Torrijos, who had now in 1829 been here some four or five years, having come over in 1824, had from the first enjoyed a superior reception in England. Possessing not only a language to speak, which few of the others did, but manifold experiences courtly, military, diplomatic, with fine natural , and high Spanish manners tempered into , he had been welcomed in various circles of society; and found, perhaps he alone of those Spaniards, a certain human companionship among persons of some in this country. With the elder Sterlings, among others, he had made acquaintance; became familiar in the social circle at South Place, and was much there. With Madam Torrijos, who also was a person of and qualities, an affectionate friendship grew up on the part of Mrs. , which ended only with the death of these two ladies. John Sterling, on arriving in London from his University work, naturally inherited what he liked to take up of this relation: and in the in Regent Street, and the democratico-literary element there, Torrijos became a very prominent, and at length almost the central object.
The man himself, it is well known, was a , man; of lively intellect, of noble character: fine talents, fine , all grounding themselves on a certain , recommended him to the discerning. He had begun youth in the Court of Ferdinand; had gone on in Wellington and other , and unvictorious, soldierings; familiar in camps and council-rooms, in presence-chambers and in prisons. He knew romantic Spain;—he was himself, standing withal in the vanguard of Freedom's fight, a kind of living romance. interesting to John Sterling, for one.
It was to Torrijos that the poor Spaniards of Somers Town looked mainly, in their helplessness, for every species of help. Torrijos, it was hoped, would yet lead them into Spain and glorious victory there; meanwhile here in England, under defeat, he was their captain and sovereign in another painfully sense. To whom, in , everybody might apply. When all present resources failed, and the was quite out, there still remained Torrijos. Torrijos has to find new resources for his , find loans, find Spanish lessons for them among his English friends: in all which charitable operations, it need not be said, John Sterling was his foremost man; to empty his own purse for the object; impetuous in rushing hither or to the aid of others, and find lessons or something that would do. His friends, of course, had to assist; the Bartons, among others, were to assist;—and I have heard that the fair Susan, stirring up her indolent enthusiasm into practicality, was very successful in finding Spanish lessons, and the like, for these men. Sterling and his friends were yet new in this business; but Torrijos and the others were getting old in it?—and doubtless weary and almost desperate of it. They had now been seven years in it, many of them; and were asking, When will the end be?
Torrijos is described as a man of excellent discernment: who knows how long he had repressed the schemes of his , and turned a deaf ear to the temptings of fallacious hope? But there comes at length a sum-total of oppressive burdens which is intolerable, which the wisest towards fallacies for relief. These weary groups, pacing the Euston-Square pavements, had often said in their despair, "Were not death in battle better? Here are we slowly into nothingness; there we might reach it rapidly, in flaming . Flame, either of victory to Spain and us, or of a death, the sure harbinger of victory to Spain. Flame fit to a fire which no Ferdinand, with all his Inquisitions and Charles Tenths, could put out." Enough, in the end of 1829, Torrijos himself had yielded to this pressure; and hoping against hope, persuaded himself that if he could but land in the South of Spain with a small patriot band well armed and well resolved, a band carrying fire in its heart,—then Spain, all inflammable as touchwood, and indignantly under its , might blaze wholly into flame round him, and incalculable victory be won. Such was his conclusion; not sudden, yet surely not deliberate either,—desperate rather, and forced on by circumstances. He thought with himself that, considering Somers Town and considering Spain, the terrible chance was worth trying; that this big game of Fate, go how it might, was one which the declared he and these poor Spaniards ought to play.
His whole industries and energies were thereupon towards starting the said game; and his thought and continual speech and song now was, That if he had a few thousand pounds to buy arms, to freight a ship and make the other preparations, he and these poor gentlemen, and Spain and the world, were made men and a saved Spain and world. What talks and in the apartment in Regent Street, during those winter days of 1829-30; setting into open the young democracy that was wont to assemble there! Of which there is now left next to no remembrance. For Sterling never a word of this affair in after-days, nor was any of the actors much to speak. We can understand too well that here were young hearts in an explosive condition; young rash heads, sanctioned by a man's experienced head. Here at last shall enthusiasm and theory become practice and fact; dreams are at last permitted to realize themselves; and now is the time or never!—How the Coleridge moonshine itself amid these hot telluric flames, or whether it had not yet begun to play there (which I rather doubt), must be left to .
Mr. Hare speaks of Sterling "sailing over to St. Valery in an open boat along with others," upon one occasion, in this enterprise;—in the final English scene of it, I suppose. Which is very possible. Unquestionably there was adventure enough of other kinds for it, and running to and fro with all his speed on behalf of it, during these months of his history! Money was , collected: the young Cambridge were all to assist Torrijos; certain of them to go with him,—and went. Only, as yet, the funds were rather incomplete. And here, as I learn from a good hand, is the secret history of their becoming complete. Which, as we are upon the subject, I had better give. But for the following circumstance, they had perhaps never been completed; nor had the rash enterprise, or its , so on the rest of Sterling's life, taken place at all.
A certain Robert Boyd, of the Indian Army, an Ulster Irishman, a cousin of Sterling's, had received some , or otherwise taken some disgust in that service; had thrown up his commission in consequence; and returned home, about this time, with intent to seek another course of life. Having only, for , these impatient ardors, some experience in Indian drill exercise, and five thousand pounds of inheritance, he found the enterprise attended with difficulties; and was somewhat at a loss how to dispose of himself. Some young Ulster comrade, in a partly similar situation, had out to him that there lay in a certain neighboring of the Irish coast, a worn-out royal gun-brig to sale, to be had dog-cheap: this he proposed that they two, or in fact Boyd with his five thousand pounds, should buy; that they should refit and arm and man it;—and sail a-privateering "to the Eastern Archipelago," Philippine , or I know not where; and so conquer the golden fleece.
Boyd naturally paused a little at this great proposal; did not quite reject it; came across, with it and other fine projects and impatiences in his head, to London, there to see and consider. It was in the months when the Torrijos enterp............