Crowd. Here we are, General! We’ll man your guns for you! Hurrah! We’ll pay them off all old scores!
1st Sailor, (in a swaggering tone.) I have searched the whole coast, from Rio de la Hacha to San Juan, have been up the Darien and the Bocco del Torro, I know every creek where a Cruizer can lie like an Alligator for her prey.
2nd Sailor. And I every coral-reef, from the Windward islands to Bahama. I’ll pilot you, General.
Chief. Come on then, my Bullies!—To the brave ship El-Dorado! March!
They advance with the Standard singing and stamping in time as sailors do when weighing anchor; the crowd following and joining in with excitement, as they chant the following doggerel.
Our free born comrades languish.
In dungeons, and in pain:
We’ll tear them from their anguish,
Or take revenge on Spain. (Cheers.)
Come on ye Tars! we’ll all go,
With hearts both true and bold:
We’re bound for El-Dorado,
And we will have the gold! (Cheers. Exeunt singing.)
We’re bound for El-Dorado
And we will have the gold!
Spy, (looking after them.) A tempting offer! had I not a deeper game upon the die of Fate, and a loftier stake to play for than all the gold of the Indies—the liberty of the world! How many parts I have filled in social life! A bigot and inquisitor in Despotic Rome, I saw fierce Bourbon, called the Constable, rush with hot valour on her wall; I fired the death-shot! saw the Apostate fall! ’Twas vain! The mighty wave swept on resistless. The City of the Caesars and the Popes—the twice Mistress of the world—lay helpless under the ruffian foe, defiling what fierce Vandal and noble Goth majestic in strength and courage spared. No place was sacred. No party safe. The sanctuaries of religion, the sepulchres of the dead, the very tomb of St. Peter rifled for their wealth; Guelph and Ghibeline, Priest and Layman, the vilest trades and callings taxed for contributions when plunder failed;—and when the blood-hound scent for gold came to fault, torture was applied, without respect to rank, or sex, or age, to wring the last scudo from the prostrate people. There was a spoil! ten millions of gold! the garnered harvest of centuries of corruption, the imposts of a taxed world gathered in one stagnant pool. Offerings of pilgrims, gifts of the dying; the orphan’s patrimony; the widow’s dower; extortions of Ecclesiastical Courts; indulgences; the liquidated value of every vice, lust and crime! bribes for which Heaven had bartered its joys, and hell had commuted its torments of the damned! The sack of Imperial Rome! (holding up his hands in dismay) Satanic Bourbon! Infernal Tempter! Thou knew’st the mystic Solder which alone could weld that Rebel Host, mad with lust and hunger, discordant, dissolute, through battle, fatigue, and famine! And hurl the blazing Meteor on the goal of thy Vengeance and Ambition! I beheld the Holy Father himself a prisoner in his castle of St. Angelo; his jailors! the Catholics of Spain. My eyes were opened! I fled from the Desolation. Before me spread an Earthquake of Republics, a wreck of Nations. France and Spain had torn the land. I took refuge in the fleet of Dorea with the Spirits that were left. Genoa rose at his heroic summons. We proclaimed the Republic. Yes! I saw that last flame of Italian Glory! It flickered and went out for ever. Through the once free cities of Italy I harangued the Infidel—in democratic clubs on the rights of Nature—the Republicans on their laws—to gather up the broken fragments of their liberties, and arm against the spoilers of the land. In Holland I preached freedom through the grim creed of Calvin, and urged the dull Flemmings to defend their Constitutions. I have been all things to all men. My single foe—Despotic Spain—My creed, its overthrow. In England two characters by turns. A conspirator to assassinate the Queen with fanatics who would deluge the land with blood, destroy their own and other’s freedom, and yield our glorious Island to a foreign tyrant—the execrable Philip. And now I am an agent of the unselfish Patriot, Walsingham (I would trust none other!)—to foil this foul conspiracy, and save my native country from slavery and ruin. I must to the “Blue Anchor” to meet this Arch-plotter for the Church and Philip. I’ll search his inmost thoughts. I’ll sound the very depths of all his treason! (Exit.)