oc-hM\ 
 
 11 
 
 BH5 
 
 7bB 
 
 
 •-• 
 

 tojtf/Ur •-tIuaJL Att^ 
 
 i '' 
 
THE 
 
 POLICY OF ENGLAND 
 
 TOWARDS 
 
 SPAIN 
 
THE 
 
 POLICY OF ENGLAND 
 
 TOWARDS 
 
 SPAIN 
 
 CONSIDERED CHIEFLY WITH REFERENCE 
 
 A REVIEW OF THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL STATE OF 
 THE BASQUE PROVINCES, AND A FEW REMARKS ON 
 RECENT EVENTS IN SPAIN, &c. BY AN ENGLISH NOBLE- 
 MAN." 
 
 LONDON: 
 JAMES RIDGWAY AND SONS, PICCADILLY. 
 
 MDCCCXXXVII. 
 
33P5&5 
 
THE POLICY 
 
 ENGLAND TOWARDS SPAIN 
 
 • • » * a 
 
 A book has been published* which, although 
 anonymous, is generally supposed, and we believe 
 admitted, to be from the pen of Lord Carnarvon, a 
 nobleman whose honourable political character and 
 distinguished abilities must always command a 
 respectful deference for his opinions, and whose 
 literary attainments never fail to prepossess his 
 readers in favour of the author and his subject. 
 
 The following remarks have reference to the se- 
 cond part of Lord Carnarvon's work, which treats of 
 those recent events in Spain, which now occupy a 
 considerable share of public attention, and which 
 will, doubtless, be brought into discussion when 
 Parliament meets. 
 
 Both at home and abroad it is a constant matter 
 of surprise that the great mass of the people of 
 England should, upon all questions of foreign po- 
 
 * Portugal and Galicia, with a Review of the Social and Political 
 State of the Basque Provinces, and a few remarks on recent events 
 in Spain. 2 vols. — Murray. 
 
 B 
 
 983063 
 
litics, display an ignorance and an apathy which 
 appear totally inconsistent with the vast intelli- 
 gence, and the lively sense both of public and 
 private interests at home, which distinguish every 
 class of society in this country. That such, how- 
 ever, is indisputably the case, the debates in Par- 
 liament are sufficient to prove. 
 
 A few nights in every Session are devoted to 
 Foreign Affairs. Motions are made, with reference 
 rather to party purposes than to the intrinsic ob- 
 jects of the questions — they are feebly debated and 
 coldly listened to ; and unless some flagrant case 
 should arise upon which a Government may be 
 overthrown, the House and the public appear alike 
 indifferent to the manner in which the Foreign 
 Secretary may have parried the attack, or repelled 
 his opponents — the debate is only looked upon as 
 an interruption to domestic affairs — it is got over 
 and forgotten. Neither within nor without the 
 walls of Parliament, is information upon foreign 
 affairs much sought after — but there is no indispo- 
 sition to receive it at the hands of him who may 
 be at the pains of giving it. With respect to 
 foreign affairs more than any others, there is a 
 difficulty in arriving at facts, and to avoid the 
 trouble of thinking, a readiness to adopt the opi- 
 nions of others, more particularly when presented 
 in a complete and decided form. 
 
 The Spanish question certainly occupies the 
 public mind. No man who lives in society and 
 
reads the newspapers or frequents the clubs of 
 London, can fail to be aware of this — but if he 
 analyzes what he hears, he will admit that it is not 
 the Spanish part of the question that creates this 
 general interest. With respect to that, there is 
 weariness and disgust, or at best indifference. It is 
 the fate of our countrymen who compose the Auxi- 
 liary Legion, and their constant correspondence 
 with the newspapers — it is the communications 
 from San Sebastian, and not from Madrid, which 
 keep alive the public feelings ; and above all it is 
 the little progress which it is considered has been 
 latterly made by the partizans of the Queen, that 
 the Tories think they shall be able to turn to their 
 own advantage, and thus all those who have to hope 
 or fear from a change of Government, are watching 
 with the anxiety which self-interest inspires the 
 march of events in the Peninsula. 
 
 Lord Carnarvon's work upon the Basque Pro- 
 vinces has appeared at the moment best calculated 
 to serve the party of which his Lordship is a 
 distinguished member — the moment when the Par- 
 liamentary plan of campaign is about to be settled, 
 and when the points of attack against the Govern- 
 ment are to be chosen. If, however, we judge 
 Lord Carnarvon rightly, he is not a mere partizan 
 but a sincere lover of the truth, which he would 
 always be willing to seek without fearing the re- 
 sults of investigation. We are convinced, there- 
 fore, that his Lordship's work contains nothing but 
 
 b2 
 
the expression of what he himself believes, and 
 that if we should be able to point out any errors 
 into which he has fallen, or to disprove by argu- 
 ments certain positions which he has maintained, 
 his Lordship will be far from regretting that the 
 author of these remarks should have undertaken to 
 rectify public opinion by a statement of much that 
 is within his own personal knowledge. 
 
 The early portion of the chapter upon the Basque 
 Provinces abounds with proofs that Lord Carnarvon 
 is but imperfectly acquainted with the history of 
 the epoch of which he is treating. Some of the 
 errors into which his Lordship has fallen, it will be 
 necessary to notice, first, because he deduces from 
 them conclusions favourable to the view he sup- 
 ports ; and next, in order to shew how little depen- 
 dence is to be placed upon the sources of informa- 
 tion to which his Lordship must have had recourse. 
 
 Lord Carnarvon (p. 188. vol. ii.) says, that Don 
 Carlos disavowed all connection with the insurgents 
 "(of 1827), he reprobated their schemes," and 
 " asserted his royal brother's right, without equi- 
 vocation or reserve." It is perfectly true, that Don 
 Carlos never openly avowed his connection with the 
 party who wished to place him upon the throne of 
 his brother; but it is as incorrect to say that he 
 disavowed them. Ferdinand, immediately upon 
 his return to Spain, in 1814, appointed Don Carlos 
 generalissimo of the army, and but a short time 
 elapsed before he saw reason to entertain doubts as 
 
I 
 
 to the allegiance and loyalty of his brother. Don 
 Carlos refused to satisfy those doubts, and the King 
 continued to find increasing cause for jealousy. In 
 1822, a Carlist mutiny broke out in the regiment 
 of which Don Carlos himself was the colonel. 
 Neither threat nor persuasion could induce him to 
 punish the offence, or to disavow his connection 
 with its authors. The same unvarying course he 
 subsequently pursued — without the will to act loyally 
 towards the King, he lacked the moral courage 
 openly to take part against him ; and secretly 
 wishing well to the intrigues carried on in his name, 
 he left to others the management of these intrigues, 
 and the consequences of failure. The " cuarto"* of 
 Don Carlos was governed by the infanta his wife, 
 and by her sister the Princess of Beira (the ambi- 
 tious views and restless spirit of these two princesses 
 are but too well known), and was considered by the 
 Court, and the public of Spain, as the focus of in- 
 trigue, from which sprang the never-ending plots 
 and conspiracies which disturbed the tranquillity of 
 the country. An assertion that Don Carlos was 
 ignorant of, or not privy to, all that was going on 
 in his name, and under his own eyes, would excite 
 the laughter of all those acquainted with the recent 
 history of Spain. That he was not so, is proved by 
 his constant refusal to disavow, or to reprobate, the 
 acts of the conspirators, a step which he well knew 
 
 * The apartments of the Infants in the palace. 
 
6 
 
 would at once have put an end to them. To ima- 
 gine that a large number of persons should, for a 
 succession of years, conspire against a reigning 
 monarch (whose age and health offered no prospect 
 but that of a long life), in defiance of the wishes of 
 the heir presumptive to the throne, is to shew little 
 knowledge of human nature, and still less of Spanish 
 character. 
 
 LordCarnarvon says (p. 189) that the King was in- 
 duced, " after much hesitation and frequent change 
 of purpose, to nominate on his death-bed a female 
 to the throne, and thus bequeath a civil war to the 
 country." — The King died in the autumn of 1833, 
 the will, changing the order of succession, is dated 
 the 12th of June, 1830! At La Granja, in 1832 
 the King was dangerously ill; indeed his death 
 was officially announced by the telegraph of Bay- 
 onne to the French Government, and then, it is 
 true that his Majesty exhibited " hesitation," and 
 " change of purpose" — but it was upon the subject 
 of altering his will and rechanging the order of 
 succession. When the hand of death seemed to be 
 upon him, and the King was almost in a state of 
 insensibility, his confessor and the minister Calom- 
 arde, induced him to settle the crown upon Don 
 Carlos ; and the Queen, upon being informed that 
 her consent to this change, which deprived her 
 daughter of the throne, was necessary for the sa- 
 tisfaction of the King's conscience and for the com- 
 fort of his dying moments, with a generosity that 
 
has few parallels in history, gave it. The 
 King recovered, and indignant at the advantage 
 which had been taken of expiring weakness, 
 he reversed the act which had been extorted 
 from him. He imprisoned the traitor Calomarde ; 
 and several months before his death assembled 
 a general Cortes of the kingdom, in order to take 
 the oath of allegiance to the Princess of Asturias. 
 How different is this statement of facts from the one 
 put forward by Lord Carnarvon ! 
 
 Although Lord Carnarvon declines (p. 189) to 
 " investigate the delicate question of the succes- 
 sion/' we deem it expedient to say a few words, 
 upon a matter which appears to us extremely 
 simple. 
 
 Since the time of the Goths, who elected their 
 kings, the capacity of females to succeed to the 
 throne, has been an established and undisputed 
 usage in Spain. Thus, between the years 1028 to 
 1422, five different females either occupied the 
 throne, or were acknowledged heiresses to the 
 crown in default of male issue — and in 1469, 
 Isabel the Catholic succeeded to her brother 
 Henry IV., as Queen of Castille. 
 
 Juana la Loca (the mad), daughter of the Ca- 
 tholic King, by virtue of this right of female suc- 
 cession, which at that time was formally inscribed 
 in the law of Partidas, was declared Queen of 
 Spain in 1505, — and in 1518, the Cortes of Val- 
 ladolid proclaimed her son Charles V., with the 
 
reservation that if ever the Queen recovered her 
 reason, the government of the kingdom should be 
 restored to her by her son. By the right of female 
 succession, then, the House of Austria reigned in 
 Spain. By the same right, the Bourbons have oc- 
 cupied the throne. Charles II., the last Sovereign of 
 the house of Austria, yielding on his death-bed to in- 
 trigues, similar to those which were supposed to have 
 been practised upon the dying Ferdinand, named as 
 his successor, Philip of Anjou, thereby recognising 
 the rights of his sister, the wife of Louis XIV., not- 
 withstanding her formal renunciation of them. 
 One of the early acts of Philip V.'s reign was to 
 abolish the ancient order of succession, by virtue 
 of which alone he had obtained the crown. For 
 this purpose he assembled a mock Cortes in 1713, 
 and disregarding the remonstrances of the Council 
 of State, he proclaimed the Salic Law to be the law 
 of the land by his sovereign will and pleasure, and 
 notwithstanding the law of Partidas. This arbitrary 
 and insolent decree was not registered in the form 
 usual with similar acts, and no occasion offered 
 itself for trying its validity : but the Cortes of 
 Cadiz in 1812, representing the people of Spain, 
 and acting in the name of the King, abolished the 
 decree of Philip, by re-establishing the ancient law 
 de Partidas, and the right of female succession t6 
 the crown. These Cortes were influenced by no 
 individual or party motives, and they had no reason 
 to cc-ntemplate any case in which the application of 
 
the Salic Law might arise. Their task was to re- 
 establish the fundamental laws of the kingdom, and 
 to form a Code suited to the wants and customs of 
 the people ; and in the fulfilment of their duty, they 
 abolished the despotic act of a sovereign which 
 violated the law of Partidas he had sworn to 
 observe upon his accession to the throne. It was 
 in conformity with the law of Partidas, and with the 
 immemorial usage of the country, that Ferdinand 
 on his part abolished the Salic Law in Spain, and 
 called a general Cortes of the kingdom to confirm 
 his act. By nominating his daughter, on whose 
 side were law, right, and custom, Ferdinand did 
 not "bequeath a civil war," (p. 189) but it was the 
 pretensions of Don Carlos that have inflicted that 
 curse upon the country. 
 
 " The constitutionalists (p. 190) warmly pro- 
 fessed their allegiance to the Queen, &c." there is 
 a fallacy in the use of the term constitutionalists 
 by Lord Carnarvon, which is not without its object, 
 for at the time of the King's death, the Queen's 
 cause, if it had been supported by such adherents, 
 would at once have become unpopular with the 
 nation. But no such party existed, and nobody 
 dreamed of re-establishing the constitution, the 
 memory of which was held in general aversion. It 
 is true, that men who wished to be no longer go- 
 verned despotically, and those who thought Spain 
 fit for some form of representative government, 
 professed their allegiance to the Queen, not because 
 
10 
 
 (p. 190) " the questionable nature of her daughter's 
 title would compel her to look to them for assis- 
 tance" — but because the political system, which it 
 was evident she would be obliged to adopt, was in 
 harmony with their opinions, and the only one by 
 which both she and they could combat the party, 
 who for years had been making war upon the in- 
 sufficient despotism of the King, and who, during 
 the latter period of his life, had declared their 
 determination that he should be succeeded by his 
 brother. 
 
 That the " natural disposition and original in- 
 tentions of the Queen, indisposed her to such an 
 alliance," is disproved by her conduct during her 
 regency at the time of the King's illness, and he upon 
 his recovery disapproved and reversed many of her 
 acts, upon the ground of their being unnecessarily 
 favourable to the liberal party. 
 
 Equally incorrect is it to say (p. 190) that " the 
 greater portion of that considerable party which 
 adhered to the ancient institutions of the country, 
 beheld with indignation the sudden change effected 
 in the succession." The Queen was recognised by 
 the whole of the Grandees of Spain, and by all the 
 important classes of society; and, except in the 
 Basque Provinces, she was proclaimed amidst ge- 
 neral rejoicings in every town and village ; and 
 addresses of loyalty and congratulation were trans- 
 mitted to Madrid from every part of the kingdom, as 
 well as from the colonies. When therefore Lord Car- 
 
11 
 
 narvon states on behalf of the "considerable party," 
 that "they looked upon the royal testament as 
 the result of a conspiracy to defrand the rightful 
 heir, and as the fruit of an unworthy influence ex- 
 ercised upon the almost unconscious mind of the 
 dying king," he must excuse us, if, with reference 
 to the facts we have detailed respecting the date of 
 the King's will, and his dying moments, we look 
 upon the statement as altogether imaginary. 
 
 Even upon his Lordship's own showing, there 
 is no trifling discrepancy in his statements ; for 
 (p. 191) he says that the Queen's government were 
 " fully prepared for the coming emergency, and 
 all the resources of the state had been long directed 
 to the attainment of a single object;" one or the 
 other statement, we submit, must be incorrect — 
 either the King did not nominate his daughter in 
 his last moments, or the Queen's government had 
 not long been fully prepared for the event. 
 
 The fact is that both are incorrect, though not 
 in the same degree : the first statement is entirely 
 so — the latter is so with respect to the Queen's 
 government being " fully prepared." Spanish 
 want of foresight was, perhaps, never more signally 
 displayed than during the year which preceded the 
 King's death, when he was known to have a mortal 
 disease, and when the Queen's party should, there- 
 fore, have been fully prepared for an event which 
 might any hour have occurred. But so far were 
 they from taking proper precautions, that Don 
 
12 
 
 Carlos was permitted to remain in Portugal, with- 
 out any remonstrances having been made to Don 
 Miguel against retaining him there— no measures 
 were taken for disarming the royalist volunteers, 
 whose numbers amounted to nearly 300,000, and 
 whose internal organization was well calculated to 
 favour and promote an esprit de corps — the greater 
 part of the regular army was permitted to be absent 
 on furlough, and so little had the adherence of that 
 portion which remained under arms been secured, 
 that the utmost anxiety and alarm were felt when, 
 owing to some couriers having gone astray, the de- 
 clarations of allegiance of Generals Sarsfield and 
 Rodil, who commanded the only effective corps, 
 were not received at Madrid for some days after 
 they were expected. 
 
 Other errors, equally glaring, we might point 
 out, but as they do not materially affect the main 
 question which Lord Carnarvon discusses, we 
 shall at once proceed to offer a few remarks upon the 
 reasons why, " during three years of profound ex- 
 ternal peace (p. 195) the arms and resources of the 
 Spanish monarchy have made no sensible impression 
 on the revolted provinces, and why its best ap- 
 pointed armies have been baffled." 
 
 To those who have not actually been inf the in- 
 surgent provinces, it is almost impossible to convey 
 an accurate idea of the difficulties which a regular 
 army has to contend with, in a country full 'of 
 mountains, where every rock is an inaccessible for- 
 
13 
 
 tress, where no supplies are to be found, and where 
 the population is composed of active and intelligent 
 enemies. These difficulties will, perhaps, be more 
 easily understood by recollecting, that the operations 
 and efforts of the French army, in 1809, were en- 
 tirely defeated by Mina, with a handful of men ; 
 and that this general, in the same country, where 
 two years ago he completely failed against the 
 Carlist faction, succeeded, in 1809, in baffling, 
 with 7,000 ill-appointed troops, 40,000 French, 
 commanded by some of the best officers of the em- 
 pire. Yet the French army possessed greater ad- 
 vantages than that of the Queen, for they had two 
 bases of operations — one the Ebro, the other the 
 Bidassoa ; and were able to provide for all their 
 wants, both military and administrative. 
 
 This circumstance was of vital advantage to them, 
 as it has now been to the Carlists, who have existed 
 by means of the supplies they drew from France ; 
 and the day that the line of the French frontier can 
 be closed against them, the war may be considered 
 at an end. 
 
 The war made by the French in Spain was a 
 foreign war of conquest : the present is looked upon 
 as a civil war of principles, privileges, dynasty, and 
 even of religion, according to the term given to it 
 by the priests, its great and most important sup- 
 porters. The French had the advantage of their 
 distinct nationality and different language, and de- 
 sertion from their ranks was unheard of — every 
 
14 
 
 straggler was put to death. From the Queen's army 
 desertion is easy ; the hostile camps are contiguous 
 — a private injury, the desire for revenge, a hope 
 of bettering his condition, or a hundred other mo- 
 tives, may induce the soldier of the Queen to desert ; 
 and he does not consider that the same disgrace 
 attaches to him, for choosing to call himself Carlist 
 instead of Christino, as if he had passed over to a 
 foreign enemy : while the country people, through 
 the medium of a common language, seduce the 
 soldiers, and exercise an espionage, in its utmost 
 extent, over the Queen's army. 
 
 The French had only to contend with irregular 
 troops, who, although brave, carried on but a guer- 
 rilla warfare. The guerrilla officers were of the 
 same class as the soldiers, and knew little more 
 than they did. Don Carlos's army, in addition to 
 all the advantages of guerrillas, have acquired a 
 regular organization, having been instructed and 
 commanded by officers of the Spanish and , French 
 armies. Every man, even when left to himself, 
 knows the best way of injuring his enemy, and can 
 march alone through the whole extent of country, 
 as safely and as well provided for as if he was with 
 his corps. The French had not only the best 
 troops in the world, but their administration was 
 perfect — their resources boundless — and their ow r n 
 country was contiguous to the theatre of war. 
 Their operations were never paralysed by hunger 
 
15 
 
 and misery, while the Queen's army is often in 
 want of daily subsistence. 
 
 Yet with all these advantages, the French army 
 failed in the Basque Provinces, and it is not to 
 be wondered at that the Queen's army, which has 
 never been sufficiently numerous or well supplied 
 fully to occupy the country, should hitherto have 
 failed likewise. The Carlists, occupying the centre 
 of the insurgent provinces, have always been able to 
 direct their forces against any part of the circumfe- 
 rence occupied by the Queen's troops, and they have 
 established a system of signals on the tops of the 
 mountains, by which every movement of the Queen's 
 army from Vitoria is immediately communicated 
 to the Carlist Commander-in-chief, who is thus 
 enabled to send orders either to troops to guard 
 the passes and denies through which the Christinos 
 are to march, or to the peasantry to quit their 
 villages and drive away their cattle. Under this 
 system, the country is at any moment rendered a 
 complete desert, and the Queen's army has upon 
 more than one occasion marched four or five days 
 together, without a peasant being seen, or a single 
 article of provisions being discovered. 
 
 No information can ever be procured respecting 
 the movements of the enemy, and no person can be 
 found to carry a communication between the posi- 
 tions occupied by the Queen's army, though any 
 sum of money be offered for the service — whereas 
 every place where the troops are quartered is full 
 
16 
 
 of Carlist spies, who instantly communicate intelli- 
 gence of an intended movement, and the enemy 
 never fails to be found on the spot most advanta- 
 geous to him, and ready, though sometimes after a 
 march of sixteen leagues, to fight, if he can do so 
 on superior conditions, or to disperse under orders 
 where to reunite again. 
 
 In short, the character of Navarre, and the 
 greater part of Biscay, when occupied by an armed 
 force to which the population is friendly, and which 
 is supplied across the frontier of France with all 
 that it stands in need of, enables the commander 
 of that force to turn the campaign into a siege — 
 a siege where the besieged may perpetually change 
 the citadel, and always renew the combat with 
 fresh advantage — where the besieger on the con- 
 trary, encumbered with a large attacking force, is 
 continually drawn from his depots and magazines, 
 and in case of changing his position or falling back 
 upon his supplies, is liable to the sallies of the well- 
 informed besieged, and to be cut to pieces in the 
 gorges of the mountains. 
 
 If the contest were to be settled in the plains, 
 though with an advantage of double numbers on 
 the Carlist side, it would not last a month — but 
 the character of the country to which it is confined, 
 may make it eternal, and it is from that cause alone 
 that all the Queen's generals have successively 
 found in Navarre the grave of their reputations, 
 and why ex-lieutenants of the guards, priests, and 
 
17 
 
 smugglers, have risen to eminence in the service 
 of Don Carlos. 
 
 We now come to that part of Lord Carnarvon's 
 work, which treats of the privileges of the Basques, 
 and it is no agreeable task to disfigure with facts 
 the glowing picture his Lordship has drawn of the 
 customs, the rights, the history, and the loyalty of 
 that interesting people. Neither perhaps is the 
 task an easy one, for Lord Carnarvon has so blended 
 real with imaginary facts, has supplied so many 
 effects with convenient causes, and has so inge- 
 niously made ancient history stand for modern 
 practice, that after an attentive perusal of his 
 statement, and a comparison of it with that which 
 really exists, the word that occurred to our mind, 
 and which best embodied our feelings upon it, was 
 Romance. His Lordship may further be assured that 
 were his work translated and circulated throughout 
 the whole of Spain, including the Basque Provinces, 
 the same idea would present itself to the minds of 
 the vast majority of his readers, though many 
 might rejoice, that upon the authority of a British 
 nobleman, such a tale was likely to gain credence 
 with the British public. 
 
 It would be tedious to our readers, and irrele- 
 vant to the question, to follow Lord Carnarvon 
 closely through his narration; and we therefore 
 propose to state that which really has occurred, 
 and to leave the reader to judge between the two 
 versions, promising, however, to hold ourselves 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 responsible for the accuracy of our own. We will, 
 moreover, admit the correctness of the ancient 
 Basque history cited by Lord Carnarvon, but we 
 object to the process of induction by which he seeks 
 to make that history applicable to the present times. 
 If ancient chronicles were considered sound ma- 
 terials for modern history, a charming picture of 
 all the rest of modern Spain, as well as of Biscay, 
 might be easily drawn ; for nowhere has the repre- 
 sentative system higher authority and brighter ex- 
 amples than in the annals of Aragon, Catalonia, 
 and Castille. Nowhere have the people and nobles 
 in Cortes assembled assumed a more majestic ap- 
 pearance, or controlled the encroachments of the 
 Crown with more vigour and independence. But 
 what would this prove as to their actual state ? A 
 writer upon Switzerland, who drew his materials 
 from the history of the wars of Burgundy, and 
 studiously kept out of view recent negotiations, 
 and all that has conduced to the present condition 
 of Switzerland, might paint a glowing picture of 
 the stern freedom, and unbending patriotism of 
 the people of that classic land of liberty ; but such 
 an appeal to the imaginations of his readers would 
 fail in leading them to think that similar sentiments 
 now animate the Swiss, because the history of the 
 Swiss cantons is well known. The history of the 
 Basque Provinces is not known, and a writer upon 
 them may, therefore, take advantage of the igno- 
 rance of his readers, and of the desire that all 
 
w 
 
 would be inclined to feel, that other times and 
 altered circumstances should not render modifica- 
 tions inevitable in that which was originally excel- 
 lent. 
 
