangely commenced, was continued for some time without incident, and the sun was just rising above the mountains, when the patriot detachment came in sight of a moderately deep barranca, along the side of which stood arancho, or Indian village, composed of doorless and windowless huts, built of tree trunks, and thatched with palm leaves. Each of the humble dwellings was surrounded by its cactus hedge, enclosing an infinite variety of gorgeous tropical flowers, which offered a striking contrast with the adjacent poverty and filth. From the elevation on which the patriots stood, a chapel with snow-white walls, buried amidst centenary cypresses, was visible, as also some other buildings of various sizes, apparently belonging to anhaciendaor plantation.
The party descended rapidly but cautiously towards the village, headed by a young Creole, who now, for the first time during their march, attracted Don Manuel's attention, and under whose unbuttoned frock-coat were visible the blue uniform and white facings of the patriots, and the insignia of a field-officer. The morning mass was just over, and the village alive with Indians—men, women, and children—who crowded round the detachment with joyous welcome and vociferous greetings.
In the midst of the bustle, the sound of voices was suddenly heard approaching the village from the opposite side, and presently the advanced guard of a corps of patriots came in sight. These were followed by several officers of distinguished appearance, clothed in rich staff uniforms, and amongst them the Conde Carlos. Then came the main body, numbering about five hundred men, all well armed and equipped. They were for the most part Indians, Metises, and Zambos from the southern provinces, powerful well-built fellows, who, in spite of their long march, came on with a light step and a proud glance. From time to time there was a shout of "Viva Vicénte Gueréro! Viva nuestro general!"
Oddly enough, as it struck Don Manuel, our old acquaintance, Captain Jago, was walking among the brilliant train of staff-officers, still attired in his shabbymanga, although he had found means to renew the covering of his feet.
"Ah! Don Manuel!" cried he with a somewhat malicious smile, and fixing his eyes on the now tattered shoes and garb of the young cavalier, "You were doubtless not over well-pleased with your last night's march; but we could not help it, and your friend the Count Carlos has fared no better. I trust, however, that my commands were obeyed, and that Major Galeana took all possible care of you?"
"Major Galeana take care of me!" repeated the youth indignantly, his blood again getting up at the remembrance of the rough handling he had experienced.
"My orders have been obeyed, I hope," resumed Jago.
"Thy orders obeyed, knave!" interupted Don Manuel bitterly, without letting Jago finish his phrase.
"Mexico calls me Vicénte Gueréro," was the dry but dignified reply of the ex-arriero; "and henceforward I must beg of your young señoria to address me by that name."
And with these words, the former muleteer, now suddenly transformed into one of Mexico's most distinguished generals, turned his back upon the astonished Don Manuel, amidst the loud laughter of the bystanders.
"Let the men get their breakfast at once," continued Gueréro to Major Galeana, "so that they may have at least three hours' siesta. Be kind enough to give me a cigar," he added to another of his officers. "Ha! there aretortillas," laughed he, stepping up to a group of Indian women,who were busied baking the much-esteemed maize cakes, and had crept towards him in order to kiss the hem of his garment. "They are good, Matta," said he, with a smile, to one of the girls, taking a tortilla from the pan, stretching out his hand for the Chili pepper, and sprinkling the cake with the pungent condiment. "One more, Matta. So—try them, gentlemen, you will find them excellent."
The aides-de-camp and generals hastened to follow the example of their chief.
"Apropos, Major Galeana," resumed the latter; "two Spaniards were caught trying to escape. Let them be strung up. Señor Conde," he continued, turning to his prisoner Carlos, "you are our guest, I hope, and your friend also, if he will so far condescend. But where is he? Where is Don Manuel?"
Common and reckless as Gueréro's manner undoubtedly was, there was, nevertheless, a something about him highly attractive; the more so, as the most superficial observer could easily discern that his abruptness was the result, not of a consciousness of great power, but of a wish to make himself popular with his followers. During the last of the pauses occasioned in his desultory discourse by his attacks upon the maize cakes, an officer came up and made a report, which seemed strongly to interest the general.
