The Arkansian

GEN. WILLIAM WALKER.
The fifth act in the drama of General
Walker's adventurous and tragic life has
been played. He was shot, with Col.
Rudler, his last companion in arms, by the
government of Honduras, to whom he was
delivered by Commander Salmon, of H. B.
M.'s war vessel, the Icarus. We regard
this act of Capt. Salmon as perfidious and
a stain upon England's navy. Walker
surrendered to Salmon as a British officer;
to him alone, as such representative of
England, he gave up his sword; he was
therefore entitled to the protection of the
British Government, against that of the
Honduran.
Walker died as he had lived, a brave
man. His fate we commiserate, though
we condemn his ill-concerted schemes.
His idea was a grand one, one with which
every true American should sympathise.
He erred only in judgment, and was himself the chief obstacle to the perfect success of his intent. His idea was good and
great, but his skill was not adequate to the
accomplishment of his end. Had he succeeded, Gen. Houston's glory and services
to the South and to Slavery, would have
been outshone. Had Gen. Walker, when
in power five years ago, in Nicaragua.
been content to have remained the unseen
ruler of that region, and let natives to
have visibly filled the offices, ere now
Nicaragua would have been filled up with
American cotton, sugar and coffee planters.
and the country have been added to our
Union. Then would the South have possessed ample and undisputed outlet for her
surplus slave population; then the definable and existing dread of dissolution, now
threatening this Union, would only be
known to the crazy dream of some extremist or fanatic.
It is unfortunate for the welfare of the
Union that Walker failed. The Americanization of Nicaragua is a much mightier
saviour of the Union than John Bell and
all his hosts.
It is most profoundly to be lamented
that Gen. Walker's idea was not realized,
that he was not a successful hero, that he
is not now, to-day, a worshiped general to
whom nations delight to offer paeans of
praise. Slavery would, had he succeeded,
now present a totally different feature to
what it shows, and the storm now lowering over us, been averted. Walker deserved punishment for his bad judgment
and his wilful persistence in being ruled
by his own counsels; but he did not
merit the extreme fate he met, and the
manner in which it was meted to him. In
his idea, he failed; but though he is dead.
it yet lives, and this Union continuing, it
will be perfected. The miserable republics
of Central America, peopled by a degraded
half race of humanity, will yet bow to the
rule of the Anglo-American, and its rich
tracts of territory become priceless to the
peace and commerce of the world. To
these regions slavery legitimately tends,
and upon such soil, and beneath such suns
can eternally defy the cold hand and colder
heart of the calculating and envious Northern fanatic.
General Walker was a native of Tennessee, and was in his thirty-sixth year. He
was an accomplished scholar, was educated in the best schools of this country
and in Paris; was first educated in medicine, then in law. He figured as an editor
in New Orleans, and in California. He
made his mark in all he undertook; and
though erring, he counted his friends by
thousands. He himself was the greatest
foe to his darling idea—the Americanization
of Central America.