 And thus it has come to pass in the Basque Pro- 
 vinces, where the greater part of the privileges 
 have been annulled de facto, though the despotic 
 Sovereigns of Spain have been too wise to do so by- 
 formal decrees. Divide et impera was the principle 
 of the Spanish kings, and the more the different 
 provinces could be kept asunder by distinct systems 
 of government, the less danger there was of their 
 uniting together against the Crown. A few in- 
 stances will serve to shew how, in latter years, the 
 Basque privileges have been virtually set aside with 
 the tacit consent of the people. 
 
 In 1818, a general levy of troops was made, for 
 the purpose of sending an expedition to South 
 America. The Basque provinces, notwithstanding 
 their privileges, were ordered to furnish their quota ; 
 no resistance was offered, but the Basques offered 
 to give money instead of men, and the money was 
 more acceptable to the king. They tendered six 
 millions of rials, and were ordered to pay ten, which 
 they did. 
 
 Lord Carnarvon (p. 25b') would, by inference, 
 lead us to believe that the Inquisition had never 
 entered the frontiers of the Basque Provinces ; such 
 however, is not the case, but to have openly estab- 
 lished it there would have been an unnecessary 
 
 c 2 
 
20 
 
 violation of the privileges. The provinces were, 
 therefore, attached to Logrono, which was made 
 the central point of the " Holy Office" in that 
 part of the country, and the nomination of Com- 
 missioners, as in the rest of Spain, was given to 
 the parish curates, and thus the boasted privileges 
 were respected in form, but in substance trampled 
 under foot. 
 
 They were equally disregarded in Navarre. But 
 whenever the Cortes of Navarre meet, for the pur- 
 pose of voting a contribution to the King, the Vice- 
 roy is first compelled to declare, and to sign an act to 
 the effect, that the divers transgressions which he 
 has committed against the privileges of the Pro- 
 vince have been arbitrary and illegal. The Viceroy 
 declares and signs ; the Cortes are closed ; and the 
 privileges are again violated, as before. 
 
 Equally an illusion is it to say, that in recent, as 
 in olden times, liberty and property have been in- 
 violable. During the ten years preceding Ferdi- 
 nand's death, the property of those suspected of 
 liberal opinions was unmercifully confiscated, while 
 a vigorous police and royalist volunteers, though 
 under other names, were established, as in other 
 parts of Spain. 
 
 Numerous similar instances might be given, to 
 shew how fallacious is the assertion, that these pro- 
 vincial privileges have been maintained ; but 
 enough has been said to shew that they have long 
 since ceased to have any real and practical existence. 
 
21 
 
 Their nominal existence has not been attacked, 
 though often threatened, and probably for a private 
 object; for the Deputy from the Provinces, who 
 came to Madrid to watch over their interests on 
 such occasions, usually found some solid arguments 
 for convincing the Minister of the inexpediency of 
 his measure. The Kings of Spain, we repeat, with 
 a view to the maintenance of absolute power, have 
 always deemed it expedient not to abolish the pri- 
 vileges. 
 
 Those privileges which really affect the people, 
 and respecting which public opinion can with suc- 
 cess be appealed to, in the provinces, have been 
 exaggerated into an importance which they do not 
 possess, with relation either to the war or the go- 
 vernment, or to the interest of the provinces. The 
 privileges are of two kinds ; the one relates to the 
 municipal institutions, and to the internal system 
 of administration which no one, since the King's 
 death, has ever had any idea of changing: the 
 other consists of commercial privileges which all 
 the provinces in turn have denominated priva- 
 tions. 
 
 The provinces have the privilege of importing 
 foreign goods duty free, but it could not be ex- 
 pected, and never was allowed, that they should be 
 permitted to extend this advantage to other pro- 
 vinces, and under cover of their own privileges 
 destroy the customs revenue of Spain. 
 
 The Custom Houses, therefore, which the privi- 
 
22 
 
 leges do not allow of at the sea-ports, are placed 
 upon the frontiers of Castille ; and the same system 
 both of prevention on the one hand, and of contra- 
 band on the other, are established there, which 
 prevail on the Swiss and Belgian frontiers of 
 France. The Basque Provinces, in short, as a 
 necessary consequence of their privileges, have 
 long been treated, with respect to commerce, as a 
 foreign nation by the rest of Spain. They were 
 forbidden to trade with the Americas — Spanish 
 colonial goods were not allowed to be imported 
 direct to their ports — their vessels were looked 
 upon as foreign, and the Basques, moreover, were 
 placed upon the same footing as foreigners with 
 respect to those productions of Spain which are 
 absolutely necessary to them for their own con- 
 sumption ; while their own productions, being 
 treated as foreign, were subject to enormous duties 
 upon entering Castille. 
 
 The consequences of such a state of things may 
 be easily conceived ; they are the same as exist in 
 some other countries at this moment. The sea- 
 port towns and the manufacturers are hostile to a 
 system which destroys foreign trade and excludes 
 their productions from a profitable market, while 
 the inland people and those who dwell upon the 
 frontier are violent in support of the system, which 
 necessarily creates the enormous smuggling trade 
 by which they have enriched themselves. 
 
 There accordingly exists throughout the exempted 
 
23 
 
 provinces every variety of opinion respecting their 
 privileges, some desiring to be altogether assimi- 
 lated to the rest of Spain, others claiming to be 
 put upon a commercial equality with the neigh- 
 bouring provinces ; while a third, and the most 
 numerous party, not venturing to put forward their 
 real motives against any change of a commercial 
 system which is manifestly injurious to their coun- 
 try, clamour for the absolute maintenance of the 
 privileges, and under the mask of patriotism advo- 
 cate their right to fill their own pockets by smug- 
 gling. ;a 
 Representations have frequently been made from 
 the Juntas and assemblies of these provinces to the 
 Government of Madrid, complaining that no popu- 
 lation can prosper under such privileges ; and stat- 
 ing that they were most willing to give up the 
 right of importing foreign manufactures duty free 
 in exchange for the permission to sell their own 
 productions to the rest of Spain. San Sebastian, 
 after petitioning for years, has at length obtained 
 from the Government the privilege of having a 
 custom-house. And it was natural enough that 
 the barren mountains of Biscay should look down 
 with envy on the fertile plains and on the abundant 
 harvests of Castille while starving on their own 
 iron ; and the foreign manufactures which they 
 imported, although received dut}? free, cost them 
 dear, for they had but little, which foreigners want, 
 to give in exchange for them. 
 
24 
 
 The question, then, stripped of its history and 
 its poetry, and analysed with reference to the bear- 
 ings upon it of public opinion in the Basque pro- 
 vinces, resolves itself into the highly unromantic 
 one of a tariff. The question whether foreign mer- 
 chandise shall be subjected to duty at San Sebas- 
 tian and Bilboa^ and whether the iron of Biscay 
 and the corn of Castille shall continue to be inter- 
 changed against law by the smugglers of the 
 frontier. 
 
 We have the authority of the Junta of Alava for 
 saying that the privileges have nothing, and never 
 had anything, to do with the war. In a representa- 
 tion made to the Government and the Cortes by 
 that body in 1834, and agreed to by all the prin- 
 cipal men of the province, it is said, that " per- 
 haps there are persons who believe that the men, 
 who have been employed in those provinces in 
 fighting against the legitimate Government, have 
 been moved thereto, and are still urged on by the 
 fear of losing the fueros, wishing to deduce there- 
 from that in chastisement they should be deprived 
 of them. It would be a real injustice to the good 
 sense and intelligence of the Government and the 
 Cortes, and of all the enlightened part of the na- 
 tion, if we were to suppose them ignorant of the 
 true origin of the sole cause that has given impulse 
 to the revolutionary movement in those provinces 
 as in others of the kingdom. There is absolutely 
 nothing of the fueros in it, nor even have they 
 
25 
 
 served, nor do they serve as a pretext. Pure fana- 
 ticism, with its ambition and its thirst for power, is 
 the only agent of these and other convulsions which 
 have agitated the realm." 
 
 But the fact is, that every body in the country 
 who has given to the contest a moment of serious 
 consideration, is aware that the causes which have 
 concentrated the war in the Basque Provinces, are 
 to be found in the geographical position of those 
 provinces. What did Zumalacarregui care about 
 the fueros of Biscay ? What did a crowd of other 
 chiefs who have raised factions ? Carnicer, Cuesta, 
 Cuevillas, Basilio, &c? What interest in the fueros 
 had the ex-officers of the guard who have flocked 
 to the provinces ? Who has been more active and 
 mischievous than the Cura Merino in the cause of 
 fanaticism ? But it was not for Biscayan privi- 
 leges that he contended ; and why was he put down 
 in a few months ? Not because he had no fueros 
 Vascongados to fight for, but because he had no 
 mountain fortresses to protect him from the vigor- 
 ous attacks of the Queen's troops. But even within 
 the little precinct to which the war is confined 
 there exists a vast difference of political opinion, as 
 well as opposite views with respect to the fueros. 
 The great valley of Roncal has declared for the 
 Queen. The Siete Valles are in her favour, and 
 so is the half of Navarre. The numerous popula- 
 tion of the Bastan only demand arms and protec- 
 tion against the Carlists to follow the example, and 
 
26 
 
 it is well known that in many other parts of the 
 Basque Provinces, the people no longer believing 
 in the false tales by which their simplicity was 
 imposed upon, exhausted by the war and despair- 
 ing of its termination, only delay declaring for the 
 Queen till they feel assured they shall not again 
 (as has already, to the shame of the Queen's Gene- 
 rals, occurred) be exposed to the exterminating 
 vengeance of their present masters, for having 
 dared to espouse the cause they thought most ad- 
 vantageous to themselves. 
 
 But if the Basques are fighting for their privi- 
 leges, what is it that the town of Bilboa has 
 been fighting against? Can we have a greater 
 proof that it is fanaticism and not fueros that main- 
 tains the cause of Don Carlos than the heroic con- 
 duct of Bilboa in its different sieges, though this 
 once flourishing and most loyal town may be sup- 
 posed to have as much interest as any other part 
 of the country in the maintenance of Biscayan pri- 
 vileges ? And yet Bilboa has resisted all the forces 
 of Don Carlos, commanded by his best officers and 
 aided by foreign engineers, being an open town 
 without fortifications, and, as a military position, 
 pronounced indefensible. It has held out contrary 
 to all the rules of art, solely by the native valour 
 and resolution of its inhabitants, who, wonderful to 
 relate, have resolved rather to perish amidst the 
 ruins of their houses than yield to the generous 
 champion of their country's privileges ; and is not 
 
27 
 
 this single fact enough to sweep away all the non- 
 sense which is talked about privileges and fueros ? 
 
 The King died on the 30th of September, and on 
 the 5th of October the Queen Regent issued a ma- 
 nifesto to the nation, upon the grounds that " The 
 expectation which a new reign always excites in- 
 creases with the doubts as to the public adminis- 
 tration during the minority of the new monarch, 
 and in order to dissipate this, and to allay the un- 
 easiness and disorder which it produces in men's 
 minds, I have considered it my duty to prevent 
 unfounded conjectures and suppositions by a firm 
 and frank manifestation of the principles by which 
 I must constantly be guided in the Government 
 with which I am charged by the last will of the 
 King, my august consort, during the minority of 
 the Queen, my very dear and beloved daughter, 
 Donna Isabel." 
 
 After an assurance that the Catholic religion, its 
 doctrines, its temples, and its ministers should be 
 the first and most grateful care of her Government, 
 the Queen Regent proceeds to say, " I entertain 
 the most complete conviction that it is my duty to 
 preserve intact the deposit of the royal authority 
 that has been confided to me. I will religiously 
 maintain the form and the fundamental laws of the 
 monarchy, without admitting dangerous innova- 
 tions, which, however alluring in principle, have 
 already for our misfortune been too much attempt- 
 ed. The best form of Government for a country 
 
28 
 
 is that to which it is accustomed. A stable and 
 compact power, based upon ancient laws, respected 
 by custom, consecrated by ages, is the most power- 
 ful instrument for working out the good of the 
 people, which is not obtained by weakening autho- 
 rity, by combating established ideas, habits, and 
 institutions, by molesting interests and expectations 
 which already exist, for the purpose of creating new 
 ambitions and exigencies, by inciting the passions 
 of the people, by forcing individuals into a state of 
 struggle or confusion, and society into a general 
 convulsion. I will transmit the sceptre of Spain 
 into the hands of the Queen, upon whom the law 
 has conferred it, entire, without deterioration or 
 detriment, in the same state as the law has con- 
 ferred it upon her." 
 
 This was the manifesto of the Queen Regent to 
 the nation immediately on entering upon the du- 
 ties of her office. Her Majesty acted by the advice 
 of Zea Bermudez, the minister of her deceased hus- 
 band, who together with his colleagues were all 
 confirmed in their respective offices ; and yet, with 
 the levity with which facts are dealt with through- 
 out the chapter on the Basque Provinces, it is 
 stated, (p. 207) that " upon Ferdinand's death, 
 men were restore-to favour throughout the country, 
 who had been notoriously hostile to their (the 
 Basques) rights, and who haty assisted in the scheme 
 for their subversion during t}he Revolution of 1820. 
 The language, too, of the CoVirt and Ministers with 
 
29 
 
 reference to the Basque privileges was not ambi- 
 guous, even in the first days of the Queen's ac- 
 
 cession." 
 
 Men were not restored to favour who had been 
 hostile to the rights of the Provinces ; and even if 
 they had, we do not suppose that the entertaining 
 of a particular opinion upon a generally disputed 
 point, would be considered in any country a valid 
 reason for excluding a man from a subordinate 
 office in the State ; or that his being appointed to 
 one, would justify rebellion against the Crown. 
 Lord Carnarvon may defend such a doctrine in print, 
 and as applied to Spain, but we doubt his being 
 prepared to uphold it in the Parliament of England. 
 
 "The language of the Court and the Ministers" 
 was certainly " not ambiguous." It was the same 
 as the language of the Manifesto ; and we defy 
 any attempt to put upon it a construction hos- 
 tile to the Basque privileges, The policy of the 
 Manifesto may be, and was at the time generally, 
 called in question ; but the Basques had no reason 
 to complain of it. They could have found nothing 
 in it but that which really was the truth, for the in- 
 tention of the Queen Regent and her Government 
 at that time was to make no changes whatever in 
 the system which had obtained under the late 
 King. The mortal remains of Ferdinand, however, 
 had not yet been conveyed to the Escurial, when 
 the Royalist Volunteers, who had complete pos- 
 session of Biscay, (and it must not be forgotten, 
 
30 
 
 that their occupation of the country was a direct 
 violation of the privileges) proclaimed Don Carlos 
 King, without any reference whatever to men re- 
 stored to favour, or to the language of the Court 
 or Ministers, or to an abolkion of the fueros. 
 
 We perfectly agree with Lord Carnarvon (p. 226), 
 ,' that it is more than questionable whether one 
 party can recede from a compact of such a nature 
 without the concurrence of the other — but the 
 wildest parti zan never maintained till now, that 
 during the existence of the connexion one party is 
 at liberty to absolve itself from the obligations it 
 has incurred, and yet to require the other to fulfil 
 its part of the contract." We will ask which of 
 the two parties first receded from the compact ? 
 The Queen, who declared that she would make no 
 change ; or the Biscayans, who threw off their 
 allegiance ? The compact of the Biscayans was 
 with the Sovereign of Spain ; and in the event of 
 a disputed succession, it behoved them at least to 
 have remained neuter. But if they, not only before 
 but against the rest of Spain, proclaimed Don 
 Carlos the legitimate King, then they had no right 
 to complain if the Queen had violated (which, 
 however, she did not do) the compact. They at 
 once made themselves partizans ; and as far as in 
 them laid, would have deprived the Queen of her 
 throne ; and they did so during the existence of the 
 connexion, the validity of which they admitted, 
 when they subsequently complained that their 
 
31 
 
 privileges were not observed. Their noble advo- 
 cate has thus throughout his chapter placed himself 
 precisely in the position described by himself, of 
 that wild partizan who maintains that one side is 
 at liberty to absolve itself from its obligations, and 
 yet require the other to fulfil its part of the 
 contract. 
 
 It is true that when the insurrection had assumed 
 a formidable and decided character, Castanon, a 
 wilful foolish man, who commanded a portion of 
 the Queen's troops in the Provinces, put down the 
 fueros without any instructions direct or implied from 
 the Government. His act was reprobated in the 
 strongest manner, and he was shortly afterwards 
 removed from his command. The Government 
 knew well that this man's folly would render a 
 great service to the insurgents, by furnishing them 
 with a pretext for rebellion, which up to that time 
 they had wholly wanted ; a pretext which was sure 
 to be seized upon by the real authors of the revolt, 
 in order to excite those popular passions which 
 were already embarked in the contest. It was one 
 thing, however, to have wished that this folly (for 
 after the rebellion of the Basques it was not injus- 
 tice) should not have been committed, and another 
 to disavow or endeavour to repair it. Those who 
 know any thing of the Spanish, and more parti- 
 cularly of the Biscayan character, will admit that 
 the Government would have gained absolutely 
 nothing by offering to annul the act of Castanon, 
 
32 
 
 and to restore the fueros. It would have been 
 generally looked upon as a proof of weakness or 
 fear ; it would therefore have angered the friends 
 of the Queen, while it would have been rejected by 
 the Basques, and the Government would have been 
 despised by both parties. Such is the Spanish 
 character. The mischief was done. Swords had 
 previously been drawn, the scabbards were now 
 flung away, and the wager by battle became the 
 only issue by which the question could be tried. 
 
 No part of the "Romance" upon the Basque 
 Provinces is further removed from reality than the 
 episode about Don Carlos and the Council of State, 
 (p. 264), in which the Infant is made to rise and 
 state, "that the ministerial scheme (to abridge 
 materially, if not entirely to suppress, the liberties 
 of the Basques) involved a manifest breach of the 
 compact solemnly entered into between the Crown 
 of Spain and the people of the free Provinces — 
 that the Crown was bound to respect the established 
 rights of the meanest subject of the realm, &c. &c." 
 
 A few words will suffice to bring the tale within 
 the limits of reality, from which it has been carried. 
 Ballesteros, who was Minister of Finance from 
 1824 to 1832, constantly endeavoured, for purposes 
 of revenue, to carry forward to the frontier of 
 France the custom-houses which are now established 
 on the frontier of Castille. The King referred the 
 whole subject to the Council of State, over which 
 Don Carlos presided whenever the King was 
 
33 
 
 absent. The Council reported, that with reference 
 to the general circumstances of the kingdom, it 
 would not be politic to make the proposed change. 
 But the Infant produced no " electrical effect," 
 (p. 266), and he took no more part in the discussion, 
 or the report upon the question, than did the other 
 members of the Council. 
 
 That the story may have been recently manu- 
 factured for the use of the Basques, and that it 
 may at this moment be current in Biscay, is very 
 possible : but when Lord Carnarvon was told, that 
 " the honourable part which Don Carlos had taken 
 in the Council on a question of such vital interest 
 to the Biscayans was quickly known in Biscay, 
 and from that moment he became the undivided 
 object of their enthusiasm — the centre of their 
 hopes — the idol of their affections," his credulity 
 was practised upon. 
 
 If Don Carlos had proceeded, as his historian in 
 this matter has reported, he would only, as we 
 have shewn above, have been acting in the interest 
 of despotism, and in conformity with the practice 
 observed by the absolute monarchs of Spain. A 
 despotic will could alone have maintained the 
 privileges intact : for every thinking man had for 
 years been of opinion that some modifications of 
 them were necessary, whenever the proper time 
 might arrive ; that is, that the Provinces should 
 contribute more equally to the general burthens of 
 the State — but that the mode of apportionment 
 
34 
 
 should be left to themselves, as their system of 
 internal administration is excellent : and this sys- 
 tem, we repeat, as well as the municipal institutions 
 of the Provinces, it has never been the intention of 
 the Spanish Government since the King's death to 
 alter. 
 
 In one word, the insurrection was commenced by 
 the Royalist Volunteers of Biscay, who knew that 
 their existence as a privileged corps depended upon 
 the success of Don Carlos ; it was assisted by the 
 same corps in Castille, and by Santos Ladron, a 
 bold man of bad character, who was desirous of 
 revolution for revolution's sake, and for his own 
 interest. It was urged on by the priests, who have 
 an incredible influence upon the simple and igno- 
 rant mountaineers of Biscay. It has been supported 
 by ex-officers of the arm} T , by deserters from the 
 Queen's ranks, and by men who had no interest in 
 the Provinces. It has been called a war of dynasty, 
 or principles, or privileges, or religion, as best 
 suited the purposes of the moment; and it has 
 lasted solely on account of the character of the 
 country in which it has been carried on. 
 
 Under these circumstances we have no fear that 
 any candid mind will share in Lord Carnarvon's 
 u feelings of unmingled humiliation at the sullied 
 honour" of England, in contemplating " our recent 
 policy towards the Basques;" or that such a mind 
 would not instantly detect the fallacy of the " pre- 
 cisely parallel case," stated by his Lordship. 
 
35 
 
 w If," says Lord Carnarvon, (p. 275) " at the 
 period of the Union with Ireland, the English 
 Government had endeavoured to carry that mea- 
 sure into effect without obtaining the consent oft Ha 
 Irish Parliament; if Ministers had decreed that 
 the Irish Parliament should be considered as abso- 
 lutely extinguished after a given day, but that 
 Ireland might hereafter send to the English Legis- 
 lature as many Deputies as the English Govern- 
 ment in its wisdom might chuse to permit, offering 
 at the same time the stern alternative of instant 
 obedience or the sword ; if such a crime against 
 freedom and justice had been committed, I do not 
 think ' there breathes a man with soul so dead,' or 
 with so low an estimate of Irish spirit, as to suppose 
 that peer, priest, and peasant would not have rallied 
 round the standard of insurrection against an 
 usurping Government," &c. " Yet this policy, 
 which would have been execrated by every good 
 man in England, the Spanish Ministers have 
 adopted towards the revolted Provinces," &e. 
 
 The injustice of acting by Ireland as Lord 
 Carnarvon hypothetically assumes, cannot be de- 
 nied ; and it would have been unpardonable in 
 the Spanish Government, if sufficiently rich, not 
 to have imitated the example of England, by " ob- 
 taining the consent of the Biscayan Legislature," 
 if the opportunity for so doing had arisen. But 
 suppose that Ireland, in 1745, had declared itself 
 in favour of the Pretender, and had made war 
 
 d 2 
 
36 
 
 against the House of Hanover, and that the English 
 Government had, in return, inflicted upon Ireland 
 all the advantages of the British Constitution, does 
 Lord Carnarvon imagine that those Irish, whom 
 the new leader of the Tories has designated as a 
 set of aliens, would have felt that a very great 
 hardship had been inflicted upon them ? Perhaps 
 the Irish people would not even now be sorry if 
 Lord Lyndhurst and his party would so reward 
 their loyalty and good conduct. We cannot, how- 
 ever, but think the Noble Lord's allusion to Ireland 
 is on this occasion singularly ill selected. That 
 country is still fresh with the records of the bloody 
 and tyrannical acts of English despotism ; 
 every acre of it has been forfeited three times 
 over ; its altars have been thrown down, its 
 people have been trampled in the dust ; yet its 
 Kings were as independent, and the pages of its 
 history abound with proofs of as glorious an attach- 
 ment to freedom as can be found in the annals of 
 Biscay. And by whom was all this done? By 
 England. And why ? Because the independent 
 condition of that integral part of the British domi- 
 nions was thought to be anomalous ; was said to 
 be inconvenient ; was pronounced incompatible 
 with the general good. But England has resem- 
 bled Castanon, she abused her power ; and Ireland, 
 in the language of the Biscayans of old, sternly 
 said, " so far, no farther shalt thou go." England 
 yielded to avoid a renewal of civil war; and will 
 
37 
 
 have to yield still farther, and with the same 
 object. 
 
