the people appeared to feel the most lively joy and exultation at the idea of the new existence by which they were actuated. Spain at no time had known a similar tone in the community at large; and if this state of things could only have been preserved, not only the evils of the war would soon have been repaired, but also those brought upon her through the effects of misguided ambition and three centuries of despotism. But this felicity was destined to be of short duration. The genius of evil, stirring up envy, pride, as well as the egotism of certain men, unhappily born

'M. de Pradt, in his work which he has just published, on the present revolution in Spain, is greatly mistaken when he asserts that the Canstituțion was not in full force (n' y étant pas mis en vigeur), and that it was an act scarcely known to the people (à peu-près inconnu). The Constitution was every where in full vigour previous to the return of the king, as much as it is possible for any new system to be so. All the constitutional authorities were in the complete exercise of their functions, and, excepting the country recent ly evacuated by the enemy, where it had just been introduced, all the rest was governed by constitutional laws, which had already had a year's trial, and in some provinces more. Besides, who ever doubted that the deputies. for the Ordinary Cortes, were every where named according to constitu tional forms? Hence the conjecture, which the ingenious author raises on the above assertion, disappears of itself, being devoid of all other foundation. In fact, had the constitutional act of Spain been unknown to the people; if like that of 1793 in France, it had never been realised, or had never gone beyond the project; the unanimity and ardor with which all have recently demanded its restoration and again proclaimed it, without consulting each other, would have been a real miracle, or an event it would be impossible to explain. But, supposing what we have already said, and supposing also what is not less certain, viz. the universal applause and eager fondness with which it was formerly received, the astonishment at the present unanimity ceases, and the late explosion, instead of exciting wonder, rather gives room for surprise that the event has been so long delayed. The unfortunate Porlier and Lacy were fully sensible of these facts; they knew their own countrymen; they had been over the country, and no one can suppose they would have rushed on such dangerous enterprises without having on their side great probability of success. If they did not attain the object of their noble and heroic efforts, it was not because the people opposed resistance or were not disposed; but because misfortune, which so frequently accompanies the most glorious attempts, did not allow time for a fair chance. Lacy did succeed in forming an explosion, and that of Porlier did not last beyond four days. If, as happened to the latter through the treachery of a serjeant, a plot or a dagger had put an end to the immortal Quiroga, in the longer period of nearly two months, during which he was obliged to sustain himself alone, and without any other aid than the firmness of his own soul, Spain, instead of freedom, would now have beheld nothing but scaffolds; though from such a circumstance, it could not have been deduced that the nation was not ready or unprepared. This, as well as other mistakes, are, however, pardonable in a foreigner, who, notwithstanding he possesses great merit and talent, could not have been provided with the requisite documents, or enabled to consult memoirs, writings, or Spaniards, on these events; hitherto the Spanish nation has been dumb, and it has not been possible faithfully to relate the occurrences which have taken place.

VOL. XVII.

Pam.

NO. XXXIII.

C

to be the bane of their country, caused the Spanish nation to fall from its happy state into an abyss of evils it was compelled to endure during a period of six years.

In proportion as the general body of the Cortes labored for the consolidation of the established order, the Serviles, both within and without the House, daily exerted themselves more and more to overturn it, and bring the government into disrepute. Libels, recriminations, calumnies, secret machinations-all appeared to them lawful as long as they answered the object in Neither the character of the priesthood, the dignity of office, the magistracy, religion, oaths-nothing could restrain them in their detestable projects; and having once lost all shame, fury dragged them to the vilest extremes. Their aim was no longer to form a regular and combined party of opposition-this their talents could not reach; and, on the other hand, they saw that the general opinion would render all their efforts useless. They however sought clandestinely to overturn the constitutional edifice, and destroy it to the very foundations; not only the edifice, but even the lives and honor of the most deserving deputies. All these endeavours, however-all

