to these questions will be given us on the day when Spain shall
_desire_, in turn, to suppress it. In the mean time she prefers to keep
silence, unless when a word from London strikes out a concert of
protestations more patriotic than convincing; save in this case, the
government is silent, public opinion is silent, no colonial sheet is
found ready to hazard an objection, nor even a metropolitan journal that
is willing to disturb so touching an equanimity. The court of Madrid, in
which many questions are agitated, prudently stands aloof in the matter
of slavery and the slave trade; among the numerous parties disputing for
power, not one dares venture on a ground where it would meet nothing but
unpopularity. Ah! after this death-like silence, how the soul is
refreshed by the fiery contests of the United States, the great
word-combats carried on in every village of the Union, the appeals
addressed to the conscience, the battle in broad daylight! How
refreshing to see by the side of these nations, who sleep so tranquilly,
while regarding the inroads of slavery, a people whom, it disquiets,
whom it irritates, who refuse to take part in it, and who, rather than
conform to the evil, agitate, become divided, and rend themselves
perchance with their own hands!




CHAPTER IV.

WHAT WE ARE TO THINK OF THE UNITED STATES.


We are not just towards the United States. Their civilization, so
different from ours, wounds us in various ways, and we turn from them in