 We are quite sure that Lord Carnarvon is as 
 he describes himself (p. 277) no heated or ^discri- 
 minating opponent, but we are totally at a loss 
 to conceive how he has brought his mind to con- 
 sider the policy of the British Government as 
 directed against the privileges of the Basques : or 
 how he has been able so to contract his views as 
 to see nothing but a contest about the privileges of 
 one twenty- sixth part of the population of Spain, in 
 the great questions of a disputed title to the throne, 
 and of a choice between despotic or representative 
 Government, between the inquisition and national 
 improvement. Nor can we explain how he, as a 
 peer of the realm, and an hereditary legislator of 
 his country, called upon by his position to decide 
 upon the interests of England, could in any 
 other spirit but that of partizanship gravely state, 
 that the British Government is actuated by feelings 
 of hostility towards the Basques, and is aiding the 
 Queen of Spain in the suppression of their fueros, 
 while he does not even glance at the enormous 
 extent of British interests, and of European results 
 which hang upon the issue of the Spanish question. 
 We are really almost ashamed of answering such a 
 puerile objection, for it must be evident to every 
 one that if British assistance is given to Spain, it 
 must be afforded at the spot where the war is 
 carried on, and against those who are making the 
 
38 
 
 war, and they are Biscay and the Basques. If, as* 
 Lord Carnarvon says passim through his chapter, 
 popular opinion is every where in favour of Don 
 Carlos, then the British Legion in Biscay is mak- 
 ing war generally against Carlism in Spain, the 
 head-quarters of which are in the insurgent pro- 
 vinces. If Carlism is absolutely restricted to the 
 Basque provinces, then half a million of inhabitants 
 are endeavouring to give the law to thirteen mil- 
 lions, and the well-being of the Peninsula, and the 
 tranquillity of Europe demand, that so monstrous 
 an attempt should be stoutly resisted. 
 
 Had the noble Lord turned his powerful mind to 
 these all-important considerations, had he well 
 weighed the state of things which Englishmen 
 should desire to see established in Spain, he would 
 not have said (p. 279) that a British expedition had 
 sailed from England under circumstances " uncon- 
 genial to a generous mind," he would not have 
 considered that the persons who composed that 
 expedition were animated by other than loyal and 
 patriotic sentiments, he would " have sympathised 
 in their fortunes," and have " wished for their 
 success." England is now, as in those proud times 
 to which Lord Carnarvon alludes, fighting to 
 rescue a friendly nation from oppression and from 
 slavery in its worst forms of bigotry and ignorance. 
 England holds out her hand to help an ally to take 
 that place among the nations of Europe to which 
 she was destined bv nature, and of which she has 
 
39 
 
 been deprived by circumstances, from which a for- 
 tunate conjuncture of events now presents an op- 
 portunity for emancipation. England is endea- 
 vouring to promote that state of things most 
 favourable to her own political and commercial 
 interests; and if an Englishman has to quarrel 
 with his Government for the part they have hi- 
 therto taken in Spain, it should be, not for what 
 they have attempted, but for what they have left 
 undone. Spain, which often before has been the 
 battle-field of Europe, became so again upon the 
 death of Ferdinand ; the antagonist principles 
 which now agitate the Continent, though as yet with 
 smothered violence, were in presence of each other 
 upon Spanish ground, and under circumstances the 
 most important to the futurity of Europe. The 
 mighty problem was to be solved whether it be 
 possible for a nation to pass securely, and with ad- 
 vantage, from a despotic to a constitutional form of 
 Government ; whether a people, long and perse- 
 veringly kept in darkness, can bear the light of 
 improvement, and whether men who, during a 
 long course of years have been slaves, are fit for 
 comparative freedom. 
 
 These questions were to be tried in Spain, and it 
 may be unhesitatingly asserted that the prospects 
 of a successful issue were great ; for he would com- 
 mit a vast error who supposed that Spain, during 
 the ten years of the despotic reaction, which pre- 
 ceded the King's death, had stood still. Educa- 
 
40 
 
 tion, notwithstanding the united influence of the 
 Court and Church to crush it, had advanced, and 
 no small portion of the rising generation had 
 studied the political errors of their fathers, had 
 resolved to take warning by them, and were well 
 prepared even at the time of the King's death, to 
 carry into effect a change from despotism to liberal 
 institutions. There is as little doubt as can exist 
 upon a matter now 7 incapable of proof, that the 
 experiment would have succeeded if it had had the 
 fair trial which internal tranquillity would have 
 afforded ; and had it succeeded, it requires but little 
 reflection to perceive the important influence which 
 the event must have exercised in Europe. That a 
 nation, which for ages has been under the double 
 yoke of a kingly and of a priestly despotism, with 
 all the train of degradation and corruption which 
 they bring with them, should emancipate itself, and 
 gradually enter upon the enjoyment of those bless- 
 ings which freedom of thought and liberty of action 
 cannot fail to produce — that those sources of na- 
 tional wealth, which in Spain are more unexplored 
 than in any other country of Europe, should be 
 gradually developed — and that this great branch of 
 the European family should become rich and pros- 
 perous, must have roused the attention of those 
 countries which are still exposed to the evils of 
 despotic Government. To England, who, though 
 unjustly censured by some for what is mis- 
 called her selfish policy, is the only really philan- 
 
41 
 
 thropic country in the world, it would be no slight 
 consideration that the autocrats of the Continent 
 should be compelled to listen to the public opinion 
 which would then spring up — that their will should 
 no longer usurp the place of reason, and that the 
 happiness of millions should increase with the 
 enlightenment from which they could no longer be 
 debarred. 
 
 We are far from advocating the cause of revolu- 
 tion any where. It is in general a disastrous means 
 towards a most doubtful end, nor do we consider 
 that England, whatever may be her wishes or her 
 interests, has a right, or that it is her policy, to 
 meddle unasked in the internal affairs of other 
 countries ; but she has a right to rejoice at, and it 
 would not be her policy to prevent, that state of 
 things which might bring absolute monarchs to a 
 knowledge that popular rights have a real existence, 
 and that the time is at last arrived when the happi- 
 ness or misery of multitudes can no longer depend 
 exclusively upon the caprice of one man. This 
 may be sneered at as chimerical, or may be repro- 
 bated as revolutionary; but we would ask whether 
 it would or would not be agreeable to us to see 
 throughout Europe, life and property protected by 
 an impartial administration of justice, industry 
 free, and liberty really understood as they are in 
 England ? whether such a state of things would 
 not be politically, commercially, and socially ad- 
 vantageous to us ? If so — and no man in his senses 
 
42 
 
 can deny such self-evident truths — then it must be 
 admitted that the solemn duty of the British Go- 
 vernment is to foster every circumstance favourable 
 to such improvements, which may arise in the con- 
 stantly varying course of political events. 
 
 The Spaniards, it may be said, are indisposed to 
 change, and view with indifference any attempt at 
 improvement, and to all appearance this is true : 
 but their apparent indifference is the resignation 
 which grows out of long habit, out of continued 
 oppression, and out of the absence of hope. Where 
 is now that chivalrous feeling which in days of 
 yore placed the Spaniard without a rival in deeds 
 of arms? — where is that spirit of enterprise, and 
 that noble emulation which made him no less re- 
 nowned in the wide field of art? — where is that 
 Castillian honour for ages proverbial ? 
 
 They are all buried in the ruins of that greatness 
 to which they gave rise, and the Spanish people are 
 now ground down, by misgovernment, to the lowest 
 level of civilization. To satisfy their animal wants 
 — to bask in the sun — to conceal their little savings 
 from the rapacious grasp of the priest and the petty 
 official tyrant of the village — is all that the common 
 people in Spain have, for years past, ventured to 
 aspire to. How can it be expected that a nation so 
 reduced can fully understand the blessings of an 
 order of things which is unknown to them, or de- 
 vise adequate means for bettering their condition ? 
 Accordingly, they are passive. They submit to the 
 
43 
 
 ills they have, rather than run the risk of those they 
 know not of. But it would be absurd to suppose that 
 they are unwilling to receive better things, that they 
 would refuse instruction, or decline to be enlightened 
 as to their own value, and their own position. And it 
 is as much the duty of those who interest themselves in 
 the progress of civilization, and of human happiness, 
 to administer to these wants, though their full ex- 
 tent may not be known or felt, as it is their duty to 
 provide for those of the feeble or the helpless. 
 
 Sooner or later this improvement must take place 
 in Spain : that its progress may be difficult and 
 slow is probable ; but that its ultimate success 
 should be doubtful, none but those who are igno- 
 rant of Spanish history, for the last thirty years, 
 could suppose. From Spain, then, the country 
 most oppressed, and the lowest in the scale of the 
 despotically governed people of Europe, will spring 
 that general spirit of improvement, which even the 
 present generation may hope to see spreading over 
 Europe. The examples of England and France 
 have but little weight ; the prosperity and liberal in- 
 stitutions of England are almost traditionary in their 
 origin, and to imitate them is considered hopeless 
 — those of France took their bloody rise in scenes 
 too fresh in memory, and inspiring too just a horror, 
 not to be looked upon as a price too dear, even for 
 what they have contributed to produce. 
 
 But Spain is precisely in the position to attract 
 the attention of all that portion of Europe which is 
 
44 
 
 suffering from misgovernirient. She is in a position 
 analogous to such countries : if she can emerge 
 from her adverse circumstances, and shake off her 
 chains, and shew the world that she is free, an 
 awful warning will be given to despotic sovereigns ; 
 and they will either have seriously to set about the 
 work of reform, in order that it should not be un- 
 dertaken by other means, or they will, at all events, 
 have so much upon their hands at home, that the 
 field of their ambition will be infinitely narrowed; 
 external aggression will be little feared, and Europe 
 will be more than ever secure in the enjoyment of 
 the blessings of peace. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that these considerations 
 were not fully weighed by the British Government, 
 when it recommended to his Majesty at once to re- 
 cognize Isabella II. Independently of the better 
 right of the Queen, they must have well known that 
 if Don Carlos succeeded to the throne, the system of 
 Ferdinand would be improved upon — that political 
 and priestly experiments would be made, which 
 Ferdinand, in the plenitude of his power, was too 
 sagacious to attempt — that the Holy Alliance would 
 be all-powerful in the Peninsula ; and that Russia 
 would become as formidable to us at Lisbon, as at 
 Constantinople. The English Government must 
 have seen that the church party, which, in Spain 
 as elsewhere, is incapable of reading the signs of 
 the times, would seek to create a civil war, and 
 could count among its ranks all those lovers of abuse 
 
45 
 
 who^ having thriven and battened in corruption, 
 would dread the creation of a public opinion, and 
 the many reforms to which such opinion would give 
 rise. It was clear, therefore, that the Queen must 
 reckon for support upon the liberal party — that 
 some form of popular representation must be 
 adopted — and that, by degrees, a confederation of 
 constitutional governments in the West would be 
 formed, to make head against the despotic confede- 
 ration of the North and East of Europe : a common 
 interest would bind together England, Belgium, 
 France, Spain, and Portugal. A greater project 
 never was formed by statesmen ; and had the chances 
 against its success been ten times greater than they 
 were, it would have been worth the attempt. Under 
 a better system, our commercial relations with Spain 
 were likely to improve, and boundless means would 
 have been. afforded for profitably investing our sur- 
 plus capital, which of late years has sought employ- 
 ment in every description of wild and distant spe- 
 culation. In the event of a war, w T e should have 
 had in Spain an ally, whose friendly ports and geo- 
 graphical position might be to us of inestimable 
 value. Was the recognition, then, of the Queen, 
 we ask, a matter of doubtful policy ? were we, with 
 adverse interests to theirs, to have adopted the 
 course of the Holy Alliance? were we to have 
 waited till the contest had begun, in order to see 
 which side was the strongest ; or to abide its issue, 
 when our calculating selfishness would have com- 
 
46 
 
 manded neither respect nor gratitude from either 
 party ? Most unquestionably not ; and the King's 
 Government, in recognizing the Queen, pursued 
 the course most consistent with the dignity, and 
 with the interests of England. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to enter into the details of 
 the first six months of the war. It exhibited a suc- 
 cession of faults and mismanagement on the part of 
 the Queen's Government : the faction was too much 
 despised, and such means as were taken for its de- 
 struction were ill devised, and worse executed. 
 Don Carlos still hovered upon the frontier of Por- 
 tugal, fanning the hopes of the little party which 
 had reared its head in his favour, but not daring to 
 take part with his friends. He and Don Miguel 
 mutually relied upon each other, and in both coun- 
 tries kept alive the flame of civil discord. 
 
 The Quadruple Treaty was signed, and was at 
 once successful : the two Pretenders capitulated, 
 without firing another shot. What was then the 
 conduct of the British Government, and its agents 
 in Portugal? That which becomes England to- 
 wards fallen men. Don Miguel, at no small per- 
 sonal risk to the British officer who protected him, 
 was conducted on board the British ship which was 
 to bear him to the destination he himself had se- 
 lected. Don Carlos was found by the Secretary of 
 the English Legation, at Lisbon, in the most abject 
 state to which man can be reduced by fear. "Save 
 me from Rodil," was his only prayer, and his con- 
 
47 
 
 stant cry. He was saved from Rodil, by British 
 interference ; and he was conveyed, at his own re- 
 quest, to England, on board a man-of-war, with 
 his family, and sixty persons whom he designated 
 to form his suite. Nobly has he repaid our pro- 
 tection ! Well has the author of the Durango decree 
 deserved the life and liberty he owes to British ge- 
 nerosity ! 
 
 Had the war in the North been then conducted 
 with ordinary skill, it must have been terminated 
 in six weeks ; but Rodil did little more by his 
 operations than disgust his own troops, and orga- 
 nize those of the enemy, whom he taught confidence 
 in themselves. The same results, though with 
 variations in their causes, took place under his suc- 
 cessors, and at each succeeding failure public opi- 
 nion became irritated, and the Government became 
 weaker. The political state of Spain during the 
 last three years has been entirely regulated by the 
 events of the war ; every change of Government 
 has been occasioned by military failures ; the want 
 of success in the war has engendered the revolu- 
 tionary spirit of the liberal party, the secret socie- 
 ties, the popular tumults, and all the ills which 
 revolution is heir to. 
 
 The Estatuto Real more than satisfied public 
 expectation ; it was received with royal salutes and 
 every demonstration of joy and respect by Cata- 
 lonia and its Captain-General Llauder, the man 
 who, but a few months before, had overthrown the 
 
48 
 
 Government of Zea. The same took place in 
 every other part of the country. Military failures 
 forced the author of the Estatuto and his succes- 
 sors, each in their turn, to resign, and they will 
 continue, so long as they last, to overthrow minis- 
 tries and systems, one after the other. Disap- 
 pointment, fear, and anger were the consequences, 
 and these are malleable materials; upon these 
 the revolutionists worked, and with these they 
 created a spirit which did not previously exist, and 
 which no other concurrence of events could have 
 succeeded in producing. This spirit, far more than 
 their own cause, gave the Carlists strength, for it 
 produced disunion in the Queen's party; and thus 
 on both sides the Government of the day was 
 weakened. Intervention was asked for, not because 
 the means for putting down the war were exhausted, 
 but because those means had been misapplied, and 
 because it was not known how to do better ; and 
 the Government moreover absolutely required the 
 termination of the war in order to be strong enough 
 to extinguish political differences ; — a work which 
 they would almost have been spared the trouble of 
 executing the day that peace had been restored. 
 If Spain had asked of her allies a good general 
 instead of an army, it is possible that every object 
 might have been attained ; but intervention was re- 
 fused. England and France would not believe that, 
 with such abundant resources still at her command, 
 it was necessary for Spain to submit to the anti- 
 
49 
 
 national expedient of foreign bayonets, which it was 
 considered should be kept as a last resource. It is 
 possible that the British Government did consider, 
 as Lord Carnarvon says, that the interests of Eng- 
 land required, on our part, an active intervention 
 in the affairs of Spain; and if so, they thought 
 most rightly. But we would ask, if in the state of 
 parties in the two Houses of Parliament, it would 
 have been wise to moot the question even of the 
 expense of sending 10,000 men to Spain ? Was it 
 likely that it would have been carried ? and would 
 the Government have served the cause which thev 
 considered so important in an European as well as 
 in a British point of view, by going out upon the 
 question, and by allowing the Tories to come into 
 office pledged to a certain degree against the Queen 
 of Spain ? And yet the noble Lord says, then if 
 you were not active you should have been neuter. 
 Would this have been generous, or politic, or 
 rational ? Lord Carnarvon would have had us say 
 to our ally, — you are in distress — you are worse off 
 than you were when first we became your friends. 
 Therefore, we will not only not give you the assist- 
 ance you solicit, but we will turn our backs upon 
 you into the bargain. Would not every one who 
 had the feelings of an English gentleman, have 
 cried, shame upon such a course ? Would not the 
 Tories have joined in the cry, and turned the 
 degradation of the ministers into weapons against 
 them ? Would not the Holy Allies have triumphed 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 and exulted at what they would have considered 
 the result of their intrigues and menaces at that 
 time ? 
 
 The Juntas of 1835 were the consequence of non- 
 intervention,, and we may here remark, in passing, 
 that Lord Carnarvon's knowledge, or memory, or 
 candour, must have singularly forsaken him when 
 he asserts (p. 292.) that we supported the Juntas 
 of the provinces in which all the Jacobinism of 
 Spain was concentrated. It is notorious that M. 
 Mendizabal was appointed to a seat in the cabinet 
 voluntarily by the Queen Regent, at the suggestion 
 of her Prime Minister, and without any interference 
 on the part of England, some months before the 
 establishment of the Juntas. When he arrived the 
 country was in a complete state of confusion, the 
 authority of the Queen was nowhere acknowledged, 
 execration of Toreno was the universal cry, and 
 instead of M. Mendizabal being forced upon the 
 Queen by the insurrection of the Juntas, as Lord 
 Carnarvon says, her Majesty gladly availed herself 
 of his arrival, and of the prestige which he brought 
 with him, to appoint him her Prime Minister. In 
 moments of revolutionary crisis, popular feelings, 
 to be directed, must be attracted towards and con- 
 centrated in, either a name or a device. Of the 
 truth of this, Spain twice afforded a proof in 1835. 
 An obnoxious ministry and military failures caused 
 the name of Mendizabal to be the focus to which 
 the popular excitement was drawn ; in 1836 the 
 
51 
 
 same causes made the Constitution become the ral- 
 lying cry. In both instances the raging storm was 
 appeased, and angry passions in each case yielded 
 to the illusions of hope. Nor is this to be won- 
 dered at. The people sick of the war, and ex- 
 hausted by the sacrifices which its duration im- 
 posed upon them, sought extraordinary means for 
 extricating themselves from their suffering state ; 
 as a patient who has unsuccessfully submitted to 
 all the known rules of art, catches in despair at 
 any new remedy, with a hope of improvement, and 
 with a conviction that he cannot be worse. 
 
 To return, however, from this digression. Direct 
 intervention being refused, the Spanish Govern- 
 ment, in order to make up for the defects of the 
 national army, determined upon raising a corps of 
 foreign troops. In England this might have been 
 done without the express permission of the Go- 
 vernment. It is true that a law existed which would 
 have imposed difficulties in the way of such an 
 undertaking ; but it is idle to say that this law 
 could not have been evaded. With money every- 
 thing can be done, and at that time the Spanish 
 Government was in comparatively flourishing cir- 
 cumstances. The expedition of Don Pedro was 
 raised, equipped and embarked in England — almost 
 it may be said in defiance of the Government, hardly 
 with the necessary funds, and with little other sup- 
 port than the adventurous spirit which, at all 
 times, has distinguished our countrymen. The 
 
 e 2 
 
52 
 
 Government may check, but they cannot prevent 
 this, more than any other kind of smuggling. 
 Preventive laws never have and never will be 
 successful against the interests of those who are 
 determined to evade them. 
 
 The Government of Spain, however, chose the 
 more becoming course, and applied to our own for 
 permission to do according to law, that which they 
 might have effected clandestinely. They asked for 
 the suspension of the Foreign Enlistment Bill. 
 Upon what ground could the British Government 
 refuse this act of service to an ally ? The Foreign 
 Enlistment Act was passed for a particular purpose 
 to answer a political end. The motives which led 
 to it had long ceased to exist. Where was the ob- 
 jection to suspend its operations w T hen there was 
 every reason to believe that to do so would be useful 
 to the cause we wished well to, and when the effect 
 would be to prevent Englishmen from violating an 
 existing law ? 
 
 Can it with truth and fairness be said that any 
 motive of internal policy should have induced the 
 Government to forbid a certain number of young 
 men from seeking distinction and crosses, and from 
 going in a time of general tranquillity to learn the 
 art of war in a country where, from its nature, war 
 must be carried on in a manner which calls upon 
 the officer for the exertion of all his talents and 
 acquirements ? or why should a certain number of 
 unemployed persons, of the lower classes, have been 
 
53 
 
 prevented from gaining an honest livelihood for a 
 year or two, subject to military discipline ? On the 
 contrary, every argument, both foreign and do- 
 mestic, was in favour of the measure, and the fact 
 of a distinguished officer in the King's service 
 having volunteered to place himself at the head of 
 the expedition, was a matter of additional satis- 
 faction to the Government. But, we deny with all 
 the fervour of conviction, and all the right that 
 common sense and candid argument can confer, 
 that the suspension of the Enlistment Bill was in- 
 jurious either to the national honour, or to the 
 influence of England in Spain. We deny that the 
 Government " shifted the responsibility from their 
 own to other hands, and became unaccountable for 
 the consequences of their own acts ;" and we take 
 the words of Lord Carnarvon for the grounds of 
 this denial, " for how can a Government be con- 
 sidered answerable for the conduct of an army, or 
 the success of an expedition neither controlled by 
 the eye of the executive, nor supported by the re- 
 sources of the State?" — most unquestionably it 
 cannot, and no right therefore exists of holding the 
 Government to such a responsibility. Did the Go- 
 vernment take any part in the enlistment of the 
 Legion ? Did they then, or have they since, de- 
 voted any funds for its support ? did they either 
 within or without the walls of Parliament ever an- 
 nounce that the Legion was under the control of 
 the Government, or that they gave instructions to 
 
54 
 
 its commander, or that they were responsible for 
 his success or failure? What claim could they 
 have to authority or control ? Was the Legion 
 paid or fed or clothed by England ? In whose ser- 
 vice did its officers hold rank, and under whose 
 colours did they fight? Had they carried with 
 them the standard of England then indeed it might 
 have been said that they were British troops. But 
 they are to all intents and purposes Spanish 
 troops, and they are felt to be so in Spain both by 
 Christinos and Carlists. Our Government is no 
 more responsible for them than the French 
 Government is for the Legion of Algiers, which 
 went to Spain at the same time, and for the same 
 purposes as the British, with this difference how- 
 ever, that it was already in the service of Louis 
 Philippe, and was an integral part of the French 
 army. 
 
