text:  Here is a country about which we have been fighting or diplomatizing almost without intermission since the commencement of the present century; a country to which by its intestine broils and frequent political changes the attention of the English public has been continually directed while that of the monied and commercial classes has been specially attracted to it by the frequent fluctuations and consequent speculation in what are facetiously termed Spanish _Securities_ and by the oft-revived but hitherto fallacious expectation of a commercial treaty