would seriously endeavor to regain their old American possessions. That what had been lost through one class of errors would be sought through resort to another class of errors, it entered not the minds of men to conceive. They would as soon have thought of Spain making a demand on Holland, with the view of restoring in that country the rule that was lost there in the days of Alva and Parma, as of her entering upon a war for a second conquest of Mexico. Nor would they have been astonished by the breaking out of such a war, had it not been for the breaking down of the American Republic. America's calamity was Spain's opportunity. She had been successful in her crusade against the modern Moors, because bad government had unfitted those Mussulmans to make effectual resistance to her well-led and well-appointed armies, which were supported by well-equipped ships. Then, flushed with victory, and beholding America in convulsions, she resolved to direct her energies against Mexico, where, unfortunately, bad government had done its work even more perfectly than it had been done in Morocco. The Spaniards are a brave and a spirited people, but their conduct in St. Domingo and their attack on Mexico cannot be cited as evidence of their bravery and spirit. They never would have dared to move against the Mexicans, if our condition had remained what it was but eighteen months ago; and yet they had just as good cause to assail them in the summer of 1860 as they now have in the winter of 1862. All the grounds of complaint that they have against Mexico were in existence then,--but we heard of no modern Spanish Armada at that time, and might then as rationally have expected to see a French fleet in the St. Lawrence as a Spanish fleet in the Mexican Gulf. The American sword was then sharp, and the American shield broad, and so Spain stayed her chivalrous hand. Her conduct is as bad as was our own, when we "picked a quarrel" with Mexico, and bestowed upon her weak back the blows we should have visited on the stout shoulders of England. Our Mexican contest was the effect of our fear of a stronger adversary. We had brought the Oregon question to such a point that it was difficult to avoid war with Great Britain. The West had been cheated by the cry for "the whole of Oregon," and the men who had got up that cry were afraid to face the people whom they had deceived by the light of common day; and so we had the Mexican War improvised, to distract public attention from the lame and impotent manner in which we had settled the Oregon question. Having kissed the Briton's boot, it became necessary to soothe our exasperated feelings by applying our own boot to the person of the Aztec. The man having been too much for us, we were bound to give the boy a sound beating, and that beating he received. True, we had cause of quarrel with Mexico, which we had long overlooked, and which had seldom moved us to anger, and never to the point of falling foul, until we had