may well rival the _Punica fides_ of the ancients. It has become as
proverbial. Painful is it to behold a people, possessing so many noble
qualities, held up to the scorn of surrounding nations for repeated acts
of dishonesty, which, under a good government, and with a proper
administration of their immense resources, they would never have been
tempted to perpetrate. Under the present plan, however, with their
absurd tariff, the parent of the admirably organised system of smuggling
that supplies the whole country with foreign commodities, and reduces
the customs revenue to a tithe of what it might be made, we see no
possible exit for Spain from the labyrinth of financial embarrassment in
which dishonesty and corruption have plunged her. She resembles a
reckless spendthrift, who, having exhausted his credit and ruined his
character amongst honest money-lenders, has been compelled to resort to
Jews and usurers, and who now, when the days of his hot youth and
uncalculating dissipation are past, and he wishes to redeem his
character and compound with his creditors, lacks resolution to
economise, and judgment to avail himself of, the resources of his
encumbered but fertile estates. The debts of Spain are stated by Mr.
Ford at about two hundred and eighty millions sterling, this estimate
being based on reports laid before parliament in 1844 by Mr. Macgregor.
The statement, however, whose possible exaggeration, owing to the
difficulty of getting at correct information, is admitted in the
"Gatherings," is fiercely contradicted by an anonymous correspondent,
whose letter Mr. Ford prints at the end of his volume. Some of the
assertions of this "Friend of Truth" (so he signs himself) are so
astonishing, as utterly to disprove his right to the title. According to
him, the whole Spanish debt is less than a fourth of the sum above set
down, the country is very rich, quite able to meet her trifling
engagements, and Spanish stock is a fortune to whomsoever is lucky
enough to possess it! After this, it was supererogatory on the part of
the unknown letter-writer to inform us that he is a large holder of the
valuable bonds he so highly esteems, and whose rise to their _proper_
price, about 60 or 70, he confidently predicts. Crumbs of comfort these,
for the creditors of insolvent Spain. Nevertheless, Mr. Ford persists
in his incredulity as to the sunny prospects of Peninsular bond-holders;
and whilst hoping that the bright visions of his ano