 But Lord Carnarvon says (p. 282), that " under 
 such an improvident system the national arms must 
 be exposed to defeat — an English officer is placed 
 under the immediate control of a foreign general." 
 Then is it not the height of absurdity to pretend that 
 a certain body of Englishmen, having voluntarily 
 consented to place themselves under the orders of a 
 Foreign General, the British Government must 
 be responsible for their acts, or that the national 
 honour should be committed by the acts of a fo- 
 reigner. That the English commander might be 
 exposed to have " his most strenuous exertions and 
 
55 
 
 best considered schemes thwarted by thejealousy 
 or defeated by the folly of his superior," was noto- 
 rious from all former experience. To what brutal 
 jealousies, to what unaccountable follies was not the 
 Duke of Wellington exposed ? Were his exertions 
 not thwarted ? Was he not met at every turn by the 
 jealousy of the Cortes, by the hatred of the Spanish 
 generals, and by the spiteful defection of those 
 upon whom for their own interests he had the best 
 right to reckon ? And did it not require all the 
 energy and strength of mind, as well as the consum- 
 mate skill of that extraordinary man, backed by all 
 the power of England, to overcome those tremendous 
 obstacles ? And yet Lord Carnarvon might with 
 just as much justice have said at that time as now, 
 " are these the influences by which a British army 
 should be surrounded?" " Is this a state to which 
 a British officer should be reduced ?" " Is this a 
 position in which the King and country should be 
 placed?" But if the Duke of Wellington, instead 
 of triumphing over every description of enemies 
 had met with reverses, and if those reverses had 
 been clearly deducible from the misconduct of those 
 who were nominally co-operating with him, we do 
 not believe that Lord Carnarvon would have thought 
 that the honour and influence of Great Britain had 
 been consigned to improper hands, or that the na- 
 tional honour had been placed " out of the pale of 
 constitutional law." These are the contingencies to 
 which war is subject, these are the contingencies and 
 
56 
 
 inconveniences of co-operation, they depend in a 
 great measure upon the individual character of men, 
 they can rarely be foreseen and still more rarely 
 provided against — like other accidents of life they 
 must be endured and made the best of. 
 
 His Majesty's Government then has only to an- 
 swer for that most defensible act of policy — the sus- 
 pension of the law which prohibits Englishmen from 
 volunteering to serve a friendly Power ; and if the 
 Act of Parliament had been repealed instead of sus- 
 pended, we should have been better pleased, and 
 should not have feared for the Government the 
 attacks of the Tories. At all events, in such a case, 
 one of the most distinguished Tory leaders would 
 have been forced to be dumb. The may-I-not-do- 
 what-I-will-with-my-own principle, is here most 
 undeniably applicable, and unless it was to be 
 theoretically argued as well as practically proved, 
 that there is one law for the rich and another for 
 the poor, the right which a Duke has over his house 
 and lands, may be claimed by his humbler country- 
 man in behalf of his own person, and in the selec- 
 tion of honest means for supporting his existence. 
 
 Upon the suspension of the Foreign Enlistment 
 Bill, the Government should take their stand, and 
 defy their opponents; there all connection and control 
 on their part over the Legion ceased. That they 
 wished the Legion success is most true, and where 
 is the British heart, not cankered by party spirit or 
 warped in favour of despotism and ignorance, that 
 
57 
 
 would not have taken a lively interest in a band of 
 adventurous Britons engaging in a cause so closely 
 connected with the political regeneration of Europe, 
 and of which the battle-field is a land endeared to us 
 by so many glorious associations ? 
 
 We confess that the manner in which Lord Car- 
 narvon has treated the question of the Durango 
 decree, has occasioned us equal pain and surprise. 
 His Lordship says, it is severe in principle and has 
 been severe in its operation (p. 286) ! Good God ! 
 is it possible that an English Nobleman of the most 
 unsullied honour and of a virtuous and amiable 
 character, should thus express himself upon the 
 wholesale cold- blooded butchery, not only of his 
 fellow-creatures, but of his fellow-countrymen. His 
 Lordship does not consider that circumstances 
 altogether " justified the amazement of the Govern- 
 ment" on hearing the execution of prisoners ; and 
 he even throws the shield of his approbation over 
 the bloody edict, by declaring his opinion that 
 Englishmen were excluded from the beneficial 
 operation of the Eliot Convention, by the spirit of 
 the agreement. It is with unaffected regret that 
 we see such workings of party spirit upon a mind 
 like Lord Carnarvon's. 
 
 " Protection," his Lordship says, "was pre-sup- 
 posed"' — most unquestionably it was. Why should 
 the British Government have imputed to Don Car- 
 los an intention of wholesale murder ? What mo- 
 tives had they for believing that a Christian prince, 
 
58 
 
 or that a civilized man should be guilty of an act 
 now rarely committed, even by savage tribes ? 
 What an insult it would have been to suppose that 
 a man who had the words of religion always flowing 
 from his mouth, should have a heart so black and 
 hardened, as deliberately to order prisoners to be 
 put to death in cold blood. The horrid practice 
 had been resorted to by the generals of both armies, 
 but upon their own responsibility ; no official sanction 
 had been ever given to it ; it had been looked upon 
 as a measure of necessity, and on both sides passed 
 over in silence by those whose position and power 
 might have enabled them to check the infernal 
 practice. But it was reserved for the Pretender to 
 the Throne of Catholic Majesty, deliberately to 
 place his royal signature to a decree which will 
 brand his name with infamy, and will trace his 
 character in lines of blood : and this after a conven- 
 tion signed by his own personal sanction and au- 
 thority, and by which this practice was formally 
 abandoned. Yet Don Carlos has kindly feelings and 
 some amiable qualities, but he has that which dooms 
 princes to be the curse of those whom ill fortune 
 places under their sway — he is to the most supreme 
 degree w T eak and fanatical. The decree of Durango, 
 for which he is morally responsible, is the work of 
 the blood-thirsty priests by whom he is despotically 
 governed, and in it we read the future history of 
 Spain should Don Carlos ever ascend the throne. 
 From the advisers of that edict would spring the 
 
59 
 
 re-establishment of the inquisition and the gallows 
 in every town, and the hand which was compelled 
 to sign the Durango decree would with equal sub- 
 mission issue warrants to the hangmen and orders 
 for autos de fe. 
 
 Yet Lord Carnarvon charges the Government 
 with inconsiderate haste in disbelieving the incredi- 
 ble decree of Don Carlos, and thinking that a man, 
 who but a few months before owed his life to English 
 generosity, could not have determined upon butcher- 
 ing Englishmen in return. The Government may 
 in this instance have thought too charitably of Don 
 Carlos — nobody will fall into that error again. 
 
 The arguments put forth by Lord Carnarvon in 
 defence of the edict, are as shallow as the tone he 
 adopts is extraordinary upon this sad subject. His 
 Lordship blames the government for the words in 
 which he supposes them to address Don Carlos. 
 " You shall extend to troops supplied with arms, 
 ammunition and equipments from the stores and 
 arsenals of a foreign country, in short, to a force in 
 all respects essentially foreign as to a part of the 
 Spanish army, that protection which in their natu- 
 ral character of British subjects they could have no 
 right to expect under the peculiar circumstances of 
 a war in which slaughter is the rule, and mercy the 
 exception." Now, on this we have to remark, that 
 before the Legion was raised, the Eliot Convention 
 had abolished this rule, and had established the 
 exception in its place ; but will any man assert, 
 
60 
 
 that British subjects, in their natural character, 
 have no right to expect mercy in war? If we had 
 declared war upon Don Carlos, and had sent troops 
 to Spain, would not British subjects have been then 
 in their natural character ? and does a British peer 
 proclaim his opinion that for that they are to be 
 shot like dogs ? But if their character was not 
 that of British subjects, it was that of Spanish sol- 
 diers, and as such, they were, by Lord Carnarvon's 
 own admission, entitled to the benefits of the treaty. 
 That their arms and ammunition came from a 
 foreign country cannot alter the question one iota, 
 for otherwise the argument would apply equally to 
 the Spanish soldiers who may have been equipped 
 from the stores of England under the Quadruple 
 Treaty, and would, on the other side, equally apply 
 to the Carlist troops, who are so plentifully fur- 
 nished with arms and munitions of war from 
 France, and thus the application of the Convention 
 would become impossible : but such an argument is 
 too puerile for serious refutation. It is not true, we 
 again repeat, that at the time the Legion left Eng- 
 land, slaughter was the rule and mercy was the 
 exception — the reverse was the case. The Eliot 
 treaty had brought about the blessed change, and 
 to the honour of both belligerents be it said, that 
 convention was religiously observed. It is true 
 that Zumalacarregui proposed that in case of the 
 extension of the civil war beyond the limits of 
 Navarre and the three provinces, the convention 
 
61 
 
 should have equal force in other parts of Spain. 
 It is equally true that the proposition was refused, 
 and with reference to the very motives which caused 
 the proposition to be made. There appeared at 
 that time not the smallest prospect of the war being 
 extended beyond the limits in which it was then 
 confined, but a formal admission of the probability 
 of such an extension, made by the governmeut of 
 the Queen in a solemn convention, would have 
 given prodigious moral force to the Carlists, and 
 would have equally dismayed the partizans of the 
 Queen. This was the- reason why the proposal 
 was made, and why it was refused. To have 
 agreed to it would have been at that time a suicidal 
 act on the part of the Spanish government. There 
 would have been no immediate benefits on the side 
 of mercy, but moral advantages would have been 
 given to the Carlists, of which they well knew the 
 value. Besides, within the limits to which the 
 treaty was confined, its operation was practicable. 
 Two armies were there in presence of each other, 
 engaged in almost daily combats, and every man 
 made prisoner in arms throughout the provinces, 
 was a bona fide belligerent. But who was to deter- 
 mine what was to constitute extension of the war to 
 other parts of Spain ? and how was it to be decided 
 when and in what manner the convention was to 
 become applicable in other provinces ? The mere 
 fact of such amplitude being given to it, would 
 have been sufficient to call into activity detached 
 
62 
 
 bands of " facciosos," who would reckon upon the 
 impunity which would thus have been stipulated 
 for their crimes : every robber upon the high road 
 would have taken a purse or cut a throat in the 
 name of Charles V., and if taken, would have ob- 
 tained protection under the treaty, and if the ordi- 
 nary law of the land had been carried into execu- 
 tion against them, some officer of the Queen's army 
 would have died in retaliation for the spilling of a 
 robber's blood. The operation of the treaty, then, 
 was necessarily confined to the armies carrying on 
 the war in Biscay and Navarre at that particular 
 time. " Los mismos esercitos actualmente beliger- 
 antes en las Provincias Vascongadas y en el Reino 
 de Navarra." But what does this mean ? the 
 identical men who composed those armies at that 
 particular moment, or the men who might from 
 time to time be serving in the armies acting in 
 that particular theatre of war? If the former, every 
 recruit who was received on either side after the 
 signature of the convention, was manifestly excluded 
 from its benefits, which is absurd. If the latter, 
 then the Legion, which was within the tract pre- 
 scribed, had every right, as part of one of the belli- 
 gerent armies, to be included both in the spirit and 
 letter of the treaty. To find it gravely asserted by 
 Lord Carnarvon that public opinion in Biscay was 
 sensibly alive to the distinction drawn by Don 
 Carlos, and that the Basques submitted to a de- 
 parture from their " old enactment ," which proclaims 
 
63 
 
 death against every invader of the soil (p. 287), can 
 only cause a smile on the part of all who are aware 
 how little those poor people knew or even thought 
 about the matter, and what were the motives, and 
 who the advisers, of Don Carlos to commit an act 
 which caused the British government most pro- 
 perly to send out instructions to exclude him from 
 the benefit of that " general protection which is 
 seldom refused to the basest felon, ,; (p. 344). 
 What the protection is which British men-of-war 
 and the British government are in the habit of 
 affording to felons, we really know not ; but we 
 imagine, that if any description of felony merits to 
 be excluded from British protection, it is that which 
 has been committed by the pretender to the crown 
 of Spain. Had Lord Carnarvon omitted his episode 
 upon the Durango decree, his general argument 
 would not have suffered — his impartiality would 
 have been less impeachable — and his patriotism 
 would have stood incomparably higher. 
 
 Far be it from the author of these remarks to 
 imitate this example of Lord Carnarvon, or to 
 speak of the murder of Cabrera's mother in terms 
 other than those of unmitigated disgust and horror. 
 It was a crime, and what has epigrammatically been 
 called worse than a crime — a fault ; in itself an act 
 of brutal ferocity, by its consequences it did incalcu- 
 lable prejudice to the cause which its perpetrators 
 pretended to serve. The ends of justice and humanity 
 undoubtedly required that those persons should have 
 
64 
 
 met with a punishment which to them would have 
 been more severe than that universal obloquy which 
 must ever attach to their names. But when Lord 
 Carnarvon asserts that the circumstances which 
 followed the murder of this unfortunate woman 
 prove the decline of British influence in Spain, 
 he asserts that with respect to which he proves 
 himself ignorant. 
 
 By the dispatches laid before Parliament we have 
 seen that immediately upon the intelligence of the 
 event reaching Madrid, the British minister, with- 
 out waiting for instructions from home, but on his 
 own responsibility, and in the name of his govern- 
 ment, addressed the Spanish ministers in becoming 
 language, and told them they must be considered 
 participators in the guilt if the perpetrators of the 
 crime w r ere not punished. The answer of the Spa- 
 nish government was such as might be expected. 
 No official details of the event were known at 
 Madrid — but the fact of Cabrera's mother having 
 been executed by Nogueras was notorious. No- 
 gueras was accordingly removed from his com- 
 mand and ordered to proceed to Valencia to be 
 tried for the offence, and the representations in his 
 favour from the province where he commanded, 
 and where his zeal and activity had made him the 
 terror of the insurgents, were not listened to, al- 
 though the government were without an officer of 
 equal ability to replace him. Thus far it seems, 
 that there was neither insult in offering, nor degra- 
 
65 
 
 dation in accepting this satisfaction. But a short 
 time elapsed before it became known that Mina 
 was the more guilty and responsible of the two. 
 The reprobation of his conduct was in like manner 
 insisted upon — the same willingness, but not the 
 same power existed in the Spanish government. 
 Mina had then lately arrived in Catalonia, but he 
 had already rendered important services both in 
 re-establishing tranquillity, and in dispersing the 
 Carlist hordes which had increased during the 
 reign of the Juntas. The province was in all the 
 excitement of hope, as to the benefits to be derived 
 from his government, and he himself was at the 
 zenith of popularity and power. Can it then be 
 wondered at that the Spanish government should 
 have felt a difficulty in disgracing a man who held 
 such a position, or that they should have frankly 
 declared that although the crime inspired them 
 w r ith horror, and though they were anxious for its 
 punishment, yet Mina was beyond their reach — 
 that if they attempted to dispossess him of his com- 
 mand, he would either himself not obey, or the 
 people would force him into open revolt. Thisw^as no 
 juggling excuse, but was known and admitted to be 
 valid by all who were acquainted with the state of 
 things at that time in Catalonia. It must be re- 
 marked too, that public opinion was by no means 
 strongly pronounced against the execution of Ca- 
 brera's mother. Unfortunately, in Spain such 
 events produce little of the horror which they else- 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 where inspire, and in this instance, and par- 
 ticularly in Catalonia, the act was considered one 
 of mere retaliation for the innumerable atrocities 
 committed by Cabrera, than whom a more fiendish 
 monster never drew the breath of life — who for the 
 last two years has wallowed in blood, who has 
 with his own hands dashed out the brains of his 
 captives, and whose boast it is, that mercy and 
 compunction are alike unknown to him, And yet 
 the acts of this monster are almost palliated by 
 Lord Carnarvon, whose virtuous indignation is 
 solely reserved for the partizans of the Queen ! 
 
 The public then was in favour of Mina, and the 
 Government dared not disgrace him ; but they ad- 
 dressed him in such terms upon his conduct, that 
 he sent in his resignation. The Government knew 
 that if they had accepted it, all Catalonia would 
 have risen against them ; and what means of re- 
 sistance had they, feeble, tottering, and surrounded 
 by difficulties as they were. Mina's resignation 
 was not accepted, the reasons were frankly laid be- 
 fore the British Parliament, and British influence 
 failed, not on account of its decline in Spain, but 
 because the authority, upon which alone it could be 
 brought to bear, was itself powerless. 
 
 It has been argued, and in happy civilized Eng- 
 land, men may have been disposed to think so, that 
 this was the moment for us to have withdrawn our 
 assistance, not only as a just chastisement of this sys- 
 tem of horrors, but in order that the faintest suspicion 
 
67 
 
 of having given them encouragement should not 
 be laid to our charge. But our own experience, 
 and the examples of history teach us that great 
 political objects, are not to be lightly abandoned 
 in resentment for the faults of those who may 
 be acting with us, and that we must not measure 
 the humanity and civilization of other nations by 
 the standard of our own. Would to God that this 
 were otherwise, but we must take and deal with 
 mankind as we find them. 
 
 What in fact can abstractedly be more repugnant 
 to the feelings of the christian and philosopher, than 
 the practice of war, or that one nation should spill 
 its blood and exhaust its resources against another, 
 for some object which, if attained, is often unworthy 
 of the sacrifices it has occasioned. Yet society sets 
 aside the remonstrances of both the christian and 
 the philosopher, and reckons those pages of history 
 most glorious which tell the most of deeds of arms, 
 and of blood. 
 
 Such cruelties as are perpetrating now in Spain, 
 are abhorrent to British natures, but are we ac- 
 quainted with them now for the first time ? Du- 
 ring the Peninsular war, what was the universal 
 system of our allies from one end of the country 
 to the other, but one of unmitigated cruelty? 
 Was not the assassination of every straggling 
 Frenchman that could be met with, a matter of 
 individual boast to the Spaniard who had slain 
 him ? Were not prisoners of war, even after capitu- 
 
 f 2 
 
68 
 
 lation, butchered without mercy by the guerillas ? 
 Were not convoys of wounded, of women and chil- 
 dren, waylaid and massacred ? Was not hospitality 
 frequently offered, in order to allure the unwary 
 victim to his doom ? Were not French soldiers 
 roasted alive by the Spanish peasantry ? Did not 
 in short a system prevail, at which the heart 
 sickens, and which memory shrinks from recording? 
 and where at that time was " the influence of Eng- 
 land," which was to prevent such dreadful things? 
 Did the General who commanded the British 
 army refuse to co-operate with the Spanish troops 
 on this account ? Did the Minister who then con- 
 ducted the affairs of the country, on that account 
 withdraw the British army from Spain. Did they 
 say to the Spanish government in the language of 
 Lord Carnarvon : — " We will not disgrace ourselves 
 by becoming accomplices in your acts of massacre, 
 nor will we assist you to disgrace yourselves. We 
 will not brutalize our troops by familiarity, not with 
 war, but with murder. The treaty binds us to furnish 
 you with arms for the prosecution of legitimate 
 war, not for the execrable purposes to which you 
 have applied them. You shall have no stores from 
 our arsenals — vou shall have no men from our 
 islands, until you have adopted the usages of civi- 
 lized nations, and have abandoned practices 
 shameful to the country which acknowledges you, 
 and to the age in which we live." 
 
 Such language would have found little echo at 
 
69 
 
 home, and it would have very much rejoiced our 
 enemies abroad; and the British Government of that 
 day saw ample reason for not employing it. The 
 present advisers of his Majesty have, probably, 
 upon similar grounds, pursued a similar course. 
 
 We come now to the second of the two proofs 
 put forward by Lord Carnarvon, as evidence of the 
 utter failure of British influence at Madrid. The 
 case, namely, of Mr. Honan. Mr. Honan was, we 
 believe, for nearly two years the correspondent of 
 the Morning Herald at Madrid, where he was noted 
 for his Carlist predilections, and the marvellous 
 difference which existed between facts as they oc- 
 curred and as they appeared in his printed corres- 
 pondence. This excited but little attention, either 
 on the part of the Government or of the public. 
 He was looked upon as one of the herd of misre- 
 porters of passing events in Spain, and as merely 
 engaged in the exercise of his calling. " He warned 
 his countrymen against speculating in Spanish 
 funds ;" and who would not have done so, indepen- 
 dently of any desire to disserve the cause of the 
 Queen ? Who would not have dissuaded English- 
 men from staking their capital on the contingen- 
 cies of a civil war, and on the results of a disputed 
 succession ? But if Mr. Honan assumes that he 
 was sent away from Madrid, or singled out from 
 among his fellow-labourers as a victim for oppres- 
 sion, it can only be in order to give to himself and 
 his writings an importance in England which as- 
 suredly they never had in Spain. 
 
70 
 
 We shall state that which is known in London 
 from having been notorious in Madrid, and which 
 we have reason to believe Mr. Honan will not find 
 it easy to contradict. 
 
 In the summer of 1835, Mr. Honan left Madrid, 
 having been appointed representative of the Morn- 
 ing Herald at the Congress of Sovereigns at 
 Tceplitz. His dispatches from that place were 
 published, and though they certainly had more refer- 
 ence to the crowded state of the inns, and to the 
 costumes of the visitors, than to the political ob- 
 jects for which so many great people had met to- 
 gether; yet we doubt not that Mr. Honan ful- 
 filled his mission to the satisfaction of his superiors. 
 He was then hurried off to another post, the court 
 of Onate, from which he gave the British public 
 the benefit of his observations, and of certain pro- 
 phecies, the fulfilment of which is yet in the womb 
 of time. In this instance he dropped the anony- 
 mous character he had adopted at Tceplitz, and his dis- 
 patches from Biscay were signed with all his names. 
 
 Having established the necessary relations, and 
 done all that he intended in the insurgent pro- 
 vinces, he was then re-appointed to Madrid. After 
 some delay, he proceeded to his post by the way of 
 Barcelona, and by roads (if we are rightly in- 
 formed) by which none but a Carlist traveller 
 could have passed. At Barcelona, the police re- 
 fused to endorse his passport for the capital, in con- 
 sequence of orders which they had received from 
 thence. Mr. Honan took no warning from this 
 
71 
 
 pretty intelligible hint, but returned to France, and, 
 by the way of Oleron, came to Madrid, to the no 
 small surprise of his old friends, as they all gave 
 him to understand. He called upon the British 
 Minister, in order to give the explanations which 
 he himself felt to be necessary. He is said to have 
 stated that he had returned to Madrid against his will, 
 and in spite of his having represented to the pro- 
 prietors of his paper the personal danger he should 
 incur, and the political impropriety he should com- 
 mit by going to Madrid in a moment of great po- 
 pular excitement, and when his opinions and his 
 correspondence from the Basque Provinces were 
 publicly known. But the answer to these appeals 
 being, that if he did not immediately obey, he 
 should lose his employment, Mr. Honan no longer 
 hesitated — that is, he undertook to do what he be- 
 lieved would be dangerous to himself, and what he 
 felt the Spanish Government ought not to permit. 
 The Spanish Government had proved that they 
 were of the same opinion when they refused to 
 allow him to proceed from Barcelona to Madrid. 
 
 Mr. Villiers, we have heard, frankly told Mr. 
 Honan that, under all the circumstances connected 
 with his journey to Madrid, he could only look 
 upon him as a Carlist agent, and that he, accord- 
 ingly, should not allow him the privilege of for- 
 warding his correspondence to England by the 
 courier of the mission. Mr. Honan had not been 
 many hours at Madrid before the Prime Minister 
 
72 
 
 informed Mr. Villiers that the civil Governor of 
 Madrid had reported to the Government that Mr. 
 Honan 's arrival had produced great excitement — 
 that he was generally believed to be an emissary 
 from the Pretender, and that in the event of any 
 tumult his life would be in danger. Under these 
 circumstances, and to prevent a disaster from which 
 the utmost vigilance of the authorities might have 
 failed to protect Mr. Honan, the Minister said that 
 the Government proposed to send him away by 
 Cadiz, or by the frontier of Portugal. It is ob- 
 vious that Mr. Villiers could not contest the right 
 of the Government, but he is known to have sti- 
 pulated that Mr. Honan should be allowed to take 
 his own time for departure, and to choose his own 
 road, which was readily assented to by the Spanish 
 Government. Mr. Villiers communicated this to 
 Mr. Honan, who replied, that he should only leave 
 Madrid if compelled by force to do so. Whether it 
 was owing to the press of more important business, 
 or to that spirit of delay which is inseparable from 
 Spaniards, we know not ; but some six or seven- 
 and-twenty days elapsed without any notice being 
 taken of Mr. Honan, when he was suddenly waited 
 upon by an officer of the police, and conveyed to 
 the frontier. 
 
 These, we believe, are the precise circumstances 
 of the case, detailed perhaps at tedious length ; 
 but the misstatements put forth by the press upon 
 the subject not having been answered, it becomes 
 
73 
 
 necessary to take some notice of them when they 
 find their way into a work of which Lord Carnar- 
 von is the author. 
 
