Unless the slave pant to be free!
Libertad, libertad sacrosanta!
Were death in the goblet we drain,
Libertad los tiranos espanta,
We’ll pledge to the freedom of Spain!
HISTORICAL AND ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES TO CANTO I.
In August, 1813, as the preparations for the renewed siege of San Sebastian were advancing, the besieged demonstrated their confidence by celebrating the Emperor’s birthday with a splendid illumination. The castle, upon whose crest it was exhibited, is seen from a great distance; and the besiegers could plainly read the letters of fire in which the name of Napoléon was written high in air.
The incidents of the siege I have derived chiefly from Napier’s History of the War in the Peninsula, book xxii. chapters 1 and 2, and from Jones’s Journals of Peninsular Sieges. The topography of San Sebastian will be found sufficiently illustrated in either of those works.