"The devil!" cried he. "The Léperos on the heights of Ajotla, say you? Let us have a look at them."
And so saying, he started off at a pace with which not one of his followers was able to keep up, and in a very few minutes had ascended an eminence commanding a distant view of the road from Puebla de los Angeles to the capital, while in the still remoter distance, beyond the lake of Chalco, lay the city of Mexico itself.
From that point a strange sight presented itself. The whole of the wretched class of people called Léperos, the Lazzaroni of New Spain, had evacuated the city and suburbs, and with their wives and children had taken up their station upon the Ajotla road, their legions extending as far as the chain of volcanic hills which on that side of the great Mexican valley, serve as outposts to the Tenochtitlan range.
"Madre de Dios!" cried Gueréro to his officers, as they came up. "Now for three thousand muskets, instead of five hundred, and Mexico would be ours."
"No sé," replied an old brigadier-general, "I do not know that."
"Io lo sé," said Vicénte Gueréro, "Iknow it; but as things now are, it certainly is impossible. They have two regiments of infantry, only Spanish infantry to be sure, but with the best colonel in the service; and five militia regiments. Yet, give me three thousand muskets and Mexico should be ours. The Léperos are waiting for us."
He paused for a moment and seemed to reflect.
"Pshaw!" added he to his officers, "it cannot be done, Señores! Butpaciencia!before we are ten years older, Mexico shall be free."
And without vouchsafing another glance either to the city or the Léperos, this remarkable man turned away in the direction of the Hacienda.
No effort of genius, or industry, can make the history of England, during the eighteenth century, equal in interest to that of either the seventeenth or nineteenth centuries. By the eighteenth century is meant the period of it ending in 1792: the subsequent eight years begin a new era—the era of Revolutions—which properly belongs to the nineteenth. It was essentially a period of repose. Placed midway between the great religious effort which, commencing in the middle of the sixteenth, was not closed in the British Islands till the end of the seventeenth century, and the not less vehement political struggle which began in the world with the French, or perhaps the American Revolution, and is still in uninterrupted activity, it exhibits a resting-place between the two great schisms which have distracted and distinguished modern times. It wants the ardent zeal, intrepid spirit, and enthusiastic devotion, of the former epoch, not less than the warm aspirations, fierce contests, and extravagant expectations of the latter. Passion had exhausted itself; energy was worn out by exertion; enthusiasm damped by disappointment. We no longer see men nobly sacrificing themselves for what they deemed the public good; the generous had ceased to obliterate the selfish passions; good sense was the characteristic of the period; a desire for repose its leading principle; selfishness its ruling motive. It is ever so with men, when vehement passions are not awakened, and the ardour of visionary pursuit has not obliterated the desire for immediate gratification.
But if the eighteenth century can never rival the eras of the Reformation and the French Revolution in heart-stirring events, animated narrative, picturesque description, generous devotion, and sanguinary ambition, it is, perhaps, superior to either in the lessons of political wisdom with which it is fraught. It is so because it exhibits on a great scale, and for a long period, theresultsof those changes which had been the subject of that vehement struggle in the two preceding centuries, and enables us to appreciate, by actual experience, the benefits and evils of those great alterations in civil and religious institutions, which, after so long and severe a contest, had at length come to be thoroughly established. The survey is, in some respects, disheartening, but it is instructive; if it dispels many theories and blights much anticipation, it confirms many truths, and has established some principles which will probably never again be questioned. We are not aware that the history of the eighteenth century has ever yet been written in this spirit. It is understood now to be in the hands of learning and genius; let us hope that equanimity and impartial judgment will preside as much as these brilliant qualities in the completion of the great undertaking.