! Such was the object of the celebrated plot of General Oudinot, projected by the Serviles, which, owing to its being very little known, deserves some notice in this place. The latter being well aware that the best means of rendering the principal Liberales odious to the nation, was to represent them as corresponding with Napoleon and joined with him in his projects; for this purpose sought out a despicable adventurer, who caused himself to be arrested by a magistrate of Baza, in 1813, and stated of himself that he was Luis Oudinot, a French Lieutenant General, married to a Bordeaux lady, and sent to Spain by Napoleon and his Council of State, as a spy and secret agent, to carry his designs into effect, in concert with many partisans. After implicating as such many honorable Spaniards in the above neighbourhood, he presented a written report, in which he again described the commission of which he was bearer, and the motives of his journey to Spain, which, he stated, were with a view to establish a Republic under the title of Iberian, at the head of which was Prince Talleyrand. He named a mercantile house in Zaragoza, as being entrusted with the funds he had brought over for the enterprise; he enlarged the number of supposed partisans already prepared, in different parts of the kingdom; he further stated, that having arrived at Cadiz, and endeavoured to gain over deputy Arguelles, owing to the influence he had in the Cortes, he had been able to succeed in his wishes, having had several conferences with him in his own house, and arranged with him his plan respecting the establishment of the Republic; adding, that in this project many other members concurred, as well as the nobles and clergy, or a large portion of these classes; and he then traced on the map of Spain certain lines of correspondence, which, although extremely foolish, were intended to serve as a trap in order to ruin all those it was planned to accuse, in the several provinces. The Procurador General, a Servile paper, as already observed, immediately published a correct statement of Oudinot's schemes; which, as they ought to have been extremely secret, not only on account of their nature, but also the early stages of the trial instituted against the

their depraved intentions-fortunately were counteracted by the firmness and wisdom of the sound part of the Congress, and excited disgust in the major part of the community. Truth and reason triumphed, a regard for the Cortes and the love of liberty prevailed, and tranquillity reigned throughout the country. But the tempest, which was to desolate the nation and bring upon it all kinds of calamities, soon began to gather. The king and Napoleon had formed a treaty of peace in Valançay, dated 8th December, 1813. By it the former bound himself, among other things, to cause the British to evacuate Spain, and to reinstate the partisans of the intrusive king, Joseph, in all their employments, honors, property, and rights. Any person who impartially considers what a national war is-one conducted with the greatest cruelty and obstiFrenchman, very clearly showed the understanding that existed between the judges and the Servile party, of which the above paper was the chief organ. The people of Madrid soon saw through the wickedness of the plot, and no one dared to suspect the worthy ex-deputy above named, who remonstrated with the Regency, demanding that he should be considered a party to the suit, which he urged should be carried on with the utmost rigor and publicity. In the provinces, no one for a moment gave credit to so gross and chimsy a calumny; and all the good men, in various parts of the kingdom, felt themselves interested in its being confounded. The provincial deputation for Murcia, of its own accord, published an authentic proof, that there was no French General named Luis Oudinot. In Alava, Valencia, and other parts, similar discoveries of other falsehoods contained in the report of the impostor, were published. Some ascertained that no such person was known in Bordeaux, nor the lady to whom he was supposed to be married; others, that in Zaragoza no such commercial house as the one named, did or ever had existed; and every one emulously endeavoured to exhibit to the public, fresh testimonies of the imposture. The Regency ordered the cause to be formally prosecuted in Madrid, and the culprit sent up there, which was in fact done, but subsequent to the return of the king. Being afterwards confounded and reduced to silence by Arguelles, in a confrontation that took place in presence of the judge—whether it was that he found out what kind of a man he had to contend with in the suit, or was actuated by remorse and the dread of punishment-he soon afterwards said he had a declaration tu make, on condition that his life should be previously spared. This pledge having been made to him, he acknowledged that his name was not Oudinot; that he was no General, but a servant of the dowager Duchess of Ossuna; and that a salary of 80 rials per day had been assigned to him, under an injunction to present himself to a canon or dignitary of the cathedral of Granada, in order to receive instructions from bim. This wretch remained shut up in prison, where he fell sick, and his life being despaired of by the physicians, he made his confession to the Ordinary of the prison, and delivered to him a sealed paper, to be opened and published after his death, or sup-› pressed, as the clergyman might deem fit, He also manifested to him in one of the conferences they had, that his real nanie was John Barteau, a Frenchman by birth; that he had been a soldier in France and Spain; and that in the latter he had served in the ranks of a Swiss regiment. Having recovered his health and returned to his dungeon, tired of life, he terminated his days by suicide.

