upon the authority of the Morning Chronicle, that thus describes the revolting scene :

"The Saragossa Papers of the 21st and 22nd, [ult.] contain a full account of Espartero's summary trial and execution of Leon Iriarte.

"On the 14th, Espartero had the troops early drawn up in the Plaza, The tiradores, who had garrisoned the town during the mutiny, were recalled from Lumbier, and placed in the centre. At ten, Espartero came forth and harangued the soldiers, declaring that the blood of Sarsfield and Colonel Mendivil called for vengeance; and that the Carlists, unable to conquer the constitutionalists in battle, had succeeded in introducing disorder and rebellion in their ranks. Some of the perturbators had fled; but were they hid in the bowels of the earth, they should perish.'

"The tiradores were then bid to pile their arms, and the flanqueadores to descend from horseback. The general then said, You know the criminals, and must declare them instantly, or I will decimate you.' Twelve were delivered up. Don Leon Iriarte then appeared; he was ill, and had been summoned by an adjutant. Espartero cried out to him, 'The public deem you guilty.' Don Leon rejoined that he was innocent. 'I hope so,' replied Espartero, 'for otherwise in two hours you shall render an account to God.'

"Chairs were instantly brought into the vacant space, and occupied by the general, (who sat as president,) by the chief of his staff, Van Halen, Ribero, Ulibarri, and others. Witnesses were then called, but no one being allowed to enter the circle, none could hear what they said. But from some who came and went, some circumstances were picked up. Don Leon was asked

Why he did not prevent the disorder, having known of it two hours before he entered the town?

"He answered, because he was held captive, as well as the other officers. "Why did you enter the town armed, before the rest of the troops !— Had no reason for it.

"Why, in marching, did you not send orders to shut the gates - Could not tell why either.

“Why did you sign the paper of conspiracy, or collusion, that your serjeants presented you with ?-They made me sign it in blank.

"This is all of the examination that transpired. It was evidently Espartero's intention to shoot Iriarte and the others immediately, as evinced by his first words, as well as by the presence of the regimental chaplains. Espartero walked up and down the enclosed space with great animation, speaking to an English colonel. We presume Col. Wylde's advice to him was to be merciful, or at least not hasty. And at last, Iriarte and the others were led off prisoners, and shot only two days later. The actual murderer of Sarsfield has escaped. Those executed were merely mutineers, and Iriarte was certainly not a mutineer."

It was clearly the intention of ESPARTERO, as the writer of the foregoing account has observed, to shoot IRIARTE and the

others immediately-an intention which he evinced most unequivocally by his first words. "The public deem you guilty," says the military tyrant to the distinguished victim, whom he had already marked for the sacrifice. This judicial dictator of the camp, having thus prejudged the prisoner's case, appoints himself president of the tribunal to try him, and packs the whole court with the creatures on his personal staff, who look up to him for favour and preferment. Here is a specimen of the liberal mode of administering justice! What chance had Leon IRIARTE for his life before such a tribunal? How was a man to defend himself, who was ever so innocent, before a court who, he knew, had neither ears nor eyes but to hear and see as his truculent prosecutor dictated; whose savage words, prefiguring his doom within two hours, were still ringing in his ears, as he took his stand at a bar composed-not of judges-but of executioners? JAMES II., had his Judge JEFFREYS to put the seal of blood to his tyrannical mandates; and CHRISTINA seems to be equally happy in her ESPARTERO.

No small portion of our public labours has consisted in vindicating the rights of justice against the acts of persons, whether liberals or anti-liberals, who, clothed with "a little brief authority," have used that sacred name only to sanction a murderous revenge, and crush, under a mockery of forms, those eternal principles which the word "justice" signifies!

In the year 1831, we thus expressed ourselves upon the acts of the then despots of Portugal and Spain :-" Shall MIGUEL and FERDINAND rival NERO and CALIGULA, in the ferocious and wholesale butchery of cold revenge under judicial forms, and shall none of those statesmen who, when the lives of the French ex-Ministers were in peril, professed themselves adverse to the shedding of blood for political offences-interpose to recommend moderation in their vengeance?" We then proceeded to observe upon the outcry, that would have been raised against the constitutional party, had they succeeded and committed such massacres in cold blood. The writer who did us the honour of collecting, and putting into something like consecutive order, our sentiments and reasonings on criminal jurisprudence and the administration of laws affecting human

X

life, appends to the above-mentioned passage, the following

note

"Little was it supposed, when this passage was penned, that the liberals of Spain, on becoming the rulers of that country, would have rivalled, if not surpassed, by acts of cold-blooded vengeance, the lessons of cruelty taught them by FERDINAND."†

