8051. SPAIN, Spanish America and.—[continued].
That Spain's divorce from its American colonies, which is now unavoidable,
will be a great blessing, it is impossible
not to pronounce on a review of what she
was when she acquired them, and of her gradual
descent from that proud eminence to the
condition in which her present war found her.
Nature has formed that peninsula to be the second,
and why not the first nation in Europe?
Give equal habits of energy to the bodies, and
of science to the minds of her citizens, and
where could her superior be found?—
To Don V. de Toronda Coruna. Washington ed. vi, 274.
(M.
Dec. 1813)