The great passion of the sixteenth century was for religious emancipation. The real evil which it was the object of the Reformation to shake off was the despotism of the Romish priesthood: the freedom for which the Reformers contended was the freedom of the human soul. The immediate object, the exciting cause, indeed, of Luther's movements, was the overthrow of the corrupt sale of indulgences, which, in the time of Leo X., had brought such scandal on the Church of Rome; but religious freedom was the general and durable passion of the Reformation. It was the constrained uniformity of worship, the compulsory unity of belief, the slavish submission to authority, in the dearest concerns of existence, which was the real evil that was complained of. This want, so natural to an age of mental activity, so indispensable to one of advancing freedom, the satisfaction of which is as necessary as vital air to one of generalintelligence, distinctly appeared in the forms of worship which the Reformers generally established when they had thrown off the authority of the Roman pontiff. The Romish liturgies, touching, admirable, and catholic, as great part of them are, were in general abolished; and, in their stead, extempore prayers, often of portentous length, were used, to give each individual minister an opportunity of introducing, in every part of the sacred proceeding, his peculiar tenets. The sermon, for a similar reason, became the longest and most important part of the service. Every one knows how strongly the same lines of distinction still characterize the ultra-Reformers, who contend for the Calvinistic tenets and Presbyterian form of worship, and those more moderate partizans of the Reformation who have embraced the less violent schism of the Church of England.
Political equality was, and still is, the grand aspiration of the nineteenth century. What the ardent multitudes who embraced the principles of the French Revolution desired, was equality of privilege, and universal participation in power. They saw the injustice and cruelty of their former oppressors, they felt how galling their chains had been, and they flattered themselves that, if they could once get possession of the reins of power, they had suffered too severely from their abuse to be in any danger of being led astray in the use they made of them. Abolition of rank and privilege, the opening of all careers to all, and the admission of all into the equal enjoyment of power, by means of a government resting on universal suffrage, was the general object of ambition, and has been established for a brief period in France, Spain, Portugal, and Piedmont; more durably in North and South America. What the results of this system of government are to be, is the great problem which is in the course of solution in the nineteenth century; but be these results fortunate or unfortunate, it is this which constitutes the characteristic of the period, and will form the object of close and anxious attention to historians in future times. It was a principle and basis of government wholly new in human affairs. No previous republic, either in ancient or modern times, had exhibited any approach to it. The seclusion of the great body of the working class, in all the states of antiquity, from any share either in municipal or social powers, by reason of the generality of slavery—the arrangement of men in trades and crafts, through whose heads all their powers were exercised, in the free cities of Italy and Flanders, in modern times, and in general in all the European burghs, necessarily rendered the basis of government in all former commonwealths essentially different. A democratic valley may have existed in Uri or Underwalden, where all the citizens were equally rich in fortune, and nearly equally poor in intelligence; but the example of a great community resting on universal suffrage, and a simple majority of votes, began with the year 1789.
Although the proper democratic spirit existed in great strength in many of the leaders of the Great Rebellion, and its extravagances generally affected the army, and some of the powerful leaders of that convulsion, yet extension of political power was not the object of thenationalwill. This is decisively proved by the fact, that when they gained the power, the people made no attempt, in any material respect, to alter the public institutions. Cromwell, doubtless, was a military usurper; but a military usurper is only the head of a warlike republic, and he is constrained to obey the wishes of the soldiers who have elevated him to power. Neither he nor the Long Parliament made any important alterations on the lasting structure of government, though, for the time, they totally altered its practice. The law was administered on the old precedents during the whole Protectorate. The estates of the malignants were put under sequestration, and many of the church lands were confiscated, but no great alteration in the foundations of government took place. Power, when the military oppression was removed, immediately returned to its former seats. The parliaments summoned by Cromwell proved so refractory, that they were in general dissolved after having sat a few days; juries, throughouthis reign, were so hostile to his government that they acquitted nearly all the state offenders brought before them; and legal prosecutions fell into disuse. Every thing was done by military force; but it never occurred to him to turn up the soil, so as to bring up fresh elements into action:—he never thought of summoning a parliament resting on universal suffrage, or establishing a revolutionary tribunal, the jurors of which were nominated by that democratic assembly. So as the victorious party were allowed to chant hymns as they pleased, and hear long sermons replete with any absurdity, and indulge in the freedom of the pulpit, they cared nothing for that of the press, or altering the structure of government. When Charles II. was recalled by Monk, he had only to issue writs to the counties and boroughs which had returned the Long Parliament, to obtain the most thoroughly loyal commons which ever sat in England.
