Alexandria Gazette & Daily Advertiser

From the Canadian Courant.

CADIZ EXPEDITION.

The fate of the Cadiz expedition is not difficult to be foreseen. For a time it will turn the tide of success against the patriots, but must be eventually overwhelmed by the united energy of a population which, roused by the oppression of a despotic and superstitious government—encouraged by its present debility—and animated by the successful example of their republican neighbor—has determined to be free.—Discipline will in vain be opposed to the impetuous onset of enthusiasm, and military skill to local knowledge. The royal troops, enervated by the inactivity of a long voyage, and unprepared for a climate dissimilar to their own, will wage an unequal contest with hardy peasants, whose sinews have been braced by constant exercise, and their constitutions, by a continued residence, adapted to atmospherical peculiarity. Their reinforcements, sent from a distant country, and liable to capture during their passage across an immense ocean, will be insufficient to replace losses perpetually occasioned by partisan energy; while the hydra force of their warring opponents will be as often renewed as curtailed. Their reduction will be also accelerated by desertion, a step to which the natural wealth of the country—the propensity to change inherent in the human mind—and the prospect of distinction accessible to military talent, however obscure the possessor, hold out the most seducing invitation. In addition to this, their army, necessarily distributed through the towns yet in their possession, will be unable to spare a force competent to the purpose of general warfare, and to keep open communication with those tracts from whence it may draw its supplies; while the revolutionists, divided into numerous detachments, and strong in cavalry, will intercept their convoys, hang upon their flanks, suddenly uniting assail their weakest points, and in spite of repulse renewing their attack with mosquito perseverance, keep them in a state of perpetual alarm. Thus will their army, raised and transported by the last effort of the mother country, be diminished, disheartened, and finally destroyed; or blockaded in the few maritime towns which they may then retain, be captured in detail.

The Spanish fleet will in vain pursue vessels of a lighter construction, and commanded by abler officers than their own. Its crews, long disused to naval encounters, will feel no inclination to engage swarms of foreign adventurers, who risque but their lives, rush to action with fearless avidity, and all the advantages of experience. Opposed (however the two governments may disavow it) by British and American sailors, commanded by an officer of high repute even in our own navy, and comparatively unacquainted with the navigation of those seas, their ships must eventually be the prey of wreck or capture.—Considering all this, and the ample resources of the revolutionists, either within themselves or derived from the contiguous republic,—shall we be deemed rash in predicting that in three years, at farthest, the independent flag shall triumphantly float over the South American territory.