 Now, with entire confidence as to the result, we 
 appeal to the candour of the Noble Lord whether 
 this was a case for the legitimate use of British in- 
 fluence. Could a British minister, remembering 
 our own alien laws, and the arbitrary and often 
 harsh manner in which they were executed during 
 the war, could a British minister claim any right 
 to prevent the Spanish Government from taking a 
 measure with respect to a foreigner which they 
 considered indispensable for state purposes, both as 
 regarded the probable calling of the individual in 
 question, and the consequences, political and per- 
 sonal, which were to be apprehended from his 
 longer continuance at Madrid ? Would a British 
 minister have been justified in demanding from the 
 Spanish Government that which he knew mutatis 
 mutandis would have been refused by his own ? If 
 he had the power to enforce compliance with such 
 a demand would it not have been ungenerous so to 
 have employed that power ? Would it have been 
 consistent with that aid and support which it was 
 his duty to afford to the Government of the Queen? 
 Could Mr. Villiers have denied that he entertained 
 the same opinion as the Spanish Government of 
 Mr. Honan ? With what justice then could he 
 have thrown over that gentleman the shield of offi- 
 cial protection, and w T hat would be the limit of 
 
74 
 
 such protection towards British subjects under si- 
 milar circumstances, if an individual doing delibe- 
 rately that of which he himself had admitted the 
 impropriety, were to be thus held harmless? 
 
 We will put an analogous case. Suppose that in 
 the year 1745, a Spaniard who had long been resi- 
 dent in London, and had been marked out by his 
 enmity to the House of Hanover, had thought fit to 
 join the Pretender in the Highlands of Scotland, 
 and from thence to write letters signed with his 
 name, calling Charles Edward king, and assuring 
 the world that His Majesty was beloved by his 
 people, and would shortly occupy the throne of 
 England ; and suppose that this foreigner had re- 
 turned from the Highlands to London, under cir- 
 cumstances of great suspicion, and had declared 
 that nothing but force should divert him from the 
 purpose for which he came — We ask what would 
 have been the conduct of the Government upon 
 that occasion ? Would they have given him the 
 choice of Dover or Falmouth for leaving the king- 
 dom, or would they have sent him upon a much 
 longer and less optional journey ? And what would 
 have been said of and to the Spanish Ambassador, if 
 he had insisted upon his countryman's right to re- 
 main in London ? 
 
 Enough, however, of Mr. Honan ; but we must 
 add one word upon the decline of English influence 
 in Spain, with which subject that gentleman's 
 name has been so strangely connected : and we re- 
 
75 
 
 gret that Lord Carnarvon should have made such a 
 statement without due inquiry. If he had taken 
 that trouble he would have learned that which 
 we doubt not must give him sincere pleasure, 
 namely, that English influence never was greater, 
 and never was more productive of benefits to Eng- 
 lish interests than it has been during the last three 
 years. The Noble Lord may or may not know 
 that since the year 1817 every succeeding Govern- 
 ment of England has remonstrated in vain against 
 the flagrant infractions by Spain of the treaty for 
 the suppression of the Slave Trade — that those re- 
 monstrances were treated with neglect and con- 
 tempt, and that the horrible traffic was never more 
 protected by the Spanish authorities, or carried on 
 with greater facility than at the time of Ferdinand's 
 demise. But in 1835 this abuse received its death- 
 blow, by the signature of a treaty with England — 
 the desireableness of which from its stipulations, and 
 the hopelessness of obtaining it, had equally been ac- 
 knowledged for many years. By this treaty the 
 connivance of Spanish authorities in the Havannah 
 and other places is checked, and the prevention of 
 the Spanish slave-trade is placed wholly within the 
 means of England. The Negro race may indeed 
 bless the influence of Great Britain in Spain. 
 
 The British Mission at Madrid had during many 
 years been unceasingly but unavailingly occupied 
 in remonstrating against the piratical acts of the 
 Coast Guard cruisers upon British merchant-ves- 
 
7(i 
 
 sels ; the remonstrances were seldom attended to, 
 and redress was never obtained. But the seizure 
 of a British vessel by a Guarda Costa has, during 
 the last two years, been as unusual as it was for- 
 merly of frequent occurrence. 
 
 Our countrymen in Spain had for years been 
 exposed to the payment of extraordinary taxes, in 
 violation of existing treaties; an abuse for which 
 no redress could be obtained. To what extent 
 British influence has been successful in getting rid 
 of this grievance is sufficiently shewn by the letter 
 to Mr. Villiers lately published in the Morning 
 Chronicle, from the British merchants at Cadiz, 
 (and by similar ones from the merchants of Malaga, 
 Valencia, Alicante, and Tarragona,) thanking him 
 for his exertions in preventing them from being 
 compelled to contribute to a forced loan, and as- 
 suring him that they have "on numerous occasions" 
 experienced the good effects of his advocacy of the 
 rights of British subjects.* These and many other 
 facts which might be named would, we suspect, be 
 looked upon by all those knowing any thing about 
 Spain, or really caring for British interests in that 
 country, as more than a set-off* for the retention of 
 General Mina, or the removal of Mr. Honan. 
 
 Again, can it be supposed that during the last 
 twelvemonth British influence has been idle or in- 
 effective with regard to the recognition by Spain 
 
 * See Morning Chronicle, Jan. 4. 
 
77 
 
 of the independence of the American States, that 
 all-important question which has now been so hap- 
 pily terminated ? 
 
 In fine, we can assure his Lordship, that if he 
 were now to travel through nine-tenths of the pro- 
 vinces of Spain he would speedily discover the ad- 
 vantages of being an Englishman ; whether in con- 
 sequence of, or in spite of, the part our Government 
 has taken in Spanish affairs, we leave our impartial 
 readers to decide. In the midst of universal disor- 
 der the character of a British subject would be unto 
 him as a talisman, and he would every where find 
 himself revered and protected. Ill treatment he 
 might doubtless meet with from detached bands of 
 Carlists — but an Austrian or a Russian, notwith- 
 standing the assurances they might give of the 
 neutrality of their Government, would be left just 
 as naked and pennyless by the wayside as Lord 
 Carnarvon may have ever been ; and it is well 
 known at Madrid, that whenever a Spaniard desires 
 to travel in his own country with peculiar security, 
 his first wish is to endeavour to provide himself 
 with a passport from the British Minister. 
 
 We are quite sure that if it had occurred to Lord 
 Carnarvon to make enquiry upon those matters of 
 public notoriety, he would have abstained from de- 
 claring that our influence has utterly declined at 
 Madrid, and that we are "hopelessly compromised 1 ' 
 with the mass of the Spanish nation. 
 
 As regards the church, we are far from asserting 
 
78 
 
 that the best system has been pursued, or that it 
 has been carried into effect in the best manner, but 
 the position of the government was one of extreme 
 difficulty upon this subject, in consequence of the 
 conduct of the church itself. The original inten- 
 tions of the government were most clearly set forth 
 in the manifesto of the Queen Regent; and the 
 Pope's Nuncio in Spain, with a clear perception of 
 the interests of Rome, urged the Pope immediately 
 to recognize the Queen. His Holiness would, in 
 all probability, have done so had he been a free 
 agent ; but he dared not disobey the mandates of 
 Austria. He accordingly refused to invest the 
 Nuncio with the political attributes of Ambassador, 
 but directed him to claim the exercise of his spi- 
 ritual functions. 
 
 To this degradation the Queen's government most 
 properly refused to submit. They said, we will not 
 have at Madrid an emissary from the Pope in an un- 
 usual and anomalous character, which will at once 
 announce that our sovereign does not, according to 
 the See of Rome, lawfully occupy the throne; and 
 at the same time assert his spiritual supremacy, 
 which would be a cloak for propagating his political 
 opinions among the clergy of Spain. 
 
 The Nuncio was, therefore, not recognised ; but 
 the opinion of the Pope had naturally great weight 
 with the clergy, who considered that in espousing 
 the Pretender's cause, they should best serve Rome 
 and themselves. Had they not pursued this course 
 
79 
 
 of hostility to the Queen they never would have 
 been molested by the Government, who had the 
 most decided interest in conciliating them. 
 
 These observations, however, apply less to the 
 secular clergy, who, as a body, were far from imi- 
 tating the example of the Pope. Among them are 
 numbered many friends of moderate liberal insti- 
 tutions, and some of the most decided and vigorous 
 supporters of the present order of things. Many 
 of this, in Spain, useful and exemplary class have 
 considered it their duty to abstain from mixing in 
 political discussions, and have continued to disr 
 charge their sacred functions without reference to 
 the state of parties, and ignorant who was either 
 minister or king. A large portion, however, of the 
 secular clergy in Spain we believe to be friendly to 
 Don Carlos, and, generally speaking, they have 
 not fared worse than other classes from the vicissi- 
 tudes of civil war. 
 
 But as to the whole of the regular clergy, there 
 never has been a question. In the accession of the 
 Queen they foresaw their own doom : in the success 
 of Don Carlos, their security, and what is more, a 
 continuance of that power and dominion which they 
 have so long exercised in the Peninsula. 
 
 The Spanish monk is generally an illiberal and 
 most illiterate person, of coarse manners, and not of 
 a moral life, but he is well versed in low intrigues, 
 in the management of the ignorant peasants about 
 his convent, and in the conduct of most worldly 
 
80 
 
 interests: cunning, patient, persevering, bigoted, 
 accessible to all and having access to every body — 
 and by means of the confessional, of spies, of gos- 
 sip, and by perpetually mixing himself up with the 
 family affairs of his neighbour, he becomes most 
 thoroughly well informed of what is going on. To 
 these qualities another and most essential one is to 
 be added — faith in the cause. There is not a monk 
 in Spain who had not, from the first moment, the 
 most perfect confidence in the success of " The 
 King his Senor, " and who has not been in some 
 way or other employed in endeavouring to effect it. 
 An army of such men, in a country like Spain, 
 is sufficient to overturn an empire. The Govern- 
 ment did not " alienate" them, as Lord Carnarvon 
 (p. 316) would have us to believe — but they bore 
 with them for nearly two years, in spite of the as- 
 sistance to Don Carlos and the protection to his 
 partizans which they gave, and neither of which 
 they were ever at much pains to disguise. Without 
 admitting a tithe of the advantages attributed by 
 Lord Carnarvon (pp. 316 and 317) to the convents, 
 we do see cause to regret their abolition ; but the 
 Government were compelled, by a feeling of self- 
 preservation, to resort to the measure, not being 
 very well able to do away with the monks without 
 abolishing the convents. In some instances it has 
 been carried into effect with harshness — and the 
 property has in general been turned to bad account; 
 but the people have looked calmly on at the work 
 
81 
 
 of abolition, and no popular commotion in favour of 
 the monks has ever taken place, though it would 
 often have been practicable if the disposition had 
 existed. We believe, moreover, that Don Carlos 
 would now find it no easy task to re-establish the 
 convents, or rather, to re-establish their senorial 
 rights and tithes and dues. 
 
 With the same apathy have the people beheld 
 the removal of the bells and precious objects from 
 their churches ; and we are inclined to wish that 
 such measures of the Government had met with 
 resistance, for this apathy is a mark of the decline 
 of religious feeling, which we consider the most, 
 we would perhaps say the only, alarming feature in 
 the futurity of Spain ; for we fear it cannot be de- 
 nied that although the outward show has been sus- 
 tained, the really religious feelings which used to 
 distinguish the Spanish nation have for years past 
 been wearing away. 
 
 We come now, with Lord Carnarvon, to review 
 the conduct of the Spanish Government, and the 
 principles upon which the civil war has been con- 
 ducted, and we do so in no spirit of partizanship, 
 T>ut solely animated with a desire that the truth 
 on both sides should be known —that nothing should 
 be extenuated, but naught set down in malice. 
 
 We commence by observing that Lord Carnarvo 
 is incorrect when he states that the formation of 
 the first powerful guerrilla in the Carlist inte est 
 was principally produced by the execution of 
 
82 
 
 Santos Ladron, "in direct breach of a promise 
 given to the inhabitants of Pampeluna that his life 
 would be respected." Santos Ladron commanded 
 a corps of 800 men, which he organized immedi- 
 ately upon the King's death ; he was routed by the 
 Queen's troops, and he himself, a rebel leader 
 taken in arms against his Sovereign, was ordered to 
 be shot. The execution was deferred upon his 
 declaring that he had some important communica- 
 tions to make, and he was carried to Pampeluna, 
 but no promise that his life should be spared was 
 ever given to the people of that place, who, on the 
 contrary, clamoured loudly for his blood ; and the 
 commanding officers of the garrison informed the 
 Captain General that if he assumed the right 
 which he did not possess, of delaying the execution 
 of Santos Ladron, they would not answer for the 
 subordination of their troops or for the tranquillity 
 of the town. No government would have hesi- 
 tated to execute a rebel under such circumstances, 
 but so far from taking other measures of severity, 
 the government of the Queen proclaimed an am- 
 nesty to all those who would lay down their arms 
 and apply for pardon within a certain time. In 
 December 1833, this time was extended to twenty 
 days, and the clergy throughout the kingdom were 
 required to exhort their flocks to loyalty and sub- 
 mission. This system was repeatedly tried, and 
 always resorted to by every General of the Queen 
 upon assuming the command of the army, but 
 
83 
 
 without effect ; the insurgents rarely presented 
 themselves to claim the Queen's pardon, and those 
 who did, never failed after a short time to return to 
 their former companions. 
 
 The war, like every thing in Spain which in- 
 volves strife, was carried on savagely, but the feel- 
 ings on both sides did not reach to exasperation 
 until after the season of lent in 1835, when the 
 priests every where, but particularly in the northern 
 provinces, taking advantage of the people coming 
 to confession, stimulated the spirit of disaffection. 
 In the month of March in that year, a party of one 
 hundred and sixteen Christinos surrendered to nine 
 hundred insurgents upon promise of quarter. 
 They were, however, stripped entirely naked, and 
 after having been marched eight leagues in that 
 condition, the whole of them were butchered. The 
 war from that time bore a character of ferocious 
 exasperation which it had not till then assumed. 
 Commanding officers appeared to vie with each 
 other in inventing decrees of severity. The coun- 
 try was desolated by exactions; no quarter was 
 given in the field ; and the rural population being 
 hostile to the Queen's troops, the insurgents had 
 the most frequent opportunities of making repri- 
 sals and of exercising cruelty. Decrees of death 
 were issued by the Carlists against every postmaster 
 who should furnish horses to travellers or couriers, 
 and the same fate awaited all fathers of families 
 who did not present at the head-quarters of the 
 
 g2 
 
84 
 
 Carlist General, such of their sons as were capable 
 of bearing arms. 
 
 We have said that the war soon bore the charac- 
 ter of exasperation, but the sanguinary passions 
 and deadly thirst for revenge which are inherent in 
 Spanish blood, rendered it one of extermination on 
 both sides. To control the blind fury of the troops 
 was equally out of the power of the respective 
 commanders, for he who had first cried, Hold 
 enough, would probably have been branded as a 
 traitor and have fallen a victim to his own humanity. 
 The commanders on both sides were equally to 
 blame, and both sides had the same sad excuse ; 
 but the Carlists had for the reasons above stated, 
 more frequent opportunities of wreaking their ven- 
 geance upon their enemies than the Christinos, and 
 those opportunities were never allowed to escape. 
 
 Upon one occasion the march of Zumalacarregui 
 was impeded by a large number of prisoners he 
 carried with him, and he ordered them all to be 
 shot. It was represented to him that the report of 
 the musketry might indicate the position of the 
 Carlists to the enemy. Then let them be bayonetted, 
 was the reply of this "extraordinary man, who," 
 according to Lord Carnarvon, " combined with great 
 military talents some of the most chivalrous and 
 winning qualities of our nature;" and bayonetted 
 the unfortunate wretches were. This "winning" 
 anecdote is admitted by Mr. Henningsen, the en- 
 thusiastic panegyrist of the Carlist Chief, and from 
 
85 
 
 it we may form some estimate of what the " chi- 
 valrous" nature of Zumalacarregui must have 
 been. His great military talents were much 
 upon a par with his mildness. He was a man 
 well fitted for command in the Basque Pro- 
 vinces, where the nature of the country, the spirit 
 of the population, and the mode of warfare, gave 
 him immense advantages; but that does not ne- 
 cessarily imply great military talents, as is 
 proved by the fact that ex -Lieutenants of the 
 Royal Guards, priests, and peasants have risen 
 to high command in the Carlist army, not from 
 their talents, but from the extreme facility of being 
 successful in the sort of warfare carried on in that 
 mountainous country. A governor of Gibraltar 
 with a well disciplined garrison and an ample sup- 
 ply of provisions, might defend that fortress for an 
 unlimited time against any force that might be 
 brought against it ; and he would have the credit 
 of bravery and perseverance, and of making the 
 proper use of the means at his disposal; but it 
 would not necessarily follow that he had great mili- 
 tary talents, or that he might not be inferior in that 
 respect to the commander of the troops he had been 
 able from his fortress to despise. 
 
 Zumalacarregui was during many years the Colo- 
 nel of a Spanish regiment of the line, in which 
 capacity he had only made himself remarkable for 
 the extreme severity of the discipline which he 
 maintained. Having been maltreated by Quesada, 
 
86 
 
 he deserted from the Queen's ranks and joined the 
 standard of Don Carlos. In the Basque Provinces 
 his talents for organization rendered him eminently 
 useful to the cause which he had espoused ; the obe- 
 dient spirit of the natives made it easy for him to 
 enforce his principles of discipline, and he was 
 soon enabled to embody the peasantry and to fit 
 them for the guerrilla system of warfare which he 
 proposed to pursue. In this system, and in the 
 means for carrying it into effect, he followed in all its 
 details the system of Mina during the Peninsular 
 War — that, namely, of waiting for advantageous op- 
 portunities to attack detached corps, of cutting off 
 supplies, interrupting communications, harassing 
 the enemy, and exhausting his resources, by the 
 many different methods which are practicable in a 
 mountainous country and with a friendly popula- 
 tion. This was the only system which offered to 
 him a chance of success, and he knew his own coun- 
 trymen sufficiently well to foresee the weakness 
 which disunion would produce among the partizans 
 of the Queen, if he could only contrive to protract 
 the war. Without any wish to detract from the 
 merit or to disparage the talent of Zumalacarregui 
 we affirm, first, that with greater means at his com- 
 mand than Mina possessed, he did not carry the 
 system of Mina into effect as completely as Mina 
 himself had done ; and next, that any man with 
 firmness of character and with a fixed resolution 
 not to depart from the plan he had laid down, 
 
87 
 
 would have been able to produce the same results 
 as Zumalacarregui and by the same means, for 
 these means are absolutely pointed out by the nature 
 of the country and the habits of the people. None 
 other could be resorted to, for none other would 
 have a chance of success, and the proof of this is 
 to be seen in the fact that every successor of 
 Zumalacarregui has followed in his steps, and the 
 interests of Don Carlos in as far as they are con- 
 nected with the war, suffered nothing by the death 
 of that chief. 
 
 So far from the " winning" and " chival- 
 rous " character of Zumalacarregui having dis- 
 played itself in the insurgent provinces, it is no- 
 torious to all who know anything about the war, that 
 he was distinguished for his despotic severity 
 towards his soldiers, for cruelty often wanton and 
 uncalled for towards the people, and by the most 
 profound and undisguised contempt for his Prince. 
 Don Carlos seldom was made acquainted with the 
 direction in which he was to move, until he learned 
 it by Zumalacarregui's order of the day. In nu- 
 merous intercepted dispatches of this chief to his 
 officers, directions have been found to convey the 
 King and the baggage to such and such a place ; to 
 take no notice of such and such orders given by the 
 King ; to move in certain directions notwithstanding 
 the orders of the King to the contrary, Sfc. fyc. It is 
 hardly necessary to add, that Zumalacarregui was 
 never disobeyed. Upon one occasion he broke up 
 Don Carlos's levee and took away all his officers, 
 
88 
 
 saying he shoq^d not waste his time upon such 
 masquerades, and he never missed an opportunity of 
 bringing his Prince into contempt, which, whether 
 it may satisfy or not Lord Carnarvon's notions of 
 " chivalry," is exceedingly inconsistent with the 
 old Castillian interpretation of that word. 
 
 We have no means of ascertaining whether the 
 cause to which Zumalacarregui's death is ascribed, 
 was the real one or not, but we believe that an 
 English surgeon who visited him in his expiring 
 moments was of opinion that he did not die of his 
 wound ; and it is said that the surgeons who at- 
 tended him absolutely refused to allow his body to 
 be opened.* Certain it is, that the news of his death 
 was received with joy at the Court of Onate, and 
 Don Carlos was congratulated by his courtiers upon 
 being emancipated from the brutal despotism of his 
 General. It is, moreover, quite true that the whole 
 population of the provinces, whether in imitation of 
 the " winning" and " chivalrous" manners of 
 Zumalacarregui, or in pursuance of what their own 
 feelings dictated, have entirely participated in the 
 sentiments of the General towards Don Carlos. 
 The absence of personal courage, and of all power 
 to assert his authority, which distinguish Don Car- 
 los, his general nullity in short, have caused him 
 to be looked upon with indifference by some and 
 with contempt by the major part of the brave and 
 hardy peasantry who have been bidden by their 
 
 * Mr. Henningsen's language clearly implies his belief that he 
 was poisoned. 
 
89 
 
 priests and their chiefs to raise his standard. Don 
 Carlos himself has frequently complained of the 
 disastrous plight in which he has placed himself by 
 returning to Spain, and has bitterly reproached 
 those at whose advice and entreaty he was induced 
 to come. He was rarely allowed to approach the 
 coast, and Zumalacarregui always kept a trusty 
 guard about his person, with orders narrowly to 
 watch that he did not escape. 
 
 We believe the first female who was murdered in 
 this horrible war was put to death by the Carlists. 
 In May 1834, a young woman, 22 years old, was 
 suspected of having given information to some 
 Christinos, and she was ordered by Zumalacarregui 
 to be shot, together with a child of fourteen. The 
 custom of punishing women for political offences, 
 or of visiting upon them the sins of their relations, 
 is to the disgrace of Spaniards no novelty in Spain, 
 where, when political fury is excited, the weakness 
 of woman obtains for her neither compassion nor 
 respect. The too famous murder of Donna Mariana 
 Pineda, perpetrated at Granada, under the ministry 
 of Calomarde, is one among many instances of the 
 bloody zeal with which Spaniards seek to support 
 the cause they espouse. Donna Mariana was a 
 young and beautiful widow, of a highly respectable 
 family, and the mother of two children ; but for her 
 misfortune, some of her friends entertained, or were 
 suspected of entertaining liberal opinions. In an evil 
 hour she commissioned two embroiderers to make a 
 flag, having upon it the words — Liberty— Law — 
 
90 
 
 Equality ; but she subsequently forbade the execu- 
 tion of her commission. The police, however, 
 learned the circumstance, and having commu- 
 nicated it to the Government, they received instruc- 
 tions to entrap the individual from whom the order 
 for embroidering the flag had proceeded. The 
 police, by threats and bribes, induced the embroi- 
 derers to take home their unfinished work to the 
 house of Donna Mariana. The bearer of it was 
 followed by Alguacils and Escribanos, who on 
 searching the house of course found in it that which 
 they had just caused to be deposited there. For 
 this, or rather for her supposed sympathy with 
 liberals, was Donna Mariana Pineda condemned to 
 death, and publicly gibbeted at Granada, to the 
 horror of the whole town, and to the eternal dis- 
 grace of the Government of Ferdinand, and of that 
 party whose mild and paternal sway the Tories of 
 England desire to re-establish in Spain. 
 
 The treatment of women by Carlists, and more 
 particularly during the command of Zumalacarregui, 
 was revolting to human nature. During the early 
 period of the war, when the Carlists took possession 
 of, or even passed through a town, the disposition 
 of which towards Don Carlos was doubtful, they 
 seized the women whose husbands, sons, or fathers 
 were serving in the Queen's army, or who were 
 enrolled in the National Guards, stripped them, 
 publicly exposed them, beat them in the market- 
 places, and having tarred and feathered and tied 
 
91 
 
 them upon asses, exhibited them to the gaze of the 
 town. How many of these poor creatures would, 
 in their agony, have envied the fate of the wretched 
 mother of Cabrera ? And can we wonder that an 
 unquenchable thirst of vengeance should burn in 
 the bosoms of the husbands, the brothers, the lovers 
 of these women. 
 
