"Count O'Reilly, when he established the Spanish power here thirty-five years ago, cut a similar knot with the executioner's sword; but, my-de'-seh, you are here to establish a free government; and how can you make it freer than the people wish it? There is your riddle! They hold off and say, 'Make your government as free as you can, but do not ask us to help you;' and before you know it you have no retainers but a gang of shameless mercenaries, who will desert you whenever the indignation of this people overbalances their indolence; and you will fall the victim of what you may call our mutinous patriotism."
The governor made a very quiet, unappreciative remark about a "patriotism that lets its government get choked up with corruption and then blows it out with gunpowder!"
The Creole shrugged.
"And repeats the operation indefinitely," he said.
The governor said something often heard, before and since, to the effect that communities will not sacrifice themselves for mere ideas.
"My-de'-seh," replied the Creole, "you speak like a true Anglo-Saxon; but, sir! how many communities have committed suicide. And this one?--why, it is just the kind to do it!"
"Well," said the governor, smilingly, "you have pointed out what you consider to be the breakers, now can you point out the channel?"
"Channel? There is none! And you, nor I, cannot dig one. Two great forces may ultimately do it, Religion and Education--as I was telling you I said to my young friend, the apothecary,--but still I am free to say what would be my first and principal step, if I was in your place--as I thank God I am not."
The listener asked him what that was.
"Wherever I could find a Creole that I could venture to trust, my-de'-seh, I would put him in office. Never mind a little political heterodoxy, you know; almost any man can be trusted to shoot away from the uniform he has on. And then--"