We speak not now of the rabble chiefs of mob-revolution, who massacred in prison the brave Chief O'DONNELL and all his Carlist fellow-prisoners, and kicked, as a foot-ball, about the streets the head of the intrepid soldier whom they dared not look in the face in the conflict of the field.-We leave out of view the atrocious acts of the citizen-assassins of DONADIO and St. JUST; or those of the ruffian mutilators of the lifeless body of the too loyal QUESADA, whom his faithless Sovereign betrayed to the popular vengeance, which fidelity to her service provoked. We speak of none of the acts of the patriotic Septembrizers of Madrid, the murderers of Malaga, or the butchers of Barcelona.-We have before us a scene described by a Christino writer, representing the judicial proceedings adopted by the General-in-chief of the QUEEN's army, surrounded by all his staff, in reference to a capital accusation preferred by that very same General-who was both prosecutor and judge— against one of the most distinguished officers in the QUEEN'S service and we ask, if MIGUEL or FERDINAND, in the plenitude of their absolute power, could have committed a more disgraceful and criminal mockery of justice than the constitutional Chief of the constitutional armies of Spain, in thus immolating, by the prejudged determination of his packed, drum-head courtmartial, LEON IRIARTE? *

Slaughter of Man, Woman, and Child—on the taking of Constantine.-Oct. 30, 1837

"THE inhabitants of Constantine, without distinction of age or sex, were put to the sword." So speaks the French

[ Selection, &c.—Published, 1836, by Hatchard. Vol. i. p. 105.]

journal, the Constitutionel, in recording the latest warlike achievement of the "NAPOLEON of peace."

The barbarous spirit with which the French have waged war in Africa puts them on a level with the most savage tribes of the Numidian deserts. At Mascara similar horrible excesses were committed. In those African exploits, we recognise nothing of the generous courage of civilized conflict which can mitigate the excited passions, and soften the revolting features of war. The French troops, not satisfied with wreaking their vengeance upon every man of a brave but beaten garrison, by refusing quarter to the vanquished, butcher the unoffending and defenceless inhabitants, the old men, the women, and children, and plant the tri-coloured flag amid the carnage of a murdered community!

Can polished France, in the nineteenth century, teach to barbarous Africa no better lesson of civilization than these, which will one day bring a dreadful retribution on her arms? The atrocities committed at Mascara, no doubt, led to the obstinate defence of Constantine; before the walls of which, it now appears, the French armies were repulsed in four successive assaults, that occupied two days of the most slaughtering conflict. It was only on the fifth assault the town was carried, and instead of respecting the bravery with which it had been defended, the French victors, as we are coolly informed on French authority, massacred the whole of the inhabitants, man, woman, and child!

We did not give to LOUIS PHILIP the title of " the NAPOLEON of peace." To us it sounds rather sarcastic than complimentary -for his reign has been, as yet, any thing but a peaceful one. Why need we instance the repeated flowing of blood by military execution in the streets of Paris and Lyons-the slaughter of the siege of Antwerp-and the more recent carnage of the African war?

By these conquests of our French ally, in Africa, extending for more than three hundred miles along the southern shores of the Mediterranean, the interests of England not less than those of humanity, as we previously stated, have been compromised. There was a time when we stood alone in warning the public

against a probable combination between France and Russia, to destroy our power and influence in the east, and drive our commerce out of the Mediterranean. We have now the satisfaction to observe that some of our contemporaries take the same view of the matter, to which we shall soon again have occasion to recur. In the mean time we repeat our opinion, that the Duke of WELLINGTON-to whom the government of CHARLES X. gave a pledge that the capture of Algiers should not lead to the establishing of a permanent French settlement in Africa-ought to bring the subject under the notice of parliament.

*

French Conquests on the Southern Shores of the Mediterranean.July 4, 1840.

66

THE military glory" of France, has certainly not received any great addition during its Algerine struggles for African dominion, which have now lasted as long as the siege of Troy. A nation which, less than thirty years ago, had nearly accomplished the subjugation of Europe, and the eagles of whose victorious legions had floated over many of its ancient capitals, is now, and has been for years, engaged in a desperate, ferocious, and still precarious struggle with the tribes of the Numidian deserts, unable to conquer one resolute and energetic barbarian chief who has to contend, by the aid of such means as savage valour and national hatred supply, against the picked troops and chosen generals of the "NAPOLEON of Peace," and all the resources of military science.

Whatever may be the final issue of a war, which spreads a terrible desolation in Africa, without bringing any trophies to France, we must always look upon it as a conflict still more disgraceful in its origin, than disastrous in its consequences. It is a conflict originating in a spirit of conquest, directly in violation of the solemn pledge-given by the Government of France to that of Great Britain-that the chastisement of the Algerine pirates was not to involve any plan of conquest (beyond the reduction of that State), or permanent colonisation by force of arms in Africa.