 Here we shall close this sad subject, expressing 
 our firm belief that, whatever atrocities may be 
 charged against one of the contending parties, 
 similar accusations may, with equal and horrid 
 justice, be brought against the other. The Queen's 
 side having the greater power of repression, has been, 
 indeed, the most to blame of the two; but the 
 Government is not so culpable as it may at first 
 sight appear, judging of its conduct by that which 
 regular governments are expected, and are usually 
 able, to accomplish. If tranquillity had existed, 
 and the authority of the law had been in force, 
 then the Government that did not punish these 
 savage excesses would have been deservedly doomed 
 to the just execration of mankind : but in the midst 
 of universal disorder, when the whole country was 
 a prey to unruly passions, and the Government, 
 placed between contending factions, was scarcely 
 able to maintain itself, acts of justice and vigour were 
 impossible. Captains-Generals, and military com- 
 manders, exercised their despotic will, and justified 
 their measures by the plea of expediency. These 
 were constantly disapproved by the Government, 
 
92 
 
 but they were by no means displeasing to the ex- 
 cited passions of the public, and the Government 
 had no other part left than to be blind to wickedness 
 they could not chastise. This is one of the long 
 train of evils inseparable from a state of civil war, 
 and nothing would be more hopeless than, under 
 such circumstances, to expect sound reason or ju- 
 dicious conduct from Spaniards, when selfishness and 
 terror have called the worst feelings of their nature 
 into activity. But history shews us that the evil is not 
 exclusively of Spanish growth. Can excesses more 
 revolting to humanity be committed, than those 
 which have stained the popular commotions of the 
 Dutch? have not unoffending men, and patriotic 
 citizens, been murdered in Holland? and can it then 
 be said, that the people of southern climes enjoy the 
 unenviable monopoly of brutal passions ? Let us 
 look at home— let us examine what happens here, 
 under our own eyes, with every circumstance most 
 favourable to the prevention and punishment of 
 crime, and we may then form an estimate of the 
 difficulties against which a Government of Spain, in 
 its present state, has to struggle. Some of the pro- 
 vinces of Spain are larger than Ireland ; but it may 
 be doubted if in the course of a twelvemonth, the 
 balance of crime would not be against the sister 
 island, and in favour of any province of Spain that 
 might be selected. Yet, with all the authority of 
 the law — with all the force of opinion— and with 
 the long array of judges, magistrates, infantry, 
 
93 
 
 cavalry, and police, all well disciplined, all having 
 a common object, how hard is it for the Govern- 
 ment to exercise its functions, when the people, 
 unfortunately, do not recognise their own interest 
 in the suppression of vice and crime. We beg our 
 readers to call to mind the recent catastrophe of 
 Bristol, and the enormous amount of property de- 
 stroyed by a brutal populace, in the second city of 
 the kingdom, at a moment of profound peace and 
 unexampled prosperity. Let them remember the 
 inefficiency of the military, and the cowardice of 
 the civil authorities. We beg them to reflect upon 
 the unsatisfactory nature of the investigations that 
 afterwards ensued, and they may then form an esti- 
 mate, though but an imperfect one, of the super- 
 human labour that would be required to enable a 
 Government of Spain to control the actions, and to 
 punish the offences, of thirteen millions of people, 
 engaged in a struggle upon the issue of which they 
 know depend their lives, their properties, and all 
 that man holds dear. 
 
 One word more, and that word shall be one not 
 of excuse, but of explanation of facts, in order that 
 the whole truth should be notorious respecting the 
 examples quoted by Lord Carnarvon of the ex- 
 cesses of the people of Spain, and of the system 
 pursued by the Government, which his Lordship 
 most unwarrantably designates (p. 310) as one "of 
 massacre, abhorrent to every virtuous and manly 
 feeling, and never exceeded by the worst men in 
 the worst state of society." 
 
94 
 
 Lord Carnarvon (p. 290) states that, in 1835, a 
 Pole and some Frenchmen, persons of birth and 
 education, who had landed in Spain to join the 
 standard of Don Carlos, were taken by the Consti- 
 tutional authorities, and, notwithstanding the hu- 
 mane remonstrances ineffectually made by some 
 officers of the British Legion, were deliberately 
 shot by order of the commandant of Santander, 
 who pleaded in his justification the general, but 
 positive instructions of his Government. Lord 
 Carnarvon adds, that this took place long after 
 the signing of the cartel. This is true : but if he 
 means by that, that these men had any right to be 
 included under its provisions, he is incorrect : they 
 did not land, nor were they executed within the 
 limits to which the Convention extended : they 
 landed to the west of Santander, and having raised 
 the cry of Don Carlos in the villages, they were 
 seized and executed by the authorities. Sincerely 
 do we wish that the humane intervention of the 
 British officers had been effectual : but we will ask 
 the Noble Lord if, in the Irish rebellion, five or six 
 foreigners had disembarked near Cork, and had 
 raised the French standard upon that coast, we ask, 
 whether the commander of the King's troops, in 
 that neighbourhood, would have hesitated to hang 
 these intruders, and whether the Government or 
 the public would have reprobated his so doing ? 
 
 But so far from positive and general instructions 
 being given by the Government, of the nature 
 stated by Lord Carnarvon, the conduct of the Go- 
 
95 
 
 vernment with respect to the twenty-seven Carlist 
 officers taken at sea, while avowedly coming to 
 join Don Carlos, is a proof of the contrary. These 
 were all men of military rank and importance, who 
 had served with Don Carlos in Portugal — who had 
 been allowed to depart with him, and who, like 
 their master, had contracted a moral obligation, 
 not to return to the Peninsula, for the purpose of 
 disturbing its tranquillity — their lives were spared 
 though clamoured for by the people of the port 
 where they were landed — they were placed where 
 they were considered most secure from popular 
 fury, and when the Government became apprehen- 
 sive that they were exposed to danger, they were 
 sent to Puerto Rico, with directions that every at- 
 tention should be shown them as officers and gen- 
 tlemen. When arrived there, so slight was the 
 restriction to which they were subjected, that we 
 believe the whole of them have found their way to 
 Don Carlos, and are now serving in the insurgent 
 provinces. 
 
 The massacre of Barcelona was indeed equal in 
 horror to that of the worst excesses of the French 
 Revolution — but it was not as those were, an act of 
 atrocity without an exciting cause ; it was an act 
 of savage retaliation for the massacre of a number 
 of prisoners whom the Carlists had carried to a 
 fortified castle. That castle was subsequently be- 
 sieged by Mina. The prisoners to the number of 
 one hundred and seventy, were either killed 
 
96 
 
 by the vollies of musketry fired at them as they 
 fell, or were dashed to pieces on the rocks below. 
 These unfortunate men were all inhabitants of 
 Barcelona, and nearly at the same time that the 
 intelligence of their massacre reached that town, 
 news arrived also that a company of National 
 Guards and a detachment of a regiment of the line 
 which had left Barcelona to escort the mail, had 
 been surprised and slaughtered by some Carlist 
 bands lying in wait for them. Public exasperation 
 was in consequence raised to the highest pitch, and 
 nearly a hundred unfortunate Carlist prisoners 
 were butchered on the same day. But so far from 
 the Chamber of Proceres refusing to institute an 
 enquiry upon the subject, as is stated by Lord 
 Carnarvon, such enquiry was with great difficulty 
 prevented upon the ground of informality ; but 
 addresses to the Crown upon the subject were pre- 
 sented by both Chambers, and the Minister of the 
 Interior read the dispatch of the Government to 
 General Mina, deploring the event and calling upon 
 him to execute the powers of punishment with which 
 he w r as invested. In fact, some of the ringleaders 
 were seized and transported by General Mina to the 
 Canary Islands. Immediately upon the news of the 
 s acre reaching Madrid, the government sent off 
 extraordinary couriers to every place where Carlist 
 prisoners were confined, and ordered the authorities 
 to redouble their vigilance for the protection of 
 their prisoners. These are the facts, and we en- 
 
97 
 
 treat a comparison of them with the statement of 
 Lord Carnarvon. 
 
 With respect to the massacre of the monks at 
 Madrid, in July 1834, the whole truth is equally 
 well veiled, for though it is true, that these monks 
 u had committed no crime," it is not true, that to 
 them " none had been imputed, and against them 
 no accusation had been ever raised." This oc- 
 currence took place at the time of the breaking out 
 of the cholera, and the populace of Madrid, like 
 that of almost every great town (not excepting even 
 " Modern Athens,") where that scourge of the 
 human race has made its appearance, sought to 
 attribute it to some human cause, and then to take 
 vengeance upon the supposed authors of the ca- 
 lamity. In Russia, the mortality was attributed to 
 the physicians — in Hungary to the nobles — in 
 Paris to the Jews, and in Madrid to the monks, 
 who were supposed, in hatred to the liberal inhabi- 
 tants of the town, to have poisoned the fountains ; 
 the people rose up against them, and in the six or 
 seven hours the tumult lasted, many unfortunate 
 victims of popular ignorance and fury perished, to 
 the disgrace of the troops and National Guards, 
 who might have prevented these foul deeds. The 
 Prime Minister was at that time absent with the 
 court at St. Ildefonso, but by the telegraph, he 
 ordered the immediate dismissal of all the civil and 
 military authorities, and the Captain-general was 
 brought to a court-martial. 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 One more statement of Lord Carnarvon's it is 
 necessary to notice — " that immediately after the 
 King's speech, Spanish atrocities increased to a 
 great extent." Verily, his Lordship's credulity 
 must have been sadly practised upon, when he 
 made this declaration, for we take upon ourselves 
 to affirm, that the speech of the King of England 
 had as much to do with the increase of crime in 
 Spain, as that of the President of the United 
 States. An infinitesimal portion of knowledge of 
 Spain, is sufficient to make any man aware that 
 Spaniards never know nor care about what is pas- 
 sing in other countries, or what is thought of them 
 by foreigners, for whom they entertain almost 
 Chinese feelings of disregard. The King of Eng- 
 land's speech was little circulated in Spain — it 
 could have been read but by very few of those who 
 took part in the popular excesses, and upon those 
 into whose hands it may have fallen, it must have 
 produced an effect the very reverse of that ima- 
 gined by Lord Carnarvon, because it was ob- 
 viously an exhortation to the Spanish Government, 
 to use in its administration of affairs that prudence 
 and vigour which the speech made mention of; 
 and the more those qualities were excited, the less 
 would necessarily become the chance of impu- 
 nity for the anarchists. 
 
 But the historical fact does not bear out Lord 
 Carnarvon's assertion, any more than the habits of 
 the Spanish people do his arguments. 
 
99 
 
 For it so happens, that, with the exception of the 
 inexpiable act of Mina and Nogueras, # atrocities 
 did not increase, nor was " the Eliot convention 
 more decidedly violated." The massacre at Bar- 
 
 * Enough has been said in the course of these remarks to exhibit 
 our feelings of indignation at the assassination of Cabrera's mother. 
 They are quite equal to any which can animate Lord Carnarvon, and 
 we have therefore no hesitation in condemning his attempt to appeal 
 unduly to the feelings of Ms readers against the Spanish government, 
 by painting the horrid transaction with the false colours of poetical 
 imagination. Lord Carnarvon (p. 324) says that Cabrera's mother, 
 " if her friends speak truly, was no less venerable for her virtues 
 than her years." The unfortunate woman was of the lowest class— 
 of that class which in Spain has few friends to speak for them — the 
 extremely poor. She was distinguished by no particular virtues, and 
 her rank in life is sufficiently designated by the occupation to which 
 her son was devoted upon the breaking out of the war — that of" Sa- 
 cristan " in a village church. 
 
 " A woman convicted of no crime but of too great love for her 
 son, and too great devotion to her God," (p. 324). Where are 
 Lord Carnarvon's proofs of cither ? He has none. He ought to 
 know that these were not the grounds upon which the unfortunate 
 creature was executed ; and his appeal against the Spanish govern- 
 ment is ungenerous and unjust. He keeps out of view the atrocities 
 of the son, for which the mother was barbarously killed, and when in 
 his turn Cabrera retaliates and sacrifices thirty innocent women to 
 the manes of his mother, no feeling of horror finds its way into Lord 
 Carnarvon's breast. These women, we are left to suppose, might have 
 been guilty of crimes, and might not have been devoted to their sons, 
 or to their God. The son is merely said to have triumphed over the 
 man (p. 330), and the crime is palliated by the provocation received. 
 The partiality of Lord Carnarvon must shock even the most indiffe- 
 rent of his readers. 
 
 h2 
 
100 
 
 celona took place a month before the King's speech, 
 and not only was the Eliot convention at that time 
 religiously observed by both parties, but a better un- 
 derstanding existed between the two generals than 
 at any former period. Flags of truce and commu- 
 nications between the respective head-quarters were 
 of constant occurrence, and General Cordova fre- 
 quently sent his prisoners without escort to the 
 Carlist camp with a message to their general, that 
 an equal number should be returned in exchange. 
 Subsequently, at the request of Mr. Villiers to 
 General Cordova, a proposal was made to Villareal 
 to extend the provisions of the Eliot treaty to those 
 provinces where the civil war had become organized. 
 The negociation at first promised a favourable 
 result, but it was broken off by the Carlist chief. 
 
 We are convinced that Lord Carnarvon is incapa- 
 ble of misrepresentation, but he has been deceived in 
 the quarters from which he has obtained informa- 
 tion, and the spirit of party in which, as it seems 
 to us, the chapter on the Basque Provinces was 
 written, prevented him from analysing statements 
 which coincided so exactly with his views ; but as 
 the British public is never indisposed to hear both 
 sides of an argument, we have thought it right, 
 though perhaps at a tedious length, to perform the 
 task which Lord Carnarvon neglected. 
 
 We have thus far, and merely for the sake of 
 argument, treated the subject of the war in the 
 manner conveniently adopted by Lord Carnarvon, 
 
101 
 
 of regarding the belligerent parties as placed unde* 
 equal circumstances ; but it is hardly necessary to 
 add, that we utterly deny — and we "arc* sure that 
 every reasonable man will agree with us in so doing 
 —the justice or the truth of that assumption. The 
 Queen is in possession of the throne, of the towns, 
 of the fortresses, and, with the exception of thirty 
 or forty square leagues, of the whole of the territory 
 of Spain. The colonies acknowledge her authority, 
 and the revenue and resources of the country are at 
 her command. She is supported by all the im- 
 portant classes of society, and her government has 
 all the attributes with which legitimate sovereignty 
 can be invested. Don Carlos occupies a corner of 
 the Peninsula, makes war from the shelter of its 
 mountain fastnesses, and is unable to extend his 
 authority, or to assert his claim to a throne, which 
 he has never ascended, and from which he has been 
 lawfully excluded. It is an idle fallacy then to 
 assert that the belligerents are upon equal terms ; 
 and none but party writers would consider them 
 so. What would have been said in France if, dur- 
 ing the late revolution, La Vendee had been con- 
 sidered upon equal terms with the rest of the 
 country ? Who would not have laughed if an advo- 
 cate of the Duchess de Berri had insisted upon 
 claiming equal rights for that princess in the little 
 war she waged against the King of the French ? 
 
 The Carlists are rebels in arms against their 
 lawful Sovereign ; humanity and prudence forbid 
 
102 
 
 their being treated with all the severity applicable 
 ta their condition, but law and justice would per- 
 mit it. 
 
 It is with regret that we here discontinue the 
 easy work of reviewing Lord Carnarvon's book, 
 because we feel that, in fulfilment of a duty to the 
 public, the errors and mis-statements with which 
 every page abounds ought to be exposed, and it is 
 solely with reference to the slender and fleeting 
 interest which foreign affairs excite in England, 
 and the little inclination which men have to devote 
 time to the consideration of such matters, that we 
 are induced to abstain. We will, however, follow 
 Lord Carnarvon to the postscript to his chapter 
 upon the Basque Provinces, and like him we will 
 offer a few remarks upon the events which have 
 taken place within the last four months in Spain, 
 and upon the position which that country now 
 occupies with reference to Europe. 
 
 We again repeat that the British Government 
 never has, and never could have, supported a demo- 
 cratic party in Spain. Their object and their 
 interest was to uphold moderate men, and to esta- 
 blish a moderate system capable of regulating the 
 progress of improvement in the Peninsula. At the 
 time of Ferdinand's death there was every prospect 
 of the experiment being attended with success. 
 Those prospects have since been as variable in their 
 aspect as the military events upon which they be- 
 came dependant. The chances of success never 
 
103 
 
 have been, and are not now extinguished ; but we 
 affirm, that had they been incomparably less than 
 they were, England adopted the most judicious 
 course upon the death of the King; and had the 
 chances of success become since that time incom- 
 parably worse than they have, it would have been 
 mean and ungenerous, and therefore unwise, for 
 England to have withdrawn her support from her 
 ally, or to have shrunk from the consequences of 
 her own act. Lord Carnarvon and his party contend 
 that the judicious course for us would have been, to 
 remain neutral — not to have pronounced between the 
 contending parties, that is to say, to have imitated 
 the Northern Powers, and of course then to have fol- 
 lowed their example throughout, and ultimately to 
 have found ourselves, like them, without influence 
 and without agents in one of the most important 
 countries of Europe, during a contest which, what- 
 ever may be its issue, must so materially affect the 
 future destinies of Europe. To the Northern Powers 
 who have no immediate interests in the Peninsula, 
 no ancient relations, no ties of neighbourhood or 
 commerce, and who wished well to the weaker and at 
 that time headless party, such a course was practi- 
 cable, and for their purposes might be judicious ; 
 but this is the very reason why a contrary course 
 became expedient for us, for we have in the Penin- 
 sula all that those powers have not, and it is idle to 
 say, that our general system of policy is not opposed 
 
104 
 
 to theirs — it might, perhaps, be more correct to say, 
 that their policy is opposed to ours. 
 
 The course then adopted by the Holy Alliance 
 with respect to Spain would have sufficed to point 
 out to us that which became us to pursue if we had 
 stood in need of any guide for our conduct. But 
 if we had acted as they have done, the Peninsula, 
 and English interests in connexion with the Pen- 
 insula, must have fallen into the grasp of the 
 Powers of the North. They would, without con- 
 sulting us, have acknowledged Don Carlos at the 
 moment most convenient to themselves, and we 
 should have had to choose between being left alone 
 in our neutrality, or recognising the Queen, and 
 entering into a contest with the Holy Alliance in 
 Spain, and thus endangering the peace of Europe, 
 or lastly following in the wake of the Northern 
 Powers, and acknowledging Don Carlos. Then 
 would inevitably have followed our being forced to 
 acknowledge Don Miguel. Small thanks should 
 we, indeed, have got from those two amiable 
 Princes, for a course which we should have been 
 compelled unwillingly to adopt ; but towards their 
 benefactors of the Holy Alliance justly deep would 
 have been their gratitude, and that gratitude would 
 have been of the kind which is most to be relied 
 upon — namely, a lively sense of favours to come. 
 And this feeling would have rendered Carlos and 
 Miguel the merest slaves and tools of their despotic 
 protectors. 
 
105 
 
 The Peninsula would thus have become an out- 
 post of the Holy Alliance in the west. It might 
 have cost them some trouble and expense to main- 
 tain the colony, but the possession would have 
 been theirs ; and the east of Europe would have 
 been the mother country of the Peninsula. Now, 
 we put it not to Tories, or Whigs, or Radicals, but 
 to Englishmen — to those who think the great com- 
 mercial interests of their country worth protecting 
 — to those who regard the influence of England as 
 the most powerful medium of general good, and 
 the surest stay of general peace, — to those who 
 value our national honour, and to whom the glori- 
 ous recollections associated with the Peninsula are 
 dear, — we put it, in short, to every class of our 
 countrymen, whether, if we had permitted such a 
 state of things, we should not have been degraded in 
 our own eyes, and dishonoured in those of Europe ? 
 And yet the policy which would have led to such 
 national degradation, is that pointed out as the 
 fitting one for England by Lord Carnarvon, and, 
 as far as we are able to judge, by the majority 
 of the Tory party. These politicians conve- 
 niently leave out of their calculations the im- 
 portant consideration, that France, without con- 
 sulting with us, or looking at any thing (as she 
 had a most perfect right to do) but her own inter- 
 est, lost not a moment in recognising the Queen, and 
 in offering troops for the support of her cause ; and 
 yet we were to have remained neuter, and to have 
 
106 
 
 excluded ourselves voluntarily from all influence 
 over a contest, in the issue of which we had so 
 much at stake ! Had we remained neutral, not- 
 withstanding the active part at first taken by 
 France, the establishment of the Holy Alliance in 
 the Peninsula, as anticipated above, would have 
 been little, if at all delayed ; for, judging from the 
 dispositions which the French Court has manifested 
 during the last two years towards the Northern 
 Powers, no one can doubt the facility with which 
 France might have transferred her recognition from 
 Queen Isabel to King Carlos, or the sacrifices which 
 might have been extorted from the latter in return 
 for this abandonment of principle. Then what 
 position would England have occupied ? The po- 
 sition of one betrayed, and jeered at by false 
 friends. And the English Ministry ? Why, it 
 would have been overthrown by the indignant voice 
 of the whole nation, roused to a sense of its degra- 
 dation by the very Tories who now hold so oppo- 
 site a language. 
 
 But the joint recognition of the Queen by Eng- 
 land and France at once cut short these difficulties, 
 and has tended, perhaps, more than any other 
 event, since the revolution of July, to preserve the 
 peace of Europe. The Ministers of the Northern 
 Powers hovered for a while round that phantom of 
 a despotic throne, on which their falsely prophetic 
 imagination had seated the semblance of their ar- 
 bitrary King. But on the signing of the Quadru- 
 
107 
 
 pie treaty, these birds of ill omen took their flight 
 from Madrid ; just as the British Minister would 
 have been compelled to do, if Lord Carnarvon's 
 policy had been adopted, and if those powers had 
 signed their treaty in favour of Don Carlos. But, 
 baffled and disappointed of their expected prey, 
 these powers retired from the contest, and left to 
 England and France the most glorious field of 
 honour that was ever opened to two powerful na- 
 tions. Had the same spirit in which it may be 
 supposed the Quadruple Treaty was signed, con- 
 tinued to animate all the contracting parties to it, 
 how magnificent might have been the result, not 
 only in Spain, but in Europe. 
 
 The alliance between England and France, 
 brought about by fortuitous circumstances, but 
 cemented by reciprocal interests, had become the 
 guarantee for the peace of the world. There is in 
 that alliance a combination of force, and an unity of 
 purpose, such as Europe has never before seen, but 
 which she at once acknowledged to be irresistible ; 
 hence every art, every intrigue, and every threat 
 have been put in play by some, to dissever this 
 hateful compact. The self-love, the ancient rival- 
 ship, and extinguished suspicions of both coun- 
 tries, were in turn resorted to, but in vain, — the 
 edifice remained unshaken ; but the rudest shock 
 of all had yet to be given, and it was hoped 
 that by the levers of rival interests, as connected 
 with Spanish affairs, the foundations might be up- 
 
108 
 
 heaved, and the superstructure brought to the 
 ground. Well was the Spanish question fitted to 
 test the sincerity of the English and French al- 
 liance. If upon that question the two countries 
 could understand each other, — could lay aside the 
 remembrance of olden times, and if they could 
 meet for a common purpose, and with a common 
 interest, on the very ground where for so many 
 years, and twice at the interval of a century, their 
 principles and their armies had come into conflict ; 
 then, indeed, the triumph of the alliance would be 
 complete — there could then exist no arrihre pensSe, 
 or hollowness in it, — its advantages must be clearly 
 seen, and its certain results be confidently expected- 
 All these anticipations were embodied in the Qua- 
 druple Treaty. No jealousies or exclusive feelings, 
 on the part of England, with respect to Portugal, 
 fonnd their way into that compact. None on the 
 part of France regarding Spain. The interests of 
 the two countries were identified, and our purpose 
 became the same. The moral force of England 
 and of France was raised to its highest pitch, for 
 all the world acknowledged that what the two 
 Powers willed, must come to pass, and that resist- 
 ance to their will was idle and useless. 
 
