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PAPEHS OF }lrn.ABEAU BUOKAPARTE LAMAR
whole cry is a little more ease - a little more slumber - a little more folding of arms. No\\", in all this, the Nicaraguenses commit two im- portant-fatal errors. The one I ham already alluded to - that of holding my Countrymen responsible for the ways of Providence; and the other is the unjust estimate of their own powers. It is circum- stance;; - and not nature - that have made them what they are; and under a new, and better dispensation of thiugs, they may become all that the_v ought to be. That they should be enamored with their pres- ent comlition, and call upon the civilized nations of the earth to stamp their inferiority with the seal of eternety is one of the most extraor- dinary and incomprehensible phenomina of the lnnnan intellect.- It was in furtherance of this anti-progressive policy - this policy of retarding the de,·elopement of the resources of the country, that Great Britain favored the dissolution of the Central American Confederation; - that most fatal of all errors, - which has been, indeed, prolific of so many calamities to those misguided States. But it was a measure well suited to the British policy; for no sooner was the band of Union dissevered than sanguinary wars ensued among those States; which have continued more or less to de- rnstate the country until the present day, and have plunged it into a deeper darkness than that of its colonial bondage. It was that unfortmiate disruption of the Federal Union, which has made :Nicaragua what she is - a mere fragment of a nation - the remnant of a wrecked and ruined republic - with a small population and a heaYy deht - without eneTgy - without re- courses - without credit - divided by internal faction and destitute of the talents, experience and moderation, which her critical condition demands. Such are the bitter fruits of that hartlcss policy which seeks the agrandisement of one nation in the degradation of another. . One would suppose that the sad experience of Nicaragua - the many calamities she has suffered from this policy - and the low condition to which it has reduced her national respectability, would have U\rnk- ened her to a comprehension of her real situation, and haYe aroused her to the assumption of that independence, dignity and self-respect "·hich properly belong to intellectual beings. Such are the ordinary operations of the human mind, stimulated by pride, interest and the Joye of country. Not so with Nicaragua, howeYer. The same baleful influence - the same anti-progressire spirit which has heretofore opposed and retarded the growth, prosperity and happiness of this country still holds it in abject thraldom - still retains its tyrahical dominion over the heart and the understanding of the nation, and is driving it on, step by step from folly to madness - from degradation to de~trnction. "Trust not the American Go\'ernment" - say these foreign dictators - "She only seeks to enslave you. You hare not the native intellect to compete with her people in the various departments of industry and knowledge; and you will have to sink before their superior energies into the hewers of wood, and the drawers of water."- And the Nicaraguenses seem to think so too; for they assent to the insulting depreciation; and distru:-t the sincerity and friendship of those who would persuade them to the contrary. 'l'he ci,·ilization which others under similar circumstances would hail as the wine and the spirit of life, is rejected by them as the cup of Circe. Its sparkle is
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