army at the critical moment,[1] and, up to 1820, it continued faithful to the cause which it at first espoused. During the war, the officers had little leisure for reflecting upon the rights of the question, and it even became a sort of esprit de corps with them to designate the Insurgents as banditti, to whom none of the privileges of ordinary warfare were to be extended. Their men, when once blooded, followed blindly those whom they were accustomed to obey; and the severities which they exercised upon their Creole countrymen, and which were retaliated upon themselves whenever the fortune of the field allowed it, left but little opportunity for any approximation of opinions. But, when the heat of the contest had subsided, things assumed a very different aspect: crowds of Insurgents, who had accepted the indulto, were allowed to mingle with the troops, and many were even admitted as recruits into the Creole regiments: each of these men formed proselytes amongst his comrades, while the officers were attacked, not merely by argument, but by all the seductions of the female sex, who have been, throughout America, the warmest advocates of Independence. They were taught that it was to them that their country looked for freedom; that they alone had prevented its attainment at a much earlier period; and that
- ↑ Vide Căllējă's Letter, several passages of which prove how much the importance of this was felt. (Appendix.)