 This proud position having been taken by Eng- 
 land and France, they have however not reaped 
 from it all the advantage which lay within their 
 grasp. France has coldly turned her back upon 
 the joint undertaking in Spain. She views our 
 
109 
 
 steady perseverance with fretfulness and dislike; 
 and the Holy Allies are already beginning to tri- 
 umph in the anticipated consummation of their 
 efforts, and in the expected fulfilment of their pro- 
 phecies.. 
 
 We regret this state of things, and we candidly 
 confess ourselves unable to account for it. A clearer- 
 sighted, or more sagacious prince than the present 
 sovereign of France never sat upon a throne — his 
 own position and the interests of France appear 
 perfectly well defined, and yet France has pursued 
 a policy with respect to Spain which seems to us 
 inexplicable. By some it is thought that the 
 French Government wishes to pursue the ancient 
 policy of France, and to keep Spain in beggar}^ and 
 disorder, as the best mode of preventing her being 
 useful to England, or dangerous to France ; others 
 again consider that France has tamely succumbed 
 to the haughty menaces which have been conveyed 
 to her from the North. We believe in neither of 
 these accusations. We believe that, however much 
 the French Government of the present day may 
 admire, or might desire to imitate the policy of 
 Louis XIV., they must be well aware of the differ- 
 ence between the state of Europe in those days, 
 and in the present times, and they must feel that 
 another Louis XIV. has now become a political im- 
 possibility ; on the other hand we more than doubt 
 that the ministers of France can have crouched 
 to the will of the Northern Powers, for they know 
 
110 
 
 that to do so would be to undergo unrecompensed 
 humiliation. These Powers do not look upon the 
 present dynasty of France as legitimate, and with 
 them want of legitimacy will never find favour or 
 pardon. They spurn the power which placed that 
 dynasty on the throne, and they delight in heaping 
 mortifications upon a head which has been crowned 
 by the hands of the people. Still, however, we 
 cannot wonder at these suspicions having been 
 entertained — they were justified by the fast and 
 hose policy of France towards Spain. At one 
 time ample professions and niggardly assistance 
 have been given to the Queen, at other times when 
 her cause seemed gaining ground, powerful, though 
 underhand, support has been afforded to Don Car- 
 los : a desire, in short, has seemed to exist that the 
 resources of the country, and the energy of the 
 combatants should be completely exhausted, in 
 order as it were that France should then step in 
 and arrange matters authoritatively as best might 
 suit her purpose. If such was the case, this policy 
 contained no one element of success. Territorial 
 aggrandizement for France in Spain would not 
 have been permitted by the rest of Europe. France 
 of 1830 would not have tolerated the setting up of 
 Don Carlos upon the throne by French means,* 
 
 * We know it is said, and it is even affirmed that proofs exist of 
 the favourable dispositions of Louis Philippe towards Don Carlos, 
 and that he is only waiting for the proper moment of giving effect 
 to them. We disbelieve it, because Louis Philippe knows that the 
 
Ill 
 
 and Spain would only have endured the imposition 
 of political institutions by foreign bayonets, so long 
 as those bayonets actually occupied the country — 
 the day the foreigners crossed the frontiers, the 
 pent up passions both of Carlists and of Liberals 
 would have been let loose, and civil war would 
 have re-commenced under every circumstance of 
 aggravation that could make Spain formidable to 
 France, and inconvenient to Europe. The only 
 policy really open to France was the one best suited 
 to her interests. France had recognised the Queen 
 who had all the force which possession of a throne 
 can give. Her Government was supported by all 
 the aristocracy, by the wealth, the talent, the in- 
 dustry of the country — by all those classes in 
 short which constitute the substance of society, and 
 whose interests are the most opposed to revolution. 
 But still that Government was weak and unable to 
 maintain itself between contending factions ; it re- 
 presented the jnste milieu which, in France, is so 
 much sought after by some, and by others so un- 
 justly ridiculed, for the term rightly interpreted 
 
 stronghold he has upon his people consist in his being thought the 
 King of July — the elected of the revolution ; and long may that 
 feeling continue to prevail I upon it hangs the peace of Europe; for 
 in the hearts of Frenchmen there exists an indestructible sentiment 
 of hostility against the counter-revolution, and we are convinced 
 that any open attempt to favour the pretensions of Don Carlos would 
 be viewed by the vast majority of the nation, with the same alarm 
 and disgust as an alliance ,vith Henry V., and that it would be at- 
 tended by similar consequences. 
 
112 
 
 can only mean the steering clear of extremes and 
 poising equally the balance of power between 
 parties, when the preponderance of either might 
 endanger the state. The attempt may be ridi 
 culed as Utopian, but it cannot be denied that in 
 proportion as this system can be realized, in the 
 same proportion is an advance made towards that 
 which is yet a desiderandum in good government. 
 The Spanish Government was in a position to have 
 made the experiment with success, while its sup- 
 porters were full of hope, and its opponents were 
 not yet strong : but owing to the civil war they felt 
 themselves gradually sinking, and they implored 
 France to extend her friendly hand to save them ; 
 they represented that the dangers of their position 
 affected not only Spain, but Europe, and that in 
 their salvation, France had as great an interest 
 as they had themselves. Their prayers were not 
 listened to, and the language of the French cabinet 
 was, that it mattered not to France whether Spain 
 was delivered over to the bondage of Carlism, or 
 sunk in the abyss of Jacobinism ; that to France 
 this alternative was merely a question of having 
 more or fewer troops upon her frontier. But short- 
 sighted is the policy which cannot perceive that 
 cordons are impotent against contagion, and that 
 bayonets are no barriers against opinions ! and how 
 truly is the prophecy from Spain coming to pass ! 
 Troops upon the French frontier have not been 
 wanting, but the state of Spain has not the less 
 
113 
 
 failed to agitate France. Already lias it compelled 
 the King to dismiss from his councils the able 
 Minister who possessed and merited his confidence. 
 Already has the military insurrection at La Granja 
 had its baneful effect in France ; the example of the 
 non-commissioned officers of the Spanish army has 
 not been lost upon the ambitious and discontented 
 men who compose the corresponding class in 
 France. The Spanish question now threatens the 
 existence of the French Cabinet : and if either 
 extreme should triumph, and if Carlist or Repub- 
 lican principles should prove victorious in the com- 
 bat, daily increasing dangers would await the tran- 
 quillity of France, and the throne of her King. 
 
 The armed assistance of France was solicited in 
 June 1835, and we affirm, without the slightest 
 fear of contradiction on the part of those who have 
 any knowledge respecting the war in Spain, and 
 who have no interest in putting forward that which 
 is not, that if the French army then upon the fron- 
 tier, had made three davs' march to the southward, 
 the insurrection would have disappeared in pre- 
 cisely the same manner as that of Portugal did 
 upon the entry of the Spanish troops, in virtue of 
 the Quadruple Treaty a twelvemonth before. We 
 go farther, and we affirm in the same positive man- 
 ner, that the arrival of a French army would have 
 been hailed by the Carlist chiefs", and by the majo- 
 rity of their troops, and of the population of the 
 insurgent country, with equal or greater satisfac- 
 
 i 
 
114 
 
 tion than by the army and generals of the 
 Queen. The Carlists were wearied of the contest 
 — they hated its duration, but saw no prospect of 
 its being brought to an end. They at the same 
 time, however, felt it a point of honour not to yield 
 to their own countrymen, and they preferred con- 
 tinuing the war to surrendering to a government, 
 in whose pardon a consciousness of the manner, in 
 which they themselves would employ victory, 
 forbade them to confide; but this was their language 
 — provide us with the means of laying down our 
 arms without disgrace (entregar las armas sin 
 vileza) — give us the excuse of saying, that resist- 
 ance has become hopeless, and the war on our part 
 shall immediately cease. And the language of 
 these men was judicious, for they knew what was 
 most fitting for their honour and their interests — 
 they knew that there was no hope of victory for 
 them, but they also knew that if they yielded, 
 when a powerful foreign force had come in, victory 
 could not be claimed by their enemies. They had 
 a right to expect also that the intervening would 
 at the same time be a mediating Power, and that 
 when there were neither victors nor vanquished, 
 peace would not be followed by persecution. 
 
 The author of these remarks speaks from data 
 he relies upon, and he has no fear of contradic- 
 tion ; he does not draw upon his imagination for 
 his facts, nor does he attempt to dress out his facts 
 in the language of poetry ; for it is in the highest 
 
115 
 
 degree poetical to say (p. 136), " that the insurrec- 
 tion has been carried on under circumstances which 
 prove that it originated in no slight grievance or 
 passing disaffection, but in a deep sense of religious 
 duty to their king, their country, and their God." 
 Who have been the commanders of the Carlist 
 forces ? Zumalacarregui, Villareal, Torres, Gomez, 
 and the like ; all officers of inferior ranks, turned 
 out of the Queen's army, who, having lost their 
 pay, went to seek their fortune elsewhere. How 
 have they manifested their sense of religious duty ? 
 We have already shown how they honour their 
 adopted king ; and we take leave to say, that we 
 should have been more disposed to concur with 
 Lord Carnarvon in admiring their sense of duty to 
 the Almighty if they had united, under favouring 
 circumstances, to put an end to a fratricide war, 
 and to throw a veil of oblivion over the past. It 
 may be true that " the present Government of 
 Spain (p. 340) will find it no easy matter to achieve 
 the conquest of the free states" — but it will not be 
 because " blockade cannot easily reduce that peo- 
 ple, favoured as they are by the fertility of a soil 
 which yields a crop immensely exceeding the an- 
 nual consumption of the country." At the time 
 that the frontier was closely guarded by the French 
 authorities, and when the line of the Ebro was 
 simultaneously blockaded by the Queen's troops, 
 the Carlist army was reduced to the utmost desti- 
 tution ; and desertion from its ranks increased daily . 
 
 i2 
 
116 
 
 the deserters saying, upon arriving at the head- 
 quarters of the Queen's general, that they came in 
 order to satisfy the cravings of hunger. The war, 
 at that moment, promised to be brought to a speedy 
 conclusion, when all at once, and as if for the pur- 
 pose of prolonging it, the frontiers of France were 
 opened, and corn and provisions, and stores of 
 every kind, were poured in with the utmost abun- 
 dance. Whenever the supplies from France shall 
 cease, the war must come to an end ; these supplies 
 must, however, in the mean while be paid for 
 dearly; and when, in June, 1836 (probably for 
 want of the necessary funds, for let or hindrance 
 their was none on the frontier of France), Don 
 Carlos was compelled to resort to the most oppres- 
 sive measures for supplies, he justified them upon 
 the ground of being compelled " to rescue his army 
 from being left totally without the means of sub- 
 sistence." And so far from the country being 
 (p. 340) " still determined to maintain the armies 
 of their choice by every public and private sacri- 
 fice," such measures have always produced disgust, 
 and made the people desirous of peace at any price. 
 Equally incorrect with all the rest, is the assertion 
 (p. 340) that " enlistment is not avoided as an un- 
 welcome summons to fatigue and danger, but is 
 courted as the only road to honour and inde- 
 pendence." Enlistment is avoided in the Basque 
 Provinces by every possible means — it can hardly 
 ever have been called voluntary ; and in the whole 
 
117 
 
 Carlist army, which Lord Carnarvon is pleased to 
 state at upwards of 100,000 men, but the moveable 
 portion of which does not exceed 25,000, there are 
 not at this moment 8,000 men natives of the Basque 
 Provinces, the remainder being made up of deserters 
 from the Queen's army, prisoners who have pre- 
 ferred to take service rather than be locked up in a 
 dungeon, and Castillians kidnapped by force, and 
 who court this " road to honour and independence," 
 with about the same alacrity with which the Negro 
 on the Coast of Guinea courts the " summons " of 
 the slave-dealer. We leave our readers to judge 
 of the deep sense of religious duty to their king, 
 their country, and their God, which must animate 
 two-thirds of the Carlist army ! 
 
 Had it suited the inexplicable policy of France 
 to permit the restoration of tranquillity in the 
 Peninsula, and had she used the means which were 
 in her hands for securing it, how much bloodshed, 
 and what a vast amount of human misery would 
 have been spared in Spain ! what anxiety and 
 danger to Europe ! And this effect would have 
 been as easy as its results would have been humane 
 and glorious ; the expense to France would merely 
 have been the difference between the peace and 
 war pay of the troops employed, far less than the 
 money expended on a corps of observation, on the 
 farce of guarding the frontier, and seizing a few 
 gun-flints, some lumps of lead, and some pounds 
 of salpetre ; the French troops so employed would 
 
118 
 
 have been fatigued by no long marches — they would 
 not have had to fire a shot — and they might have 
 returned to France within three months, having 
 completed a great work of humanity. 
 
 If Louis Philippe is ambitious, as it is said, of 
 being styled the Napoleon of Peace, he has missed 
 a rare opportunity, in Spain, of acquiring a right 
 to the title. He has missed a rare opportunity like- 
 wise of rendering service to France, by extinguish- 
 ing the anarchical and Carlist parties now strug- 
 gling for supremacy in the Peninsula; and from 
 both of which he has so much to fear at home. 
 Whichever of these parties triumphs there must be 
 danger to France. But, on our conscience, we 
 believe that he has more to apprehend from Don 
 Carlos on the throne, than from the Jacobins in 
 the ascendant ; for the triumph of the latter would 
 be short. No revolution can be successful which 
 is not supported by the bulk of the nation, and in 
 Spain the bulk of the nation is not revolutionary — 
 the country would be disgusted by the excesses of 
 the anarchists — rival interests and the spirit of 
 federalism would spring up — each province would 
 separate itself from the others, and govern itself as 
 it could — every kind of domestic disaster would 
 follow ; and the good sense of the people of France 
 would make them look upon such a state of things 
 as a warning, and not as an example. 
 
 But were Don Carlos seated upon the throne, 
 what, in the present state of public opinion in 
 
119 
 
 France, might not be expected from the uneasiness 
 and angry excitement such a neighbour would 
 create ? The South of France is Carlist ; and 
 there would then, indeed, be no Pyrennees ; for 
 Southern France would join with Spain against a 
 common enemy — and that common enemy would 
 be " France of 1830." Can it be supposed that 
 the Inquisition and the priesthood of Spain would 
 bear any good will to a king made by the people ? 
 to the Constitutional Government or to the free 
 press of France ? Would they not look on Henry 
 V. as the only lawful King of France ; and would 
 they, or could they, form any other real alliance 
 than with the Powers of the North, who would then 
 have in Spain the means for eternally agitating 
 France, the object alike of their hatred and their 
 fear ? The Carlists of France are at this moment 
 a dormant power — they are insignificant because 
 they have no open support from within or from 
 without ; but let their head-quarters be once esta- 
 blished in Spain, let all the resources which the 
 Church party in Spain have at their command be 
 employed in their behalf, and it would not be long 
 before we saw them assume a consequence and a 
 consistency rendered trebly formidable by the en- 
 couragement they would receive from abroad, and 
 the ready assistance they would meet with at home, 
 from that too numerous party, which pants for dis- 
 organization and plunder. 
 
 That the Inquisition in all its horrors would be 
 
120 
 
 re-established in Spain upon Don Carlos ascending 
 the throne, is no longer a matter of doubt with 
 those who are acquainted with the principles and 
 the objects of the persons by whom that Prince is 
 surrounded. It is notorious that when a short 
 time since, and at a moment of his greatest neces- 
 sity, Don Carlos was offered the assistance of 
 Austria, (which would have been followed by that 
 of other Powers) but upon the condition of his 
 promising an amnesty, and not to re-establish the 
 Inquisition — he refused assistance coupled with 
 such conditions. Perhaps he did so unwillingly, 
 for he is not a free agent ; and he may have been 
 compelled by those who rule him thus to announce 
 the system which would characterize his reign. 
 Bloody and ferocious as were the deeds of the 
 church party upon the re- action in 1823, their un- 
 varying language since has been that the country 
 had not been sufficiently cleansed of every liberal 
 stain ; that blood enough had not been shed ; and 
 they were in a constant struggle with the King, 
 who thought it politic at length to check the 
 ministers of Christ in their merciless career. To 
 their not having been allowed fully to work out 
 their ends, they now attribute the disasters which 
 have befallen them, and their vengeance would now 
 be of a far different kind from that which they 
 wreaked upon the unfortunate liberals in 1823. 
 The Inquisition would be established in every 
 village — its loathsome dungeons would be crowded 
 
121 
 
 with victims — new tortures would be invented for 
 the friends of the Queen ; their property, and 
 those of their remotest connexions, would be con- 
 fiscated ; and the daily labours of the hangmen in 
 every corner of the country, would attest the num- 
 bers of those who had declared against a system, 
 built upon desolation, and cemented by blood. 
 When Gomez passed by Guadalupe with his pri- 
 soner, General Flinter, the brave but unfortunate 
 defender of Almaden, the monks issued from their 
 convents, armed with gun and knife, and intreated 
 of Gomez to lend them Flinter for an hour, that they 
 might drink his blood. This is no exaggerated 
 specimen of the conduct which the church party 
 would pursue, the day, the moment, they had the 
 power. And could is the 19th century a state of 
 things be tolerated in Europe which would have 
 disgraced the 14th ? Impossible. But let not 
 Europe be deceived ; the apostolical party in Spain 
 listens to no advice ; they understand their own 
 interests in their own way, and are deaf to all re- 
 monstrances. By force alone can they be turned 
 away from their wickedness : and public opinion in 
 France would compel the use of that force if that 
 party were to succeed. But against whom would 
 such force be brought to bear ? Against Don 
 Carlos, the ally of Russia, Prussia, Austria, and 
 Rome? Would these Powers allow the child of 
 their adoption to be molested ; and would their 
 resistance calm the excitement of France ? Louis 
 
122 
 
 Philippe would be placed between two dangers; 
 and it would require all his ingenuity to select the 
 lesser of them, and all his vigour to act upon his 
 choice. 
 
 Notwithstanding the impetus which the success 
 of liberal institutions in Spain must give to pub- 
 lic opinion in other countries, we are inclined 
 to believe that the general policy of the Northern 
 Powers would have been best served by at once 
 recognizing the Queen, and by endeavouring to 
 extinguish, instead of to foster, the hopes of Don 
 Carlos ; the consequences of the Queen's early 
 triumph would only have been developed gradually ; 
 to give prosperity to a country so long misgoverned 
 as Spain has been, must be the work of time, and 
 much might have arisen to retard it ; but the 
 Queen's throne would have been supported by all 
 the important classes of the country, and her Govern- 
 ment would have been in the hands of men whose 
 principles and whose interests were on the side of 
 order. Liberal principles would have made their 
 way; but the enlightened despotism (despotismo 
 ilustrado) which was the motto of the early partizans 
 of the Queen, would have been modified gradually. 
 This state of things might not have been agree- 
 able, but it would not have been hurtful to the 
 Northern Powers, particularly if they had read the 
 signs of the times at home, and with wise precau- 
 tion had begun to prepare their own subjects for 
 improvement ; for how little is sufficient to inspire 
 
123 
 
 feelings of gratitude and content, when spontane- 
 ously bestowed on a nation by a royal hand ! 
 
 With the Queen, then, peaceably settled on the 
 throne, the Northern Powers might have foreseen 
 that whatever they had to fear was within their 
 own management. But they ought to have fore- 
 seen that it would be far otherwise with respect to 
 that which they most, and justly dread, — namely, 
 revolutionary contagion. They ought to have fore- 
 seen that the w T hole body politic of Europe was 
 likely to be affected, when so important a member 
 as Spain became diseased ; and that a protracted 
 civil war in Spain could not fail to have dangerous 
 consequences elsewhere. They might have known 
 that when all the wealth, the rank, and the intel- 
 lect of the country were ranged on the Queen's 
 side, they could not and would not submit to the 
 bloody fanatics, and to the ignorant masses by 
 whom Don Carlos is supported. They should have 
 been aware that the conflict lay between intellect 
 and numbers ; and that the Queen's was in reality 
 the conservative cause, and that of Don Carlos the 
 cause of revolution. 
 
 We will not do those Powers the injustice to be- 
 lieve that they ever attempted to settle the affairs 
 of Spain by a marriage between the Queen and the 
 son of Don Carlos : a project of which the wisdom 
 is more than once hinted at in Lord Carnarvon's 
 work. We believe that their ignorance of Spain, 
 and of Spaniards, was not so great as to lead them 
 
124 
 
 to suppose that such an arrangement could be pos- 
 sible ; nor do we believe that they wished so ill 
 to that unfortunate country as to advocate a mea- 
 sure which would for ever deprive it of all hope 
 of tranquillity. The first question indeed would 
 be, whether such an arrangement would meet with 
 the concurrence of the parties whom it would most 
 concern ; and we believe that both are too well 
 convinced of their respective rights ever to enter- 
 tain such a project. But were this difficulty sur- 
 mounted, a plan for placing two antagonist prin- 
 ciples upon the same throne, and for ensuring the 
 co-existence of two rival and exasperated parties, 
 incapable of compromising their difficulties, is a 
 plan for sow r ing the seeds of eternal civil war. Its 
 monstrous results might be exemplified in a thou- 
 sand different ways, were the proposition any 
 other than a crude notion thrown out for party 
 purposes : but we are convinced that the evil con- 
 sequences of such a scheme must strike every man 
 who will take the trouble of thinking upon the 
 infinite mischief which this plan for tranquillizing 
 Spain would produce. 
 
 The Spanish question has not been rightly un- 
 derstood in England, either in its general character 
 or in its detail, nor is this to be wondered at, for 
 setting aside the indifference which characterizes us, 
 when Foreign affairs are in question, we admit that 
 in many essential points Spain differs from every 
 other European country, and as the Spanish ques- 
 
125 
 
 tion is generally viewed and argued upon according 
 to our experience, and by the analogies drawn from 
 the history and character of other countries, the ques- 
 tion becomes embarrassed rather than illustrated by 
 discussion. The nature of the Government, moreover, 
 from which Spain has been recently emancipated 
 cut off all channels of information, communication of 
 ideas was forbidden, political connexion was dis- 
 solved, and every element for the formation of public 
 opinion was insulated, so that men, who had equally 
 good means of collecting information and of forming 
 opinions as to the wishes and wants of the country, 
 and of the probable success of the different parties 
 engaged, have frequently on the same spot arrived 
 at the most opposite conclusions. It was therefore 
 naturally to be expected that erroneous judgments 
 should be formed and should continue to be formed 
 abroad of a country which is but hastily visited by 
 travellers, and where no two provinces entirely re- 
 semble each other ; where the inhabitants are prone 
 to conceal the truth, sometimes from pride, some- 
 times from jealousy, sometimes from habitual fear, 
 and very generally from a spirit of boasting exag- 
 geration, which is perhaps the only feature in the 
 character of Spaniards which may be said to be 
 universal. 
 
 These are some of the general causes of the errors 
 and mistakes prevalent in other countries with re- 
 spect to Spain, and many others exist which are 
 incidental to the peculiar circumstances in which the 
 
126 
 
 Peninsula has been placed during the last three 
 years. The channels, through which intelligence 
 has flowed from the Peninsula to Europe, have been 
 corrupted, political, financial or party motives have 
 more or less influenced those who have undertaken 
 to enlighten the public ; and when to this is added, 
 an imperfect knowledge of the country, the people, 
 and the language, it is not surprising that so much 
 error has been propagated and so little truth has 
 been permitted to see the light. For three years 
 Spain has been the great gambling-house of Europe, 
 both politically and financially speaking. Every 
 writer on Spanish affairs has had his party, his 
 paper, or his job, together with his prejudices, his 
 passions, and generally his ignorance of every 
 thing but his own objects. What was to be ex- 
 pected but falsehood, tricked up in a thousand dif- 
 ferent guises ? 
 
