ment of a capital equal to that rent, estimated at a fixed number of years. Ferdinand now declared all these redemptions null; and not only re-instated the religious orders in their property, but condemned the tenants to pay to them the rents which had become due since the date of the redemption. Within two years and a half the Jesuits received upwards of three millions of reals from the public purse, on account, it was said, of what was due to them by the state, while every other creditor remained unsatisfied, and even the troops and public servants were irregularly paid, or not paid at all. Both in the capital and in the provinces several estates and houses were restored to them. In Madrid and its neighbourhood, they fitted up for their principal abode, a vast hotel, and vested their capital in purchasing farms and houses; they were founding colleges for the education of the nobility. Their houses of noviciate and convents, of which Madrid alone contained two hundred, were full; they had regained their situations and influence as chaplains or confessors in the families of the grandees; and they were intrusted with the education of the eldest son of the infant Don Carlos, the presumptive heir to the crown. Even the will of their master the Pope was questioned, if it seemed to stand in the way of their own humour, or the gratifications of their own vindictive passions. His holiness had issued a bull, addressed to the archbishops and bishops of the Peninsula, recommending union and charity, but the clergy had sufficient influence to prevent the council of Castile from publishing it for several months; and the Pope was under

the necessity of censuring its suppression, and attempting to enforce its principles by a second. If even the authority of the church was thus despised, when employed to restrain the violence of its own sons, that of the state was still less respected, An order having been issued by the government to the bishops to restore to their parishes some curés who had been suspended on account of unfounded political charges, the bishops condescended to tender obedience to the decree, provided only that the curés would enter into an ecclesiastical engagement, almost amounting to an act of rebellion--namely, that they would recognize the Pope as Christ's vicar on earth, and would resist all civil interference whatever in the affairs of the church.

The

While the fortunes of the clergy flourished, the fortunes of the public were ruined. M. Zea Bermudez had been unable to retain his office for four and twenty hours after proposing an impost which would affect equally ecclesiastical and lay property. receipts of the Treasury did not amount to half the unavoidable expenses; new taxes excited public discontent, and little remained in the country from which additional taxes could be paid. Twelve regiments of militia were disbanded, because the government, though ill able, and much disinclined, to dispense with their services, was still less able to pay them; and, politically, they would not be so. dangerous in the form of armed robbers, as in that of murmuring soldiers with just and disregarded claims. Borrowing was out of the reach of Ferdinand; no sensible man would have trusted him with

bishops of Murcia and Orihuela, with their chapters, were the prime movers, assembled in the great square of the town with their leaders at their head. They then divided into small parties, and marched through the streets, committing all sorts of outrages against persons suspected of liberal opinions, whom they chanced to meet. They entered moreover the houses of a great number of liberals, whom they abused, wounded, killed, and pillaged. After having employed several hours in these exploits, they again assembled in the square, and with shouts of " Death to the Liberals; the King without Chambers for ever," marched towards Orihuela, to join the volunteers of that town, and of the country between Orihuela and Murcia. The civil authorities were in the plot, and accompanied the volunteers to Orihuela; but when they were departed from Murcia, the intendants of finance and police assembling the servants of government in the town, and some of the respectable inhabitants, succeeded in arming four hundred men, by whose means they re-established some degree of tranquillity. A similar scene was performing at the same time in the north, at Roa, a city of Old Castile. There, while the commander of the volunteers was endeavouring in vain to restrain his mutinous soldiers, by haranguing them in the marketplace, he received a blow on the head with a club, and fell dead on the spot. An officer who stood by him, wished to lay hold of the murderer, and remonstrated with the men upon their guilty conduct; but he was immediately stabbed in the belly with a poinard, the point of which protruded through his loins. The tumult now became so great,

that the authorities were glad to drag away the wounded man, and flee with him. They sought refuge in the town of San Martin, about a league from Roa, and there they demanded assistance. Thirty soldiers accompanied the authorities of the city and town to Roa, to restore order there. They reached the square where the insurrectionists had assembled; and the alcade of San Martin mounted some steps and proceeded to harangue them. He reproached them for their disloyalty and disobedience to the best of kings; but they would not even allow him to finish his speech. He was stopped by insulting cries against the person of the monarch; and the mutineers declared that neither the people nor the soldiery would submit to any authority that came in his name. There was no longer any means of resistance; and the inhabitants of San Martin, with the volunteers of that town, were forced again to seek safety in flight. Such was the authority of Ferdinand with his own army, such was the humility of the apostolic priesthood, and such were the troops to whom was intrusted in Spain, the maintenance of public order.

