happiness of their people, and talked daily about their desire of calm repose, the atmosphere in which despotism loved to breathe, but which an ancient writer had eloquently painted, when he called it the stillness of desolation-following the vile cant of their ancestors, the allies declared, at Aix-la-Chapelle, that their object was, to secure the tranquillity of Europe-that their fundamental principle should be, never to depart from a strict adherence to the law of nations: "faithful to these principles," (continued this half-sermon, half-romance, and half-state-paper) "they would only study the happiness of their people, the progress of the peaceful arts, and attend carefully to the interests of morality and religion, of late years, unhappily too much neglected."-Alexander here followed the example of the autocratrix Catherine-who, having, wasted and pillaged Poland, province after province, poured hordes of her barbarians into the capital, and there, from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof, butchered the unoffending inhabitants, unarmed men, and women, and infants; and, not content with this work of undistinguishing slaughter, after the pause of the night had given time for cooling, rose on the morrow, renewed the carnage, and continued it through out that day; yet, after this, ordered a Te Deum to be sung, to return thanks for her success over the enemies of Poland, and in the midst of these most horrible outrages upon every feeling of human nature, issued a proclamation, in which she assured the Poles, that she felt towards them, "the solicitude of a tender mother, whose heart is only filled with sentiments of kindness for all her children."

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Who could, or who dared, doubt, that she was all she so described herself; and who could, after the experience of the last year, dispute the legitimate descent of the allied powers, and the purity of their intentions towards Spain? But, along with this declaration of the object of future congresses, came a stipulation, which he should like to see some man versed in the manufactory of state-papers, compare with, and reconcile to, the notes fashioned at Verona, probably by the very hands which had produced the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. The stipulation was this:"Special congresses concerning the affairs of states not parties to this alliance, shall not take place, except" (and how had Spain, which was no party to the alliance, brought herself within the exception)-" except in consequence of a formal invitation from such states ;"-" and their ambassador shall assist at such congresses." Now, the interference in the internal affairs of Spain was not only not "by special invitation" from, but was in downright opposition to, the will of Spain. Thus stood the conduct of those holy allies diametrically opposed to their own professions and engagements; and by such means was the attempt now made to crush the independence of a brave people!-But it was not in the case of Spain alone, that the consideration of these papers was important-they furnished grounds of rational fear to all independent governments; for he should be glad to learn, what case it was (upon the doctrines now advanced) to which this principle of interference might not be extended. The revolt of the colonies was distinctly stated by these armed legislators, as one ground of interposition; and

they kindly offered their "intervention," to restore this great branch of "the strength of Spain." There was no end of the occasions for interfering which they took. One was rather alarming-the accident of a sovereign having weak or bad ministers. Russia, forsooth, was anxious to see Ferdinand surrounded with "the most enlightened, the most faithful of his subjects" -men "of tried integrity and superior talents:" So that, according to these wise men of Verona (and this was a consideration which should be looked to, in some other countries as well as Spain), the existence of an inefficient or unprincipled administration, would be of itself a just ground of interference. The principle did not stop here: "ruinous loans," formed another ground, and "contributions unceasingly renewed;" "taxes which, for year after year, exhausted the public treasures and the fortunes of individuals." To complete all the charges against Spain, the Russian emperor finished his invective with the awful as sertion, that, on the 7th of July, "blood was seen to flow in the palace of the king, and a civil war raged throughout the peninsula." It was true, that a revolt had been excited in some of the provinces. But by whom? By an ally; by those cordons of troops, which were posted on the Spanish frontier, armed with gold and with steel, and affording shelter and assistance by force, to those in whose minds disaffection had been excited by bribery. It was also true, that blood had been shed. But how, and under what circumstances? A few persons were killed, who had first attacked the constitutionalists; in other words, who mutinied against the established govern

