76 MEMOIR OF COLONEL TUPPER.
dation. Were it otherwise, an ' unholy' alliance of despots dared not have decreed that the will of her king should be superior to the voice of her people, and that the obstinacy of one man should bring desolation over a whole country. Too proud to acknowledge his weakness, and too vicious to yield where submission would be a virtue, the wretched Ferdinand has prolonged the contest with independ- ence abroad and freedom at home, until his character has become a by-word among nations. Proud and once mighty Spain is indeed fallen, — her coasts un- protected, her commerce destroyed, her power a nullity, her name almost a term of reproach, she presents a sad spectacle of the evils arising from a long course of absolute government ! And if such be the lamentable position of the mother country, can it be a matter of surprise that the acquisition of inde- pendence found her colonies totally unprepared to appreciate the blessings of rational freedom ? They had been so long and so studiously debased, that he, who expected that a native master spirit would at once appear among each of them to suppress the constant struggles for power and to allay the prolific elements of anarchy and confusion, the natural con- sequences of that debasement, must have been little acquainted with the workings of the human mind. The effects of so cruel a system of policy could only be mitigated or removed by years of probation and suffering. In Chile the Spaniards, on their final expulsion, left an intolerant priesthood and a selfish oligarchy, — the one anxious to preserve its sway, the other to continue in possession of several royal mono- polies, which were of course inconsistent with the general welfare and republican feelings of equity.
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