Chapter XXII · (continued 2)

“The Spaniards do not yet know what war is, said those traitors to their country, who under the mask of a false prudence concealed their guilty selfishness. With such disheartening language they endeavoured to repress the generous impulses of loyalty. Base and pusillanimous men, we know what war is now! this terrible lesson is written upon our soil with the finger of desolation, it is engraved in our hearts with the dagger of vengeance. The execrable criminals whose instruments you have made yourselves have in their atrocities exceeded all that your perfidious mind could have foreseen, all that your terrified imagination could have foreboded. Transport yourselves to Galicia, if ye dare do it, ye miserable men, and there learn what is the standard of the true Spanish character! The blood which has there been shed is still steaming to heaven, the houses which have been burnt are still smoking, and the frightful silence of depopulation prevails over a country which was lately covered with villages and hamlets. But ask those families who, wandering among the mountains, chose rather to live with wild beasts, than communicate with the assassins to whom you had sold them: ask them if they repent of their resolution; seek among them one voice that shall follow you, one vote that shall exculpate you!

“People of Galicia, you are free! and your country, in proclaiming it, effaces with her tears of admiration and tenderness the mournful words wherein, in other times, she complained of you. You are free, and you owe your freedom to your exaltation of mind, to your courage, to your constancy. You are free, and Spain and all Europe congratulate you the more joyfully in proportion as your case had appeared desperate. All good men bless your name; and in holding you up as a model to the other provinces, we regard the day of your deliverance as a fortunate presage for the country.”