Although the change of government in 1688 is usually called "the Revolution," and although it certainly was a most decisive overthrow so far as the reigning family was concerned, yet it was by no means a revolution in the sense in which we now understand the word. It made no change in the basis of power in the state, though it altered the dynasty which sat on the throne, and for seventy years fixed the reign of power in the hands of the Whig party, who had been most instrumental in placing William and Mary on it. But the structure of Government remained unchanged; or rather, it was changed only to be rendered more stable and powerful. We owe to the Revolution many of our greatest blessings; but not the least of these has been the removal of the causes of weakness which had so often before, in English history, proved fatal to the throne. It gave us a national debt, a standing army, and a stable foreign policy. The sum annually raised by William in taxes, within five years after he obtained the throne, was triple what had been so much the subject of complaint in the time of Charles I.; but the effect of this was to give us a firm government and steady policy. De Witt had said, in the disgraceful days of the alliance of Charles II. with France, that the changes of English policy had now become so frequent, that no man could rely on any system being continued steadily for two years together. The continental interests and connexions of William, and subsequently of the Hanover family, gave us a durable system of foreign policy, and imprinted, for an hundred and forty years, that steadiness in our councils, without which neither individuals nor nations ever attained either lasting fame or greatness. Nor was it the least blessing consequent upon such a change of external policy, and of the wars which it necessarily induced, that it gave Government the lasting support of a standing army, and thus prevented that ruinous prostration of the executive before the burst of popular passion, which had so often induced the most dreadful disorders in English history. After 1688, the standing army, though inconsiderable compared with what it has since become, was always respectable, and adequate, as the result of the rebellions in 1715 and 1745 demonstrated, to the defence of Government against the most serious domestic dangers. That of itself was an incalculable blessing, and cheaply purchased by the national debt and all the bloodshed of our foreign wars. Had Charles I. possessed five thousand guards, he would at once have crushed the great Rebellion; and the woful oppression of the Long Parliament, which, during the eleven years that it sat, extorted eighty millions, equal to two hundred millions at this time, from an impoverished and bleeding nation, would have been prevented.
Englishmen are not accustomed to pride themselves upon the external successes and military triumphs of the eighteenth century; and they have been so eclipsed by those of the Revolutionary war, that they are now in a great measure thrown into the shade. Yet nothing is more certain than that it is in external success and warlike glory, that, during the seventy years which immediately succeeded the Revolution, we must look for the chief rewards and best vindication of that convulsion. England then took its appropriate place as the head of theProtestant faith, the bulwark of the liberties of Europe. The ambition of the House of Bourbon, which so nearly proved fatal to them in the person of Louis XIV., became the lasting object of their apprehension and resistance. The heroic steadiness of William, the consummate genius of Marlborough, the ardent spirit of Chatham, won for us the glories of the War of the Succession and of the Seven Years. Though deeply checkered, especially in the American war, with disaster, the eighteenth century was, upon the whole, one of external glory and national advancement. To their honour be it spoken, the Whigs at that period were the party who had the national glory and success at heart, and made the greatest efforts, both on the theatre of arms and of diplomacy, to promote it. The Tories were lukewarm or indifferent to national glory, averse to foreign alliances, and often willing to purchase peace by the abandonment of the chief advantages which war had purchased. During the Revolutionary war the case was just the reverse—the parties mutually changed places. The Tories were the national and patriotic, the Whigs the grumbling and discontented party. Both parties, in both periods, were in reality actuated, perhaps unconsciously, by their party interests—the Whigs were patriotic and national, the Tories backward and lukewarm when the Whigs were in power, and derived lustre from foreign success; the Tories were patriotic and national when they held the reins of government, and the opposite vices had passed over to their antagonists.
