Copy 1, Volume 1

The Pillars of Hercules, or, A narrative of travels in Spain and Morocco in 1848 / By David Urquhart.

  • David Urquhart
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Pillars of Hercules, or, A narrative of travels in Spain and Morocco in 1848 / By David Urquhart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    64/480 (page 48)
    the Spaniard, a conflict of disgusts, and he has sever¬ ally been under obligations to England and France, when spoiled by the other; but that has been, as regards him only, a temporary relaxation of wicked¬ ness and perfidy, and in aiding him, each has only been opposing its own antagonist. The Spaniard alone in Europe has retained the faculty of looking at a nation’s acts as those of a man, and appreciating it thereby. lie does not ask what it says or intends, or what food it eats, or how many servants it has. He looks at its dealings with himself. The Spaniard knows that his two neighbours, for one hundred and forty years, have been seeking to rob and overreach him; plotting one day the partition of his property, the next, the supplanting of his heir; constantly engaged in intrigues amongst his servants, and the one or the other insisting on ruining his steward. He sees that, during all that time, they have gained nothing; but while injuring him, have themselves squandered incalculable fortunes and in¬ numerable lives,—what can he feel towards them but hatred and disgust ? Fortunate is it for them, he does so ; for this prevents either of them getting a footing in Spain : if the one could, the other would and could also ; and the scenes of the Inquisition would then be repeated. But in the struggle of Rome and Carthage the world remained the prize of the victor ; the strug¬ gle between England and France will be certainly at the cost of both, and assuredly will terminate in the supremacy of neither, and out of Spain that contest