ment. As well might he accuse the people, the parliament, and the crown of England, of causing "blood to flow in the palace of the king," for ordering the sentinels to fire on any person whom they might find attempting to assassinate the sovereign, as accuse the Spaniards of such a crime, for the events which happened in July 1822.-Many other heavy charges were levelled at the Spaniards, in phrases of terrible import,-as "harbouring a disorganized philosophy," "indulging in dreams of fallacious liberty," and the want of " venerable and sacred rights," with which the Prussian note was loaded to repletion That of Russia objected to the Spaniards their want of the "true conservative principle of social order;" or, in other words, of despotic power, in the hands of one man, for his own benefit, at the expense of all mankind besides; and their not falling within the scope of those "grand truths," which, though they were ever in their mouths, were no where explained by any one of the three sovereigns. The Austrian note discoursed largely of "the solid and venerable claims" which the Spanish nation had upon the rest of Europe: prayed it to adopt a better form of government than it had at present; and called upon it to reject a system which was at once "powerful and paralyzed." Monstrous and insolent and utterly unbearable, as all these state-papers were, he considered that of Russia to be more monstrous, more insolent, and more prodigiously beyond all endurance, than the rest. was difficult to determine which most to wonder at-the marvellous incongruity of her language and conduct now, with her former most solemn treaties; or the incredible

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presumption of her standing forward to lead the aggression, upon the independence of all free and polished states. Gracious God! Russia!-a power that was only half civilized-that, with all her colossal mass of physical strength, was still quite as much Asiatic as European whose principles of policy, foreign and domestic, were completely despotic, and whose practices were almost altogether oriental and barbarous! In all these documents, there was, with a mighty number of general remarks, mixed up a wondrous affectation of honest principles- a great many words covering ideas that were not altogether clear and intelligible; or, if they happened to be so, only placing their own deformity in a more hideous and detestable light: but, for argument, or any thing like it, there was none to be found from the beginning to the end of them. They reasoned not; but they spoke one plain language to Spain and to Europe, and that language was We have 100,000 hired mercenaries, and we will not stoop to reason with those whom we have determined to crush as slaves, or annihilate as freemen." Admirable was the frankness, with which this haughty language had been met by the Spanish government: the papers which it had sent forth were plain and laconic; they said: "We are millions of freemen, and will not stoop to reason with men who threaten to enslave us." They hurled back the threat to the quarter from which it issued, caring little whether it was from the Goth, the Hun, or the Calmuck; with firmness they met the craft of the Bohemian, and with courage the savage ferocity of the Tartar. If they found leagued against them the tyrants,

by whom the world was at present infested, they might console themselves with this reflection-that wherever there was an Englishman, either of the old world or of the new-wherever there was a Frenchman, with the exception of that little band which now swayed the destinies of France in opposition to the wishes and interests of its gallant and liberal populationwherever there was a free heart or virtuous mind, there Spain had a natural and an unalienable friend.

Mr. Brougham went on to express his admiration of the mingled firmness and forbearance exhibited by the Spanish government, which, among so many provocations, had disdained to retaliate on its insulting enemies by giving utterance to accusations which might have been made against them. When, said he, the allied monarchs were pleased to adopt a system of interference with the internal policy of Spain-when they thought fit to descend to minute and paltry criticisms upon the whole course of her domestic government-when every sentence in their respective notes was a direct personal insult to every individual Spaniard, and when the most glaring attempts were made in their different manifestos to excite rebellion in the country, and to stir up one class of the community against the other: what would have been more natural for the Spanish government, than to have asked his Prussian. majesty, to remember the many vows and promises which he had made some years ago to his own. people, and to have suggested to him, that it would be more consistent with those promises to give his subjects a representative form of government, than to maintain at their cost, and almost to their

utter ruin, a large standing army, for the purpose of ravaging the territories, or putting down the liberties, of any neighbouring power? Might not Spain have asked the emperor of Austria, whether he, who now pretended to be so just, when the interests of Ferdinand were concerned, had acted with equal justice towards others? Whether, before he was generous to Ferdinand, he ought not to be just to England, and repay to her the whole, or a considerable part of the 20 millions he had borrowed of her in his day of distress. If the doctrine of interference in the internal concerns of neighbouring nations were at all admitted,-what could have been more rightful, in a free people, than to have asked him, how it happened, that his dungeons were filled with all that was noble, and accomplished, and virtuous, and patriotic in the Milanese ?-to have called on him to account for the innocent blood, which he had shed in the north of Italy?-to have required at his hands satis faction for the tortures inflicted in the vaults and caverns, where the flower of his subjects were now languishing-to have demanded of him some explanation of that iron policy, by which he had consigned fathers of families, the most virtuous and exalted in Europe, not to exile or death, but to a merciless imprisonment for ten, fifteen, and twenty years-nay, even for life, without a knowledge of the charge against them, or of the crime for which they were punished? Even the emperor Alexander himself, tender and sensitive as he was at the sight of blood flowing within the precincts of a royal palace-a sight so monstrous, that, if his language could be credited, it had never before been seen in the his