But if from the external policy and foreign triumphs of the Whigs during the first sixty years of the eighteenth century, we turn to the domestic government which they established, and the social ameliorations which they introduced, we shall see much less reason to congratulate ourselves on the benefits gained by the Revolution. It is here that the great moral and political lesson of the eighteenth century is to be found; this it is which it behoves our historians to tell; this it is which they have left untold. The long possession of power, after the accession of William and Mary, by the Whig party, which continued uninterrupted for seventy years, and the want of any philosophical history of the period since they were dispossessed of office, have prevented the truth from being boldly told, or even generally known in this country. It is much more generally appreciated, however, by continental writers, and we may rest assured the eyes of future generations will be steadily fixed on it. The danger is, that it will throw discredit on the cause, both of civil and religious freedom, in the eyes of future generations in the world. Let us, in the first instance, boldly, and without seeking to disguise the truth, examine what are the religious and civil evils which have attracted the attention of mankind in Great Britain during the eighteenth century, and then enquire whether they are the necessary result of the Reformation and the Revolution, or have arisen from causes foreign to that of religious and civil freedom—in a word, from the usual intermixture of human selfishness and iniquity with those great convulsions.
The two great evils which have disfigured the reformed church in the British islands, since its final establishment at the Revolution, have been the endless multiplication and unceasing rancour of sects, and the palpable outgrowth of the population beyond the possibility of their gratuitous instruction in religious truth by means of the national church.
The three great evils which have been felt in the political and social world in England during the eighteenth century, are the prodigious, and in general irresistible, power of an oligarchy; the unbounded parliamentary and official corruption by which their influence has been upheld; and the unprecedented spread of pauperism through the working classes of society.
In these days the reality of those evils will probably not be disputed in any quarter; when we have seen the latter lead to the Reform Bill, and the great organic change of 1832, as well as keep the nation, and all serious thinkers in it, in a state of constant anxiety; and the former rend the national church in Scotland asunder; threaten the most serious religious divisions in England, and in both countries permit the growth of a huge body of practical heathens in the midst of a Christian land.
Were these evils the necessary and inevitable result of the Reformation and the Revolution; or have they arisen from causes foreign to these changes, and which, in future times, may be detached from them? The Roman Catholic writers on the Continent all maintain the former opinion, and consider them as the necessary effect and just punishment of the great schism from the church; which, by a natural consequence, ended in civil convulsion, public immorality, and social distress. The English writers have, hitherto, rather avoided than grappled with the subject; they have rather denied the existence of the evils, than sought to account for them. Let us consider to what cause these unquestionable evils of the eighteenth century are really to be ascribed.
They know little of the human heart who expect that, in an age and country where religionis at all thought of, sects and religious differences will not prevail. As well might you expect that, in a free community, political parties are to be unknown. Truth, indeed, is one and the same in all ages; but so also is the light of the sun; yet, in how many different hues, and under how many different appearances, does it manifest itself in the world? In the smoky city, and on the clear mountain; on the sandy desert, and in the stagnant marsh; radiant with the warmth of July, or faintly piercing the gloom of December. So various are the capacities, feelings, emotions, and dispositions of men, that, on any subject which really interests them, diversity of opinion is as inevitable as difference in their countenances, stature, character, fortune, and state in the world. Hence it was that our Saviour said he came to bring not peace on earth, but a sword—to divide the father from the son, to array the mother against the daughter. It will be so to the end of the world. Unity of opinion on political subjects seems to prevail under Asiatic despotism; in religious, under the European papacy—but nowhere else. The conclusion to be drawn from the absence of all theological disputes in a community, is, not that all think alike on religion, but that none think at all.
