For two years that the war had been carried on, the casual observer could, perhaps, see but little change in the respective relations of the combatants. The Spaniards still continued to maintain their foothold wherever the risings of the patriots had been premature or partial. But the resources of the former were hourly undergoing diminution, and the great lessening of the productions of the country, incident to its insurrectionary condition, had subtracted largely from the temptations to the further prosecution of the war. The hopes of the patriots naturally rose with the depression of their enemies, and their increasing numbers and improving skill in the use of their weapons, not a little contributed to their endurance and activity. But for this history we must look to other volumes. The question for us is confined to an individual. How, in all this time, had La Pola redeemed her pledge to the Liberator--how had she whom he had described as the "guardian genius of Bogota," adhered to the enthusiastic faith which she had voluntarily pledged to him in behalf of herself and people?
Now, it may be supposed that a woman's promise, to participate in the business of an insurrection, is not a thing upon which much stress is to be laid. We are apt to assume for the sex a too humble capacity for high performances, and a too small sympathy with the interests and affairs of public life. In both respects we are mistaken. A proper education for the sex would result in showing their ability to share with man in all his toils, and to sympathize with him in all the legitimate concerns of manhood. But what, demands the caviler, can be expected of a child of fifteen; and should her promises be held against her for rigid fulfillment and performance? It might be enough to answer that we are writing a sober history. There is the record. The fact is as we give it. But a girl of fifteen, in the warm latitudes of South America, is quite as mature as the northern maiden of twenty-five; with an ardor in her nature that seems to wing the operations of the mind, making that intuitive with her, which, in the person of a colder climate is the result only of long calculation and deliberate thought. She is sometimes a mother at twelve, and, as in the case of La Pola, a heroine at fifteen. We freely admit that Bolivar, though greatly interested in the improvisatrice, was chiefly grateful to her for the timely rebuke which she administered, through her peculiar faculty of lyric song, to the unpatriotic inactivity of her countrymen. As a matter of course, he might still expect that the same muse would take fire under similar provocation hereafter. But he certainly never calculated on other and more decided services at her hands. He misunderstood the being whom he had somewhat contributed to inspire. He did not appreciate her ambition, or comprehend her resources. From the moment of his meeting with her she became a woman. She was already a politician as she was a poet. Intrigue is natural to the genius of the sex, and the faculty is enlivened by the possession of a warm imagination. La Pola put all her faculties in requisition. Her soul was now addressed to the achievement of some plan of co-operation with the republican chief, and she succeeded where wiser persons must have failed in compassing the desirable facilities. Living in Bogota--the stronghold of the enemy--she exercised a policy and address which disarmed suspicion. Her father and his family were to be saved and shielded, while they remained under the power of the viceroy, Zamano, a military despot who had already acquired a reputation for cruelty scarcely inferior to that of the worst of the Roman emperors in the latter days of the empire. The wealth of her father, partly known, made him a desirable victim. Her beauty, her spirit, the charm of her song and conversation, were exercised, as well to secure favor for him, as to procure the needed intelligence and assistance for the Liberator. She managed the twofold object with admirable success--disarming suspicion, and under cover of the confidence which she inspired, succeeding in effecting constant communication with the patriots, by which she put into their possession all the plans of the Spaniards. Her rare talents and beauty were the chief sources of her success. She subdued her passionate and intense nature--her wild impulse and eager heart--employing them only to impart to her fancy a more impressive and spiritual existence. She clothed her genius in the brightest and gayest colors, sporting above the precipice of feeling, and making of it a background and a relief to heighten the charm of her seemingly willful fancy. Song came at her summons, and disarmed the serious questioner.
