As Walker was the last, so he was the greatest of American filibusters. He was not a great man, nor by any means a good one; but he was the greatest and the best of his class. His fault was ambition. It was a fault with him because it was a failure. From such a verdict there is no appeal. No apology can be offered for ambition ungratified; and successful ambition needs none. But the world's estimate of his personal character and actions has been needlessly severe. He was not the insatiable monster of cruelty that his enemies have painted. He was a man of deep, if narrow, learning, fertile resources, and grand audacity. He was calm and temperate in words and actions, and mercilessly just in exacting obedience from the turbulent spirits who linked their fortunes with his. He lacked worldly wisdom; nothing could induce him to forego the least of his rights to gain a greater ultimate advantage. He would maintain the dignity of his office, though it cost him the office itself. The lawyer belittled the lawgiver in his attempt virtually to confiscate the lands of Nicaragua by the help of an unworthy legal device; while his design for the restoration of slavery was as impolitic as it was futile, unjust, and barbarous. The action was, doubtless, the result of an honest belief in that "divine institution," as well as of a desire to show his sympathy with his devoted friends in the United States; but the effect was only to put another weapon into the hands of his foreign enemies, without materially strengthening him at home. It was a defiance to his powerful British opponents, and a wanton outrage upon the free states of Central America, alienating the sympathies of all who hoped from the evil of conquest to extract the good of civilization. Judged, as he wished to be judged, by his public policy, Walker was unequal to the office of a Liberator. It would be unfair to criticize the domestic administration of one who held his office by the sword, yet it is true that he preserved order and enforced justice with more success than any ruler of Nicaragua who has filled the position since the independence of the country. Doctor Scherzer, the intelligent German traveller, writing at a time when Walker's success seemed assured, heartily rejoices in the new and grand career opening before Central America. He warmly commends Walker's administration of justice, without palliating his errors, and sees "the morning star of civilization rising in the Tropic sky."