But although no rational man who knows the human heart will ever express a wish to see entire religious unity prevail in a state, yet there can be no question, that the prodigious multiplication of sects in Britain, which strikes foreigners with such astonishment, is mainly to be ascribed, as well as the immense mass of civilized heathenism which, through the whole of the eighteenth century, was growing up in the island, to the iniquitous confiscation of the property of the church which took place at the Reformation. It is well known that the proportion of the tithes of England which belongs to lay impropriators, is more considerable than that which is still in the hands of the church; and if to them is added the abbey and monastery lands, they would by this time have amounted to a very large annual sum, probably not less than six or seven millions a-year. In Scotland, it is well known, the church lands at the Reformation were about a third of the whole landed property. They would now, therefore, have produced £1,700,000 a-year, as the entire rental is somewhat above five millions. What a noble fund here existed, formed and set apart by the piety and charity of former ages, for the service of the altar and of the poor—two causes which God hath joined, and no man should put asunder! What incalculable good would it have done, if it had been preserved sacred for its proper destination—sacred from the corruptions, mummery, and despotism of the Romish church, but preserved inviolate for the support of religion, the relief of suffering, the spread of education! What is it which blights and paralyses all the efforts now made, whether by individuals, voluntary associations, or the state, for the attainment of those truly godlike objects? Is it not ever one thing—the practical impossibility of finding the requisite funds to support the institutions necessary to grapple with the evils, on a scale at all commensurate to their magnitude? The Established Church could not spread for want of funds to erect and endow churches; meanwhile the population in the manufacturing districts and great towns was rapidly increasing, and, in consequence, part of the people took refugein the divisions of dissent, part in the oblivion of practical heathenism. Thence the multiplication of sects, the spread of pauperism, the growth of civilized heathenism in the state. The poor-laws dated from the dissolution of the monasteries; the forty-second of Elizabeth stands a durable record of the real origin of that burdensome tax. It was the appropriation of the funds of religion and charity to the gratification of secular rapacity, which has been the cause of the chief religious and social evils under which Great Britain has ever since laboured; and it is it which still presents an invincible obstacle to all the efforts which are made for their removal.
But the confiscation of the church lands and tithes to the use of the temporal nobility was not a necessary part of the Reformation, any more than the confiscation of the estates of the church and the emigrants was a necessary step in the progress of freedom in France. In both cases, the iniquitous spoliation was the result of human wickedness mingling with the current, and taking advantage of the generous effort for religious or civil emancipation on the part of the many, to render it the means of achieving individual robbery for behoof of the few. The Reformation might have been established in the utmost purity in Great Britain, without one shilling being diverted from the service of the church, or the maintenance of the poor, and with the preservation of a fund large enough to have provided for the permanent support of the unfortunate, and the progressive extension of the Established Church, in proportion to the increase and wants of the inhabitants. In like manner, the Revolution might have been conducted to a successful and probably bloodless termination in France, without the unutterable present misery and hopeless ultimate prostration of religion and freedom, which resulted from the confiscations of the Convention, and the division of all the land in the kingdom among the peasants. In neither case are we justified in stigmatizing the cause of freedom, on account of the dreadful excesses which were committed by the selfish who joined in its support; but in both we must acknowledge the impartial justice of Providence, which has made the iniquity of men work out their own appropriate and well-deserved punishments, and has made it to descend to the third and fourth generations from those who committed or permitted the deeds of injustice.
The power of the oligarchy, which resulted from the Revolution of 1688, and the unbounded corruption by which, for seventy years afterwards, their power was maintained, has been less the subject of observation or censure by subsequent writers, for the very obvious reason that the popular party, who had gained the victory at the Revolution, were during all that period in power, and they have been in no hurry to expose or decry these degrading, but to them most profitable, abuses. It is probable that they never would have been brought to light at all, but would have quietly and irrevocably sapped the foundations of the British character and of British greatness, had it not been that, fortunately for the country, the incubus of corrupting Whig aristocracy was thrown off by George III. and Lord Bute, in 1761, and cast down by the same monarch and Mr Pitt, in 1784; and, in their rage and disappointment, they exposed, when practised by their opponents, the well-known, and, to them, long profitable abuses, by which the government, since the Revolution, had been carried on. It is the revelations on this subject which have recently issued from the press, which have cast so broad, and, to the philosophic historian, so important a light on the history of the first two-thirds of the eighteenth century; and among them, the letters and memoirs of Horace Walpole occupy a distinguished place. Certainly it was far from the intention of that able and witty annalist to illustrate the unbounded abuses, so long practised by Sir Robert Walpole and the Whigs who preceded him, nor the vast blessings conferred upon the country by George III. and Lord Bute, who first broke through the degrading spell. We have heard little of this view of the subject from the able and learned Whigs who have reviewed his works. Yet it lies on the very surface of things, and little need be said, and still less learned, to show that it is there that the turning-pointand great political moral of the history of England, during the eighteenth century, is to be found.