Nor, in fixing their empire over opinion, did the clergy neglect those means of influence which flow from wealth. Under the constitutional government, all the estates of the monasteries and convents had been sold, or declared, at least, to be national property, to be appropriated to the payment of the public debt. Persons who held property under them at a quitrent, had been allowed to redeem it, and become absolute proprietors, on making payment to the govern

ment of a capital equal to that rent, estimated at a fixed number of years. Ferdinand now declared all these redemptions null; and not only re-instated the religious orders in their property, but condemned the tenants to pay to them the rents which had become due since the date of the redemption, Within two years and a half the Jesuits received upwards of three millions of reals from the public purse, on account, it was said, of what was due to them by the state, while every other creditor remained unsatisfied, and even the troops and public servants were irregularly paid, or not paid at all. Both in the capital and in the provinces several estates and houses were restored to them. In Madrid and its neighbourhood, they fitted up for their principal abode, a vast hotel, and vested their capital in purchasing farms and houses; they were founding colleges for the education of the nobility. Their houses of noviciate and convents, of which Madrid alone contained two hundred, were full; they had regained their situations and influence as chaplains or confessors in the families of the grandees; and they were intrusted with the education of the eldest son of the infant Don Carlos, the presumptive heir to the crown. Even the will of their master the Pope was questioned, if it seemed to stand in the way of their own humour, or the gratifications of their own vindictive passions. His holiness had issued a bull, addressed to the archbishops, and bishops of the Peninsula, recommending union and charity, but the clergy had sufficient influence to prevent the council of Castile from publishing it for several months; and the Pope was under

the necessity of censuring its suppression, and attempting to enforce its principles by a second. If even the authority of the church was thus despised, when employed to restrain the violence of its own sons, that of the state was still less respected. An order having been issued by the government to the bishops to restore to their parishes some curés who had been suspended on account of unfounded political charges, the bishops condescended to tender obedience to the decree, provided only that the curés would enter into an ecclesiastical engagement, almost amounting to an act of rebellion-namely, that they would recognize the Pope as Christ's vicar on earth, and would resist all civil interference whatever in the affairs of the church.

While the fortunes of the clergy flourished, the fortunes of the public were ruined. M. Zea Bermudez had been unable to retain his office for four and twenty hours after proposing an impost which would affect equally ecclesiastical and lay property. The receipts of the Treasury did not amount to half the unavoidable expenses; new taxes excited public discontent, and little remained in the country from which additional taxes could be paid. Twelve regiments of militia were disbanded, because the government, though ill able, and much disinclined, to dispense with their services, was still less able to pay them; and, politically, they would not be so, dangerous in the form of armed robbers, as in that of murmuring soldiers with just and disregarded claims. Borrowing was out of the reach of Ferdinand; no sensible man would have trusted him with

1

"

a pound; his conduct in regard to the bonds of the Cortes had made him bankrupt all over Europe, not only in fortune, but in good faith. He was a large debtor to the governments both of England and France; but, excepting a payment of 700,000 francs, which he con trived to make to France, neither of them could obtain any thing butra statement of the account, and a recognition of their claims, and even that only after he had thrown every possible difficulty in the way. Je

It was impossible that a govern mentiso despotic, so weak, so jealous, scould look without apprehensions at the establishment of the constitutional system in Portugal. That system was not a direct attack upon her own institutions, but its success would not, on that account, be ultimately less fatal to their stability. A free government could not continue to exist in their immediate neigh bourhood, without powerfully affecting the public feeling, and enlightening the public mind in Spain: the spectacle of public tranquillity preserved, and religion, with its ministers and ceremonies, duly honoured and celebrated, under the auspices of a representative constitution, would have been to the subjects of Fer dinand a satisfactory refutation of hist political creed, that every amelioration of despotism was identified with blasphemy and infidelity, with crime and confu

sion.

