Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/145

 a considerate and timely act towards Germany, and one which she accepted in the best spirit.

There is but one other incident to allude to in these changes of the European map. When that federal union between Spain and Portugal, so long looked and hoped for, as the preliminary to a complete political fusion, at length took place, and Spain was thus enabled to offer to us, with due consent of its people, the island of Madeira for her famous Gibraltar, an offer which we cordially accepted, the now united and completely self-possessed Peninsular State at once entered the European concert as a seventh Great Power, and in an age of general progress was soon able to show her grand capabilities and to restore the glories of the past. Nor were our new fellow-citizens of the genial little Atlantic island disappointed of the expected advantages of their change, when British enterprise had been fully directed to the new and cherished acquisition, and Madeira had become practically a sort of suburban sanitarium, for sanitary and holiday change, to the vast and busy city England.