106 MEMOIR OF COLONEL TUPPER.
establish a military reputation, which appears to have been previously somewhat equivocal. Of Freire's inexplicable movements at Lircai we would fain speak with leniency : he is in exile, and as he was even more sinned against than sinning, our feelings towards him are those of commiseration, not of resentment, — but manifest it is that as at the com- mencement of the unfortunate contest, his conduct was weak and vacillating, so at its melancholy ter- mination it was marked neither by ordinary prudence nor capacity, and that an onset of tergiversation was succeeded by a close of disastrous unskilfulness, to both of which the constitutional cause and many of its supporters were sacrificed. Prieto was elected president of Chile in 1.831, as the reward of his perfidy, although the liberal and enlightened Chilenos were decidedly averse to the change of rulers thus forcibly effected. When the country is more worthy of liberty, the people will achieve it ; but until then, it is neither to be expected nor desired that a party, whose cause was so wretchedly mismanaged during this unhappy contest, will succeed in returning again to power. Despotism is ever vigilant, while freedom too often slumbers in fancied security, — the one main tains itself by its fears, the other is frequently lost by its fearlessness, — but as a government based on deceit, season, those who would break the chains which now bind Chile in thraldom may be assured, that
" They never fail who die
In a great cause: the block may soak their gore;
Their heads may sodden in the sun, their limbs
Be strung to city gates and castle walls —
But still their spirit walks abroad ! ! "
Byron.
February, 1832.
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