1.

The manifest and unblushing object of the priesthood was, not merely to establish absolute power, but much more to vest that absolute power exclusively in their own body. With the attainment of such an object, the existence of

to sup sufter ouft yd nooubory .ap

airepresentative assembly was altogether incompatible. Power, when in the hands of a weak and bigotted monarch like Ferdinand, was in their own hands; his fears, his superstition, and his stupidity, rendered him their tool but it would be a hopeless task to-attempt to rule, by the same means, a body of elected deputies, rendered doubly formidable by being conjoined in a legitimate union, and invested with regular and constitutional authority. They remem bered moreover, and remembered with bitterness, the indiscriminat ing and unjust fury with which their order had been pursued and their property confiscated, during the temporary domination of the Cortes of Spain; and they saw the constitutional charter of Portugal itself, although the work of la Cas tholic monarch, anxiously exclude ing priests and monks from the exercise of the elective franchise. The objects which Ferdinand and the apostolics had sinoviewoim res sisting the establishment of liberty in Portugal, were in themselves bad and unworthy objects but being once entertained, it is impose sible to say that the cabinet and the camarilla were not aeting in a manner calculated to attain them, when they employed all their en gines of intrigue against the Por tuguese charter. With such ideas in their head, the destruction of its representative government, either by foreign force or domestic rebellion, was a consummation de voutly to be wished; they would gain much, if they could even excite public disturbances, though soon crushed; for it was easy to lay the blame of such irregularities on the new system, and to repre sent internal commotion as the ugjen702 iemitigat out 14 Jug

unavoidable consequence of mixing up with the pure mass of des potism any portion of the leaven of liberalism desnom bottogid Ferdinand and his clergy, there

fore, were equally opposed to the establishment of the Portuguese constitution, and, as a necessary consequence, to the recognition of the regency which acted under the same power that had granted it. The clergy, however, were more inclined to hurry at once into des perate measures, and proclaim open hostility the cabinet, well know ing that Spain, without foreign assistance, was in no condition to undertaken a war and probably, likewise, feeling that their mere dislike of liberty would scarcely justify in the eyes of Europe a declaration of war against an unoffending neighbour, because it obeyed the mandate of its sove reign, were more willing to try the effects of concealed intrigue, and to endeavour to make the other continental courts parties to their machinations. They resolved, therefore, to encourage every symptom of discontent which might show itself in Portugal, and to gratify the more extrava gant apostolics by appointing M. D. Anduaga, a violent adherent of that party, to succeed M. Casa Flores as ambassador at Lisbon, to organize rebellion, and collect coadjutors in the capital. The foreign ministers had sufficient influence, however, to prevent this step from being taken. They represented to the government, how impolitic a mission avowedly of such a character would be in the existing state of things in Por tugal; that the constitution of that country had come from a les gitimate source, as the voluntary gift of the legitimate sovereign,

9

}

J

and was in no respect contrary to the principles supported by the European governments. The journey of Anduagar was, there fore, in the mean time deferred and recourse was then had to the courts of France, Austria, and Russia, to prevent them from acknowledging the Portuguese con stitution, and induce them to support her in endeavouring to crush it. But Ferdinand's remonstrances were ineffectual; it was not a quarrel in which the other kings of Europe had any interest, or in which Spain had any justice on her side: they stood in the same amicable relations with the infanta regent in which they had stood with king John. They might be called on to interfere if the ruling party in Portugal, in the pride of new-born liberty, should attempt to act upon Spain by any other influence than the inevitable influence of example; but so long as Spain herself was not disturbed by Portugal, they could see no reason for stands ing by the side of Spain in an attack on Portugal, an attack, moreover, in which they knew that they would find England in arms by the side of the latter. Their determinations might have been different, if they had only had to deal with the House of Braganza; but they could not conceal from themselves, that the true and serious question was not, whether they would be parties to a war against Portugal, but whe ther they would be parties in a war with Great Britain ?

1

}

I

.90

The spirit of discontent in Por tugal had begun to show itself on the promulgation of the constitu tion at Lisbon, in the middle of July Frequent désertions took place from the troops on the fron tiers, produced by the influence of