Every human being in these islands was unsettled; the most slavish broke loose as from fetters; and there was not an individual--it need not be said of heroic virtue, but of ingenuous life and sound discretion--who, if his father, his son, or his brother, or if the flower of his house had been in that army, would not rather that they had perished, and the whole body of their countrymen, their companions in arms, had perished to a man, than that a treaty should have been submitted to upon such conditions.

This was the feeling of the people; an awful feeling: and it is from these oracles that rulers are to learn wisdom.
For, when the people speaks loudly, it is from being strongly possessed either by the Godhead or the Demon; and he, who cannot discover the true spirit from the false, hath no ear for profitable communion.

But in all that regarded the destinies of Spain, and her own as connected with them, the voice of Britain had the unquestionable sound of inspiration.
If the gentle passions of pity, love, and gratitude, be porches of the temple; if the sentiments of admiration and rivalry be pillars upon which the structure is sustained; if, lastly, hatred, and anger, and vengeance, be steps which, by a mystery of nature, lead to the House of Sanctity;--then was it manifest to what power the edifice was consecrated; and that the voice within was of Holiness and Truth.
Spain had risen not merely to be delivered and saved;--deliverance and safety were but intermediate objects;--regeneration and liberty were the end, and the means by which this end was to be attained; had their own high value; were determined and precious; and could no more admit of being departed from, than the end of being forgotten .-- She had risen--not merely to be free; but, in the act and process of acquiring that freedom, to recompense herself, as it were in a moment, for all which she had suffered through ages; to levy, upon the false fame of a cruel Tyrant, large contributions of true glory; to lift herself, by the conflict, as high in honour--as the disgrace was deep to which her own weakness and vices, and the violence and perfidy of her enemies, had subjected her.
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.