tory of the world-even he might have been reminded of passages in history, calculated to lessen his astonishment, at least, if not to soothe his feelings; for the empe ror Alexander, if the annals of Russian story might be trusted, however pure in himself, and however happy in always having agents equally innocent, was nevertheless descended from an illustrious line of ancestors, who had, with exemplary uniformity, dethroned, imprisoned, and slaughtered, husbands, brothers, and children. Not that those enormities were to be imputed to the parents, or sisters, or consorts; but it did happen, that those exalted and near relations had never failed to reap the whole benefit of the atrocities, and had always failed to bring the perpetrators to justice. It was, however, painful to find, that a monarch, so enlightened as the king of France had shown himself on various occasions to be, should have yielded obedience, even for a time, to the arbitrary mandates of this tyrannic Junta. He had been persuaded by them and by the parasites by whom he was at present surrounded, to tell the world, that it was from the hands of a tyrant alone that a free people could hold a constitution. That accomplished prince could not but be aware, that all the wise and good men of former times differed with him in opinion upon this point. "Non in ulla civitate, nisi in qua summa potestas populi est, ullum domicilium libertas habet." Such was the language of Cicero ; of one, who to the wisdom of a great philosopher, added the experience of a great statesman, and who, living in times of danger, and of difficulty, and having to contend with the most formidable conspiracy to which the life

and liberty of social man were ever exposed, put forth only the vigour of his own genius, and of the law, and never thought of calling into his assistance the Allobroges, the Teutones, or the Scythians of his day; "and I now say," continued Mr. Brougham, "that if the king of France calls on either the modern Teutones or the modern Scythians to assist him in this unholy war,. judgment will that moment go forth against him and his family, and the dynasty of Gaul will be changed at once and for ever." The learned gentleman then asked, what were the grounds on which the necessity of this war was defended. It was said to be undertaken, because an insurrection had broken out with success at Madrid. He denied this to be the fact. What was called an insurrection, was an attempt to restore the lawful constitution of the country. Let the pretext, however, be what it might, the real cause of the war was not hard to conjecture. It was not from hatred to Spain or Portugal, considered simply as Spain and Portugal, that the allied sovereigns were for marching their hordes into the Peninsula-it was not against freedom on the Ebro, or freedom on the Mincio, that they were making war: no, it was against freedom in the abstract wherever it was to be found-by whatever men it was enjoyed-by 'whatever checks it was secured

and by whatever safeguards it was guaranteed. Freedom was the object of their most inveterate hate, and against freedom they were ready to employ every species both of fraud and force. They dreaded its institutions-they abhorred its spirit; all the benefits which it had conferred upon mankind, all the monuments which had been raised in its honour, all the miracles

which had been effected by its influence, they hated with the malignity of demons; for they were compelled to fear, and tremble at the very sound of its name. It was on this account, that, disguise it as they might, they could feel no real friendship for Great Britain. It was idle to suppose that these armed critics could be bounded in their views by any limits of time or of country. If there were any portion of territory in the neighbourhood of the emperor Alexander, which appeared peculiarly suited to his views, would he not soon be able to discover some flaw in its political institutions requiring his intervention, supposing it even to be a part of the Turkish government? Nay, if his imperial majesty, with his consistory of tyrants and armed critics, were met by the Ulemah, with all his tribe of learned Muftis, pleading that their government was of the most sacred and venerable description-that it had antiquity in its favour-that it was in full possession of "the conservative principle of social order"-that it was "replete with grand truths," -that it was "powerful and paralysed"-that it had never listened to "the fatal doctrines of a disorganized philosophy," and that it had never been visited by any such things as "dreams of fallacious liberty;" still these "three gentlemen of Verona" would not turn away, but would pry about for an avenue by which to enter into the territory in question, and if they could not find a way, would not be very scrupulous about making one and the result would be, that, in three months from the time of deliberation, the emperor Alexander would be at Constantinople, or at Minorca; and that Austria and Prussia would be invited to look