So much for a go off. We find this in the first chapter, and few of the subsequent ones conclude without some similar rap on the knuckles for the countrymen of Don Quixote; raps always dexterously applied, and in most instances well deserved. On Spanish securities, (to use a misnomer,) whether loan, land, or rail, and on the _unremitting_ punctuality of Spanish finance ministers, Mr. Ford is particularly severe, and not without good cause. The _Hispanica fides_ of the present day may well rival the _Punica fides_ of the ancients. It has become as proverbial. Painful is it to behold a people, possessing so many noble qualities, held up to the scorn of surrounding nations for repeated acts of dishonesty, which, under a good government, and with a proper administration of their immense resources, they would never have been tempted to perpetrate. Under the present plan, however, with their absurd tariff, the parent of the admirably organised system of smuggling that supplies the whole country with foreign commodities, and reduces the customs revenue to a tithe of what it might be made, we see no possible exit for Spain from the labyrinth of financial embarrassment in which dishonesty and corruption have plunged her. She resembles a reckless spendthrift, who, having exhausted his credit and ruined his character amongst honest money-lenders, has been compelled to resort to Jews and usurers, and who now, when the days of his hot youth and uncalculating dissipation are past, and he wishes to redeem his character and compound with his creditors, lacks resolution to economise, and judgment to avail himself of, the resources of his encumbered but fertile estates. The debts of Spain are stated by Mr. Ford at about two hundred and eighty millions sterling, this estimate being based on reports laid before parliament in 1844 by Mr. Macgregor. The statement, however, whose possible exaggeration, owing to the difficulty of getting at correct information, is admitted in the "Gatherings," is fiercely contradicted by an anonymous correspondent, whose letter Mr. Ford prints at the end of his volume. Some of the assertions of this "Friend of Truth" (so he signs himself) are so astonishing, as utterly to disprove his right to the title. According to him, the whole Spanish debt is less than a fourth of the sum above set down, the country is very rich, quite able to meet her trifling engagements, and Spanish stock is a fortune to whomsoever is lucky enough to possess it! After this, it was supererogatory on the part of the unknown letter-writer to inform us that he is a large holder of the valuable bonds he so highly esteems, and whose rise to their _proper_ price, about 60 or 70, he confidently predicts. Crumbs of comfort these, for the creditors of insolvent Spain. Nevertheless, Mr. Ford persists in his incredulity as to the sunny prospects of Peninsular bond-holders; and whilst hoping that the bright visions of his anonymous friend may be