The truth on this subject could not so long have been kept out of view, had it not been that, till very recently, no historian at all worthy of the name has approached the subject of English history during the eighteenth century. The immortal work of Hume, as all the world knows, comes down only to the Revolution of 1688; and of the subsequent period, down to that when his history was written, in 1760, he has told us only that the monopoly of offices, places, and opinions, by the dominant Whig party, had been so close and uninterrupted, that it had well-nigh rendered it impossible to arrive at the truth on the subject. Smollett, whose continuation of Hume is to be seen in every bookseller's window beside its great predecessor, is wholly unworthy of the honourable place which chance, and the neglect of others, have hitherto assigned it. Admirable as a novelist—at least as that character was understood in those days—graphic, entertaining, humourous—Smollett had none of the qualities necessary for a historian. He was neither a soldier nor an orator, a poet nor a philosopher. The campaigns of Marlborough, the eloquence of Chatham, were alike lost upon him. He was neither warmed by the victory of Blenheim nor the death of Wolfe: the adventures of Charles Edward and the disasters of Saratoga, were narrated with the same imperturbable phlegm. As to philosophic views of the progress of society, or the social and political effects of the Revolution of 1688 and the Reformation, the thing was out of the question: it neither belonged to his age nor character, to dream of any thing of the kind. He was, in his history at least, a mere bookseller's hack, who compiled a very dull and uninteresting work from the information, scanty during his period, which theAnnual RegisterandParliamentary Historyafforded. If a greater annalist than he do not arise to do justice to his merits, the fame even of Marlborough will never descend, at least in its full proportions, to future generations.
It is deeply to be regretted that Sir James Mackintosh did not complete his long-cherished design of continuing Hume's history. No man, since Hume's time, possessed so many qualifications for the undertaking. To an incomparable talent for depicting character, and a luminous philosophic mind, he joined great erudition, extensive knowledge, and a practical acquaintance both with statesmen and ordinary life. Though he was a party man, and had early taken, in hisVindiciæ Gallicæ, a decided part against Burke, in apology of the French Revolution, yet he possessed great candour of mind, and had magnanimity enough, in maturer years, to admit, that he had been far led astray in early life by the inexperience and ardour of youth. When a man possesses this equanimity and justice of mind, it is wholly immaterial to what political party he belongs, and with what preconceived opinions he undertakes the task of narrating events. Truth will shine out in every page—justice will preside over every decision—facts will inevitably lead to the correct conclusion. It is perverted genius, skilful partisanship, imagination brought to the aid of party, and learning dedicated to the support of delusion, which is really to be dreaded. Mackintosh's mind was essentially philosophical: this appears in every page of his Life by his sons—one of the most interesting pieces of biography in the English language. His characters of statesmen, orators, and poets, in England during the eighteenth century, chiefly written at Bombay, or during the voyage home, are perhaps unparalleled in our language for justice and felicity. They show how richly stored his mind was; how correctly his taste had been formed on the best models; how vast a stock of images, comparisons, and associations, he brought to bear on the events and characters which he passed in survey. He had not a poetical mind, and was destitute of a pictorial eye. His history, therefore, never would have been adorned by those moving scenes, those graphic pictures, which are the life and soul of the highest style of history, and which have given immortality to the writings of Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus. But the eighteenth century, though by no means destitute of events calling for such imaginativepowers, has perhaps less of them than any equal period in English history. What is mainly required for it is a philosophic mind, to appreciate the effects of the great convulsions of the preceding century, and an impartial judgment, to discern the causes which were preparing the still more terrible catastrophe of the nineteenth. Mackintosh possessed these great and valuable qualities in a very high degree; and his history, if he had succeeded in completing it, would unquestionably have taken its place with those of Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon. The thing really to be lamented is, that the time which Providence allotted to him, and which was amply sufficient for the completion even of so great an undertaking, was wasted amidst the attractions and frivolity of high London society; and that, more even than the heroic Swede in captivity, he was