The pillars of Hercules

by David Urquhart

Blanco White[44] is a man who, writing upon any foreign country, could not fail to perplex the judgment. How much more in respect to his own, when describing it to another, where he had made himself at home? In some parts, by keeping distinct the Englishman and the Spaniard, he has been able to translate the one to the other. Those parts are the domestic only. In all the rest he has jumbled the two characters, and has made the prejudices of the one override the simplicity of the other; falsifying the commonest facts, distorting the plainest conclusions. The effect is to puff up the Englishman and to degrade the Spaniard.

To Mr. Ford’s book, however disagreeable the task, I had intended to devote a special chapter; but understanding that the two volumes are, in the second edition, reduced to one, I must infer that the author has anticipated my conclusion—that the work might be made valuable by cutting out the slang, ribaldry, opinions, and false quotations.

The Governor of Tarifa had somewhat the air of an English country gentleman. He afforded me all the facilities I could desire for landing and embarking, and sent his aid-de-camp with me to inspect the fortifications. On presenting to the Alcalde a letter from his brother at Algeciras, he declined to open it, saying, “You are expected.” He conducted me from his office to his house to see his family. Scarcely were we seated when he remarked that the arrival of a stranger was an extraordinary event at Tarifa, and still more so, of one interested in their country, and who busied himself in studying the laws and manners of different people. He then asked me whether I had thought of anything for their benefit? I said I had, and that it was, “Bury your new laws and return to your old customs.” Having explained that my meaning was to get rid of a general Cortes, not to substitute a despotism, but to revive the local constitutions—that is, the law, leaving to each the burthen of its own management and the conduct of its own business; he said, that indeed would be putting an end to theories of “liberty” or “despotism,” and that the plan would be most popular if any leading man brought it forward. He then asked me how I came to devise such a scheme? I told him it was as old as the hills—that it was, in fact, the law of the Peninsula, encroached upon, but not destroyed by Austrian or Bourbon—that these ancient customs were looked to with veneration by the profoundest men of those countries, which the Spaniards fancied they were imitating while they were destroying them.

Notwithstanding the war which the Spanish Government has for centuries waged against every vestige of the race who made Spain the strongest, most learned, chivalrous, and polished country in Europe, the women of Tarifa appear in the streets muffled up as Mussulman women, and expose but one eye.

I was invited in the evening to what I was told was a club. The place was an apothecary’s shop. I was introduced into a sort of vault, and I found myself in a gambling establishment. Their cards were like those used by the Greeks; the club being represented, not by the French trefoil, but by a club; the spade by a sword; the heart by a cup; and the diamond by a gold coin. The names being Bastones, Espadas, Copas, Oros. The conversation having turned upon cards, I mentioned its supposed astronomical origin: the four seasons represented by the four suits; the fifty-two weeks by the number of the cards; and the thirteen lunar months by the thirteen tricks, proving whist to be the original game. I was here stopped. They had only twelve tricks and forty-eight cards; and “Of course,” said a Spanish Major (a Mr. Kennedy), “our game is more scientific, because adapted to the Julian Calendar!”

Conversation having been thus substituted for gambling, I asked what they thought of the abolition of the Tithes and confiscation of Church property? They all shrugged their shoulders. I repeated my question, saying, that as a stranger I wanted to know if the nation had been benefited by the measures which its wisdom had devised for its own relief. This elicited a loud and general “No.” I then asked what had been the result of the experiment? The answer was, “The poor man pays more, and the rich less.” This, I said, was satisfactory, it having been laid down as the great object for Spain “to put her institutions in harmony with the spirit that rules those nations more advanced than herself.”[45] They at first thought I was in jest, but I explained to them something about the legislation of these advanced nations. The increased burthen on the poor was then explained—thus: the tithes are remitted, but a tax for public worship has been imposed; it is less in amount than the tithe, but a new set of fiscal officers has been introduced to collect it: the other taxes since the abolition of tithes have been increased. Pasturage and cattle, which bore under the tithe system equal charges with the cultivated land, have been spared in the new burthens: the rich are thus doubly benefited, possessing the pasturage and not suffering in the same proportion as the poor from tax-gatherers.

These grave politicians could not recover from their astonishment at perceiving that there existed a human being who could question the wisdom, far less the sanity, of their imitating England and France. I was called upon to declare my sentiments on the great question which I was told constituted the essential difference between England and France, viz., the principle of direct or indirect election; nor could they believe me in earnest when I assured them that I had never so much as heard the names of these “principles” in the countries referred to. “England and France,” said they, “are great and powerful; must we not imitate them and become so too?” I submitted, that imitation is not an easy matter; that it is more difficult than invention; that it requires a perfect knowledge of the thing imitated, in which case there could be no reason to copy; besides, it was impossible to copy institutions. “In what particular,” I asked, “would you copy us? Two things only have we to offer you as sanctioned by English consent—the Guelph Family and Johnson’s Dictionary. Will you have them in lieu of the Bourbons and the Castilian?”

As they would hear of neither, I then ventured to offer a Coburg for their Queen, on which there was an outburst of what, in the French Chambers, is called “Denegation.” I said that we were very well satisfied with a similar arrangement. “The very reason,” exclaimed one of the party, “why it will not suit us;” an avowal which I did not fail to turn to account. I was then questioned as to Parliamentary proceedings, currency laws, and so on, and I endeavoured to make them apprehend that in regard to the real business of Government, the liberties of England depended upon the Judges, with whom rested the interpretation of the law and who alone had the power of action; and to whom were rendered amenable the Executive and its functions, and the House of Commons, if ever it took upon itself by an act of its own to infringe the liberty of the subject. That these were the two elements at war in England—the unwritten and the written law: the last was the disease, and that alone they saw or dreamed of copying. “Then,” said they, “let us have your courts and judges.” I told them they could not have the Bench without the Bar, and that neither could be transplanted like lettuces, or grafted like slips of orange-trees.

They were endeavouring to begin where we had left off. That which was abuse to us, and therefore, capable of remedy, came to be to them principle. “After all,” said one of them, “look at the cloth you wear,” putting his hand on my sleeve; “we make none such. Probably you have a penknife in your pocket;—at all events, you have shaved with a razor this morning: it is far beyond anything that we can make. We owe you a great deal of money, which you have lent us out of your superfluity.” I replied that there was no connexion between individual dexterity and collective wisdom. They made the mistake of attributing our prosperity—the result of private industry—to our political institutions; and we, in like manner, attributed their disorders—the results of the political theories which they had copied from us—to their individual character.

The general Cortes of Spain has been constructed theoretically, without the consent or the presence of the separate kingdoms. They are thus figuratively merged, not in one of the kingdoms more powerful than the rest, but in an abstraction which they call “constitution.” Lamentable would be the fate of humanity if follies such as these could profit or endure.