nacy-cannot fail to acknowledge, as a necessary consequence, the general aversion in which all those must be held, who had aided, or simply followed, the enemy's party; however sound and excusable their intentions might have been, or however strong and powerful the reasons by which their conduct was influenced. This is in the nature of things, and forms the terrible objection always accompa→ nying the adoption of a party declared in favor of the enemy, deemed equally so by the rest of the nation. This aversion therefore, the odium attached to Buonaparte, the dread of his perfidy-certainly the most indecent and shameless that ever disgraced the annals of a civilised country-together with what was due to those who had aided us in our terrible struggle, and the brilliant aspect of the military operations at that time, as well of our own armies as those of our allies, caused this convention to be ill received by the public, and the bearer, the Duke de San Carlos, who had himself been one of the plenipotentiaries to frame and sign it, to be viewed with disgust. What strange scenes for the latter when he reached the capital! Every thing was changed; instead of a Supreme Junta like the one he had left, or an absolute government guided by caprice or the councils of a favorite minister, erected amidst a dumb nation, he found himself before a Regency directed by law and a representative government, both subject to the irresistible impulse of public opinion, expressed and sustained by the freedom of the press. Hence it happened, that he did not return to France with what he expected; the Cortes refused to ratify the treaty, conformably to the opinion of the Regency; and with dispatches from the latter to the king, and without the ratification, this ancient courtier traced back his steps to Valançay, little satisfied with the reception he had met with in Madrid, and not very well pleased, as may easily be supposed, either with what he had seen, or the public censure his diplomatic commission had exposed him to in the prints of the day.

The Cortes and Regency, with ample grounds, suspected Buona- · parte's plots and stratagems, They were aware of the irritation he must have felt at the firm and constant resistance he had experienced, and that the freedom of Spain would cause the oppressor of France to tremble on his throne. Hence the successes and triumph of liberty in Spain could not be indifferent in his eyes, and it was very probable that he would make use of every effort to destroy it, together with all those men capable of sustaining it, and whom, in the same manner as our Serviles, he had already designated by the appellations of factious people and jacobins. The king was still in his power, and what was worse than all, surrounded by inept characters. How, therefore, was it possible not

to apprehend, under similar circumstances, with Buonaparte on the one hand, and such counsellors on the other? For this reason, the Cortes, bearing in mind the decree of the Extraordinary ones dated January 1st, 1811, confirmed that resolution, conforming themselves in substance to what had been already proposed by the Regency and Council of State, and immediately proceeded to issue their celebrated decree of 2nd February, 1814, by which they ordained, "That if Napoleon allowed the king to return to Spain, the royal family alone should enter with the accompanying suite of Spaniards: that the moment his arrival was known, the cardinal and president of the Regency should go out to receive his Majesty, and that the king should come up to Madrid by the direct road, without exercising his authority till he was free and in the bosom of the Congress, and there take the oaths to the Constitution, for which purpose a copy thereof should be presented to him; that he should be informed of all these arrangements the moment he should reach the frontiers, and should moreover deliver to the cardinal a statement of the principal events which had occurred to him during the last six years, for their more adequate information.'

By this decree, which entirely overturned the treaty of Valançay, the Cortes gave a proof to the allies, of their firm determination not to conclude any arrangement, unless in mutual concert with them. This was what justice, interest, and the good faith of Spain required, rather than to comply with the wishes of one who had treated them so ill, and now sought to have a separate treaty made with him, which he ought to have expected might be more advantageous, secure, and honorable, if carried into effect in a general Congress. This precipitate and unguarded peace, which his diplomatic counsellors represented to King Ferdinand, "as the most advantageous that could have been obtained, even after a long series of successive victories;" on the part of Napoleon, had in reality no other object than to separate us from our allies and his enemies, possibly under the hope of converting us against them, if, by the return of the monarch, whom he was deceiving afresh, by prejudicing him against those who had better defended his honor, his throne and glory, he succeeded in bringing the nation back to that state of nullity in which it was previous to the invasion, and from which so imprudently, and contrary to his intentions, he had raised it. This decree of the Cortes, carried almost unanimously, moreover presented a fresh example of that intimate union which reigned among the Liberales and Serviles, when the question related to Buonaparte or the means of repelling his attempts.

The latter, who at that time, in consequence of the aspect affairs had assumed, no longer felt any interest in detaining the person of