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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
pattfetee , to th& cawrets . I was then linked aiid riveted to the gross error of inferences and conclusions which under ¦ ¦ & fkfoe system of education , and the miserable moral economy of our contradictory and corrupting conventions of society , are inevitable . Whatever indignation or abhorrence I now feel from a
revivification of that painful and disgusting scene which I witnessed in Cadiz harbour , is directed to the political and moral governors of those men who committed the atrocities : their wisdom was to keep the mass in ignorance and superstition , in the foolish fancy that ignorance and superstition , no matter to what horrors they may else lead , are more easily ruled . They are so ; but it must be only where fraud and villany , oppression and knavery , are the ministers of a government , of religion , or of education . ,-,
The time and place , however , were pregnant with novelty ' s excitements ; and while I shook in disgust , I was feverish with anticipation and curiosity , mingled as they were with expected pain , and , perhaps , more cruelty . I had to wait only till the morrow morning , Monday , when the combat was renewed between the French fleet and the Spanish batteries ; and there we lay , looking
on . After battering and blazing away for three or four hours , they were silent ; but the antagonist ensigns still shook in fury at each other . There is but one justification for the French admiral ' s holding out with such obstinacy , such , otherwise , -useless and remorseless waste of life ; he may have resolved that it was less horrible to himself and all his fleet to be blown to atoms , than to
trust to the mercy of the exasperated Spaniards . He was , perhaps , not unconscious that the exasperation had been caused by treachery , from suspicion of which he was not entirely exempt . However , next morning , Tuesday , at eight o ^ clock , when , in accordance with English naval customs with harboured ships , the A hoisted her ensign , the French fleet , consisting of five ships of the line and three frigates , hauled down theirs , in surrender , —it was
said , in compliment to the British flag ; certainly the peculiar circumstances of the act gave it that colouring . Whether it were so or not , John Bull said it was meant for him , and all his family in our neighbourhood believed . Next day our signal was made by the admiral , and we put to sea with despatches for the fleet at Lisbon . Of this place I remember only masses of the magnificently picturesque : that Belem
castle ( or is it St . Julian s ?) sat laughing and scowling on a hill at the base of a mountain ; that our fleet lay at a respectful distance from the fortresses , and that there were glimpses and suburban indications of a gorgeous city : nearer we did not approach , and I nave never looked within five hundred miles of the place oince . We anchored at sunset ; and were under way b y daybreak tha flowing morning to rejoin the fleet off C ^ diz , which we found augmented in number and importance by the junction of a division
Untitled Article
4 $ fc JutobiogTHph ^ of &fr Verjuice ,
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1835, page 428, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2646/page/64/
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