 Had this not been the case, and had the Spanish 
 question been broadly stated and fairly argued in 
 England, there would have been less skirmishing 
 upon its outskirts, and the Government would not 
 have been exposed to the guerrilla fire, which has 
 been directed against it in Parliament. The inter- 
 ests and objects of England would have been made 
 apparent, and we believe the good sense of the 
 nation would have strongly pronounced itself in 
 favour of the Government, and would have con- 
 demned any attempt to increase the difficulties 
 which both the English and Spanish Government 
 
127 
 
 had to encounter in bringing to a successful con- 
 clusion the contest upon which so much depended 
 for both countries. It would have been seen that a 
 little weight thrown into the balance would have 
 decided the question in our favour, (we say our, be- 
 cause the more the subject is considered, the more 
 we know it will be felt that the cause of the Queen 
 is the cause of England in Spain), but that the want 
 of that little caused the prolongation of the civil 
 war with all its attendant horrors and revolutionary 
 prospects. And we cannot permit ourselves to 
 doubt that a trifling sacrifice would have been 
 made, if it had been clearly demonstrated, that 
 political advantages would have been its result to 
 England ; and that humanity and the cause of 
 good government required it in Spain. We repeat, 
 that every step onwards in revolution in Spain has 
 been caused by the civil war alone ; and that the 
 Government or the system which had the good for- 
 tune to put an end to that war, would have been 
 that with which the nation would have been con- 
 tented; but the duration and the disasters of the 
 war exhausted the country and exasperated the 
 people. Changes of government effected by noisy 
 brawlers were sanctioned by the nation in the hope 
 that new men might bring with them new vigour, 
 and put an end to a state of things which had be- 
 come intolerable. If Zea had crushed the war in its 
 birth, Zea and enlightened despotism would not 
 have fallen. Martinez de la Rosa and the Estatuto 
 
128 
 
 Real were overthrown by the military failures which 
 occurred at the latter period of his administration. 
 Mendizabal would have continued Prime Minister 
 of Spain, if he had been able to fulfil his promises 
 of terminating the struggle ; and the cry of the 
 Constitution put an end to the calamitous Govern- 
 ment of Isturiz, chiefly because that Government, 
 beyond all preceding ones, was distinguished by 
 military reverses. After each change, the nation 
 has paused, watching with breathless anxiety the 
 consequences of their act, and has abstained from 
 any fresh experiment, until their disappointment 
 in the preceding one became no longer doubtful. 
 
 We deplore the mode in which the Constitution 
 has been established in Spain ; we feel the dangers 
 of the precedent ; and we admit that all those un- 
 acquainted with Spaniards were justified in antici- 
 pating grievous calamities from the event. But the 
 manner in which things in Spain turn out, con- 
 trary to every ordinary calculation, was never more 
 exemplified than with respect to the Constitution ; 
 for not only has the aspect of affairs improved since 
 it was proclaimed, but we venture to assert that 
 there is not another people in Europe who, under 
 such trying circumstances, would have exhibited 
 such moderation as the Spanish nation have shewn. 
 
 The unfortunate Quesada was accessory to his 
 own death ; had he followed the advice of his 
 friends, or the commonest dictates of prudence, the 
 infamy of his assassination would not have weighed 
 
129 
 
 upon his countrymen, and he might long since 
 have found himself as safe and as well protected at 
 Madrid as he had been at any former period of his 
 life. During the last few days of the Isturiz 
 ministry, Quesada, with no common personal cou- 
 rage, sternly performed what he believed to be his 
 duty. He disarmed the National Guard of Madrid 
 — he dispersed the rioters by force — and he pro- 
 claimed his intention of executing a large number 
 of them on the day on which he himself afterwards 
 ceased to live. At that moment the news arrived 
 from La Granja that the Queen Regent had sworn 
 to the Constitution, had ordered it to be proclaimed 
 in the capital, and had displaced the whole of the 
 authorities. Quesada concealed himself for a few 
 hours ; but, deaf to the entreaties of some faithful 
 friends, he persisted in riding out of the gates of 
 Madrid at mid-day, along the high road, and with- 
 out any attempt at disguise. He was recognized, im- 
 mediately pursued by a mob of ruffians, and most 
 inhumanly butchered. His name had long been 
 hateful to the National Guard and populace of 
 Madrid, and his death was hailed with savage 
 exultation. The people were at that moment with- 
 out authorities, without law, and in all the dizzy 
 excitement produced by a transition from a state 
 of siege, to one of the most uncontrolled liberty ; — 
 yet the blood of Quesada did not whet their appe- 
 tites for more. Not another wound was inflicted, 
 nor was an outrage or robbery committed. Let it 
 
130 
 
 be considered that this was a revolution scarcely 
 less important and even still more sudden than the 
 revolution of July. But no injury was done to the 
 persons most implicated, who took the precaution 
 not to expose themselves to the first burst of popu- 
 lar excitement. In France the ministers who had 
 violated the Constitution were tried for their lives 
 before the highest tribunal of their country several 
 months after the commission of their offence ; and 
 were afterwards, with difficulty, saved from the 
 fury of the mob, in order to be consigned to im- 
 prisonment for life. The Spanish Ministers had 
 suppressed, by an act of authority, the liberty of 
 the press ; their administration had been distin- 
 guished by many unpopular acts, whether justly or 
 not, the military disasters which had for three 
 months followed each other in rapid succession, 
 were attributed to their mismanagement: and, 
 lastly, they had disarmed the National Guard of 
 Madrid, and had proclaimed martial law in the 
 capital of Spain. Within a week after the pro- 
 clamation of the Constitution, three of these minis- 
 ters were walking, unmolested, about the streets 
 of Madrid, and one of them has since been ap- 
 pointed by the Government to one of the most 
 important posts in the gift of the Crown. The 
 remaining three thought proper to leave the coun- 
 try ; but it is to be observed that these three had, 
 up to the moment of taking office, been the con- 
 stant advocates of ultra-liberalism, and were there- 
 
131 
 
 fore ill looked upon by all parties. A petition, 
 neither numerously nor respectably signed, was pre- 
 sented to the Government demanding the trial 
 of the ex-ministers. It has never since been heard 
 of. No measures against them have been taken, 
 or even proposed by the Cortes, and their names 
 and their deeds are passing rapidly into oblivion. 
 We believe that in few countries, even among those 
 laying claim to greater civilization and humanity 
 than Spain, under similar circumstances, would 
 similar moderation have been displayed. 
 
 The new Government gathered up the scattered 
 elements of force which still remained, and gra- 
 dually established their authority. They convoked 
 the Cortes under the law of the Constitution, which 
 is framed as if for the purpose of securing a demo- 
 cratical Convention, and again, contrary to all ex- 
 pectation, the Cortes have exhibited a degree of 
 moderation and good sense, which would do honour 
 to the first legislative assembly in the world ; they 
 have conferred the Regency upon the Queen-mo- 
 ther, during the minority of her daughter, — they 
 have been constant in their desire to render the 
 Government strong, and have passed by large ma- 
 jorities, and notwithstanding their extreme severity, 
 the exceptional measures demanded by the Govern- 
 ment, — they have already made great progress in 
 the reforms of the Constitution, in order to adapt 
 it to the wants of the country, and to place it in 
 harmony with other Constitutional Governments, 
 
 k 2 
 
132 
 
 9 
 
 and above all, they have displayed a determination 
 not to consent to revolutionary measures ; and the 
 bad faith and folly of a few Deputies, have only 
 served to organize a powerful majority, and to dis- 
 play the spirit of moderation by which that majority 
 is animated. All the detailed machinery of the 
 Constitution, which rendered it as a system of 
 Government utterly impracticable, is already 
 abolished— the establishment of two Chambers is 
 agreed upon— the absolute veto, and the power of 
 convoking, proroguing, and dissolving the Cortes, 
 have been granted to the Crown, and Deputies are 
 now capable of being appointed Ministers, which 
 they were not before, and thus one of the grossest 
 of the innumerable defects of the Constitution 
 has been removed. To preclude the Crown from 
 selecting a ministry from the majority of the Cham- 
 ber, in a representative system, was an absurdity, 
 resolutely defended by the Cortes of 1820, but 
 immediately acknowledged, and corrected by the 
 Cortes of 1836. By the Constitution as it stood, 
 a Minister could not be elected to be a Deputy 
 while in office, or during a twelvemonth after 
 quitting office, and thus the country was deprived of 
 the services of men whose official and practical 
 knowledge might be useful in the Cortes, and who 
 must be the best able to watch and control the ad- 
 ministration of their successors. The Crown, on 
 the other hand, was disabled from selecting a 
 Deputy to fill any post for which his talents or his 
 
133 
 
 services rendered him fit. These and other Consti- 
 tutional blunders, have been corrected, after de- 
 bates which do infinite credit to the Deputies, and 
 are of happy omen for the continuation of the 
 career, which they have so wisely begun. 
 
 Military successes likewise — i that indispensable 
 element of strength to the Government of Spain — 
 have not been wanting. General Iri barren sur- 
 prised, and made prisoners a column of 1000 Car- 
 lists, and a still greater number of prisoners were 
 taken in La Mancha, belonging to Gomez's corps. 
 Cantaireja, the stronghold of the Carlists in Aragon, 
 and the centre of their operations in that province 
 and Valencia, is now in the possession of the Queen's 
 troops. Maroto has been beaten in Catalonia, and 
 he himself compelled to seek refuge in France. 
 The expedition of Sanz to Galicia, consisting of 
 3500 men, utterly failed, and hardly 1000 men 
 got back to Navarre, where their accounts of the 
 sufferings they were exposed to from privations of 
 every kind, and from the hostility of the people, 
 will, we have reason to believe, prove to the insur- 
 gents the impolicy of again descending from their 
 mountain holds. The expedition of Gomez has 
 also been of signal advantage to the Queen's cause ; 
 advantage dearly bought, it is true — but gained, 
 and not to be disputed. That expedition has proved, 
 that whenever the Queen's generals really choose 
 to look for and to attack the Carlists, they will al- 
 ways find, and beat them ; for Gomez, with 12,000. 
 
134 
 
 men, was met and completely routed by Narvaez 
 with 4000. That expedition further proves, that 
 either there exists no sympathy for Don Carlos in 
 the greater part of Spain, or else that the party 
 favourable to his pretensions is too timid or insigni- 
 ficant to shew itself. Gomez was pursued, it is 
 true, or rather followed by a division of the Queen's 
 troops, from which however it was evident he had 
 little to fear; the authorities, and generally the 
 National Guards, fled upon his approach ; in all 
 the country he overrun there was hardly a regi- 
 ment of soldiers, and no obstacle whatever existed 
 to a general rising in favour of Don Carlos, if the 
 people had been really in his favour. Lord Car- 
 narvon's opinion, that Gomez did not raise the 
 country on account of the difficulty of arming t?lie 
 people, is quite incorrect : he did attempt it every 
 where ; arms there would have been no difficulty 
 in providing, and Gomez, when he left Navarre, 
 carried with him a large quantity of spare arms ; a 
 convincing evidence of his object. But arms would 
 not have been necessary, if, with the 12,000 men 
 he had with him, the country had been with him 
 also : the 5000 troops that were following in his 
 wake would have been exterminated. 
 
 The people submitted to Gomez and to the rob- 
 beries and atrocities of his band because they had 
 no means of resisting ; but except in one or two 
 insignificant places not a manifestation was made 
 in favour of Don Carlos, and in those places order 
 
 
135 
 
 was instantly restored upon the return of the local 
 authorities to their functions. In the retreat of 
 Gomez, as well as in that of Cabrera, who had se- 
 parated from Gomez sometime previously, the Car- 
 lists were harassed on all sides by the peasantry, 
 and the stragglers were hunted down and killed 
 like wild beasts. 
 
 In Galicia, the Asturias, Leon, Castille, Aragon, 
 Valencia, Andalusia, Estremadura, Murcia, and 
 La Mancha, in short, in nearly the whole of Spain 
 which has been traversed by Gomez it is manifest 
 that the people are not disposed to take part with 
 Don Carlos — a fact which has been always asserted 
 by the partisans of the Queen, but which required 
 for its demonstration the confirmation which has 
 been given to it by the occurrences of the last six 
 months. Gomez levied exorbitant contributions in 
 every town — he plundered the plate and jewels of 
 the churches — his soldiers robbed and maltreated 
 the inhabitants — the individuals of most conse- 
 quence were every where carried off prisoners, and 
 many were murdered, when through fatigue or 
 weakness they were unable to keep up with the 
 rapid marches of this horde of demons, who swept 
 the face of the country like a plague. It is not to 
 be wondered at that Carlism has become abhorrent 
 to the people of the South, or that these missionaries 
 should be viewed as dread forerunners of the wrath 
 to come, if those who sent them should ever enter 
 upon the exercise of their destroying vengeance. 
 
136 
 
 Another service has likewise been rendered by 
 Gomez to the Queen's cause. He has every where 
 changed the tone and bearing of the extreme liberal 
 party — they resemble drunken men who have been 
 sobered by a sudden alarm. Before the arrival of 
 Gomez they were overflowing with boasting and 
 defiance ; they fled upon his approach, and after- 
 wards when contemplating the scene of havoc which 
 they had returned to, they felt the insufficiency of 
 volunteers, and Juntas, and proclamations, and they 
 acknowledged the necessity of having a Govern- 
 ment, and of making that Government strong by 
 all the force which union can bestow. 
 
 The feelings of this party, and their crude or 
 exaggerated notions off liberty, have undergone a 
 complete change, and an approximation of the Car- 
 lists to the Liberals has grown out of the change. 
 Thus when Cabrera with a considerable force ap- 
 proached the town of Quintan ar de la Orden, the 
 Royalists joined with the Nationals and beat off 
 the enemy. A sense of common danger united 
 these men in a common cause, and the kindly feel- 
 ings produced by reciprocal services, and by the 
 necessity of reciprocal support, are calculated to be 
 enduring. 
 
 From all those elements, then, of confusion and 
 chaos, which presented themselves in Spain five 
 months since, with an aspect so lowering, order is 
 at length beginning to issue, and hope for the first 
 itime dawns upon that unhappy land. The hurricane 
 
137 
 
 'of political passions has subsided, but the traces it has 
 left behind are awful evidence of its fury, and in- 
 spire an unmixed horror of its possible return. 
 Weariness and exhaustion are on every side mani- 
 fest, and the all-prevailing feeling is a desire for 
 repose. The people of Spain 'with one voice im- 
 plore for peace, and thrice blessed to them will be 
 the hand that gives it. For peace they are now 
 fitted. Experience, bought by misery and blood- 
 shed, has taught them its inestimable value. Ex- 
 perience will teach them to preserve it, and the 
 past will become the best security for the future. 
 With a nation thus disposed, how noble and how 
 light are the labours of a Government, with power 
 not inferior to its will for perfecting the materials 
 which a concurrence of accidents has placed at its 
 command — how many wounds are there to heal — 
 what misfortunes to repair — what differences to 
 compound — what an impenetrable veil to be thrown 
 over the past ! 
 
 This is no idle dream or fancy sketch of an un- 
 real state of things — it is possible, it is practicable, 
 it would be certain, if the Government had the 
 strength necessary for meeting the wishes and 
 wants of the people. How little is required to im- 
 part that strength ! and upon what straws do the 
 destinies of nations as of men depend ! The sub- 
 jection of fifty square leagues of mountainous dis- 
 trict to the lawful sovereign of Spain may seal the 
 (happiness of the Spanish people. In that little 
 
138 
 
 area is the centre and heart of that system which 
 may ensure their misery. A mortal blow given 
 there, the members of that system will become in- 
 animate, and its arteries will no longer flow. Car- 
 lism would be dead, and with it would cease to 
 exist the spurious spirit of liberty which it fed and 
 kept alive. The moment is propitious, but it is fleet- 
 ing. The guilt and woe, and all the acts of despera- 
 tion, which timely succour will avert, may be esti- 
 mated by all, and heavy is the responsibility of him 
 who with calculating coldness permits that ill which 
 he has the ability to prevent. 
 
 Spain is in need of succour. Spaniards may 
 again become desperate— may again be plunged in 
 crime. England has the power to prevent it, and 
 England may deeply rue the day when she turns a 
 deaf ear to a nation imploring her aid. Shall it be 
 said that the House of Commons of England, who 
 unhesitatingly purchased with millions the right 
 of striking off the shackles from the slave; who in 
 the purest spirit of philanthropy have dealt out 
 with bounteous hands the means for abolishing an 
 inhuman traffic — shall it be said that they will 
 hesitate to save a nation of freed-men from return- 
 ing into bondage ? If humanity did not forbid the 
 thought, self-interest should make us pause before 
 we reject an opportunity which may again perhaps 
 never occur. Set aside every great and generous 
 motive, let our considerations be sordid and specu- 
 lating, and still we ought to proceed. The part- 
 
139 
 
 nership of France should first be invited in our 
 enterprise, for we seek no exclusive advantages for 
 ourselves ; we have a common interest with her, 
 and our joint success in Spain, would render omni- 
 potent our moral force in Europe. But should 
 France still persist in her present Machiavelian 
 policy, still we should say proceed ; nay more, we 
 should view it as an additional motive for proceed- 
 ing, for the interests of France in restoring peace 
 and moderate government in Spain are so manifest, 
 that it must require some strong motive to induce 
 the French Government to continue to sacrifice 
 those interests. What then is that motive ? Is it 
 a desire to level a blow at England ? Does the 
 French Government dread the advantages which 
 England might derive from Spain when prospe- 
 rous and free; and has this fear for three years 
 guided the conduct of France ? If such were the 
 case, we should say such policy is short-sighted and 
 ill-founded ; we should deplore the event which 
 produced coldness in relations which ought to be 
 enduring ; but we should feel that England is rich 
 enough, and strong enough, and bold enough to 
 pursue single-handed the course which humanity 
 dictates, and which is most conducive to her ho- 
 nour and her interests. She has done so before, 
 and she is not degenerated now. How trifling too 
 would be our outlay — how great and how rapid our 
 return. The guarantee of a loan, for which Spain 
 is able and willing to give ample security, would 
 
140 
 
 provide for the exigencies of the state, and would 
 render the Government politically strong ; a land 
 force which should occupy the frontier of France, 
 and which south of the Pyrennees should carry 
 into effect that article of the Treaty which France 
 has failed to execute to the north of those moun- 
 tains, would blockade the Carlists in their rocky 
 citadels, and would re-organise and reanimate the 
 Spanish army. The British standard would be a 
 pledge that what England undertakes England 
 will perform ; and in a few short weeks we should 
 not only have the glory of finishing this fratricidal 
 war, but should find ourselves in the proud position 
 of having established peace upon a lasting foun- 
 dation. 
 
 Spain would not expect this boon unconditionally 
 at our hands ; but the conditions we should impose 
 would be honourable to her government, and advan- 
 tageous to her people, and we should then through- 
 out the changes with which the political horizon of 
 Europe is now big, possess in Spain an ally whose 
 resources and geographical position, and friendly 
 feelings would be to us of inestimable value ; and 
 whose liberalised system of commerce would offer a 
 market for our productions, such as no other coun- 
 try in Europe could afford. In Spain, moreover, 
 better than in any country of the world, that great 
 want of England, the means of employing profit- 
 ably her surplus capital, might be found. The 
 corn, the fruits, the wool, the innumerable wines 
 
141 
 
 of Spain want but the hand of industry and the 
 improvements of skill to bring them to perfection 
 and to command the markets of the world. Her 
 enormous church and national property is yet 
 unsold, and the investment of foreign capital in 
 such purchases is invited by the government and 
 desired by the people. The resources of Spain are 
 yet unexplored, they are mines of gold whose pre- 
 cious products are at the command of those who 
 choose to search for them, and will take the trouble 
 to remove the obstacles by which they have 
 hitherto been concealed. Let Englishmen under- 
 take the work and well will their industry be 
 rewarded, and well will that government deserve 
 of the country, which knits our political alliance 
 with the Peninsula, by the bonds of material and 
 reciprocal interests. 
 
 It is into this vast field of combined political and 
 commercial speculation, that we trust the Spanish 
 question will be carried in the ensuing Session of 
 Parliament, and should His Majesty's Ministers 
 fail in the performance of a duty which their good 
 fortune (in our opinion) has imposed upon them, 
 we entertain a confident hope that independent 
 members of the House of Commons w T ill not be 
 wanting to rouse the attention of the people of 
 England to a subject in which they are so nearly 
 concerned, for certain we are that he will success- 
 fully appeal to all classes of his countrymen who 
 calls upon them to support the commercial pros- 
 perity, and the political glory of Great Britain. 
 
142 
 
 Since the preceding pages were written, two 
 events important in their bearing upon the Spanish 
 question have occurred. The relief of Bilboa and 
 the French speech from the throne. 
 
 Every resource which Don Carlos could com- 
 mand, all the energy his partizans could display, 
 his best generals, his foreign engineers, his picked 
 battalions, and the whole of his artillery, all were 
 concentrated against Bilboa. The importance of 
 taking the place was magnified by the Carlists, and 
 the certainty of the event was announced far and 
 wide by their agents both at home and abroad. 
 The simple natives of the provinces were assured 
 that the recognition of their King by Foreign 
 Powers would follow His Majesty's entry into the 
 city, and that foreign gold and foreign troops would 
 open the road from thence to Madrid, while the 
 ex-Charges d'Aflfaires of the Holy Alliance at 
 Madrid, who were permitted, as embryo Ministers 
 to Don Carlos, to hold their congress of Dii 
 minores, and to play their diplomatic high life 
 below stairs at Bayonne and Pau, re-echoed the 
 Carlist assurances, and as the agents of those 
 Powers have always done throughout from the year 
 of 1832, led their Courts into error respecting what 
 was passing and what was to come to pass in Spain. 
 
 Bilboa is completely commanded by surrounding 
 mountains, and as a military position, and accord- 
 
143 
 
 ing to the rules of art, is indefensible : these moun- 
 tains were all occupied by the Carlists. Every 
 local advantage was deliberately and without oppo- 
 sition turned to the best account, and yet during 
 nine weeks did the slender garrison of regular 
 troops, the twelve hundred National Guards, and 
 the inhabitants of that heroic city resist every 
 attack ; and the besiegers were at length driven from 
 their heights which should have been impregnable, 
 by seven battalions of the Queen's troops, leaving 
 behind them the whole of their artillery, their 
 ammunition, and provisions, and flying themselves 
 in utter rout, confusion, and dismay. 
 
 What, then, are we to think of the military 
 power of Don Carlos, when the elite of that army of 
 100,000 men, with which he has been so liberally 
 endowed by Lord Carnarvon, almost in the heart 
 of their own country, lacking for nothing, unmo- 
 lested from without, and in the advantageous po- 
 sitions selected by themselves, were unable to take 
 possession of the town they commanded, or to over- 
 come its National Guards, the only time they dared 
 to enter the breaches they had made : and when 
 we see these chosen patriots and hardy mountaineers 
 unable to hold, against an inferior force, those 
 heights which, on the 24th of December, bristled 
 with the bayonets of thirty Carlist battalions, but 
 where, when the day dawned on the 25th, not a 
 single Carlist soldier was to be seen. 
 
 The relief of Bilboa, by the Queen's army* is a 
 
144 
 
 brilliant military achievement. In any country,, 
 and in any army, it would be reckoned so, when 
 the difficulties which were overcome are considered 
 — the bridges which were to be made — the forts 
 that were to be stormed — and the heights which it 
 was necessary to carry by assault — all under com- 
 manding fires, and in a night of storm, and snow, 
 and of intense cold, such as is rarely felt in southern 
 latitudes; when the soldiers crept, for warmth, 
 under the heaps of dead ; many of them without 
 shoes, in linen trowsers, and with a handkerchief 
 tied round as the only covering for their heads; yet, 
 most of these men had volunteered for the assault, 
 and well do they deserve the glory they have 
 earned. 
 
 Compare this deed of arms with a recent unfor- 
 tunate event in Africa, and in all sincerity we say 
 unfortunate, because we desire to see France power- 
 ful both at home and abroad. So far from being 
 animated by any petty feelings of jealousy, we look 
 upon it as our interest that France should be all 
 that her position, her boundless resources, and the 
 character of her people, so well entitle her to aspire 
 to. We know her interests are identical with ours, 
 and w r e believe that when those, who rule her desti- 
 nies, arrive at a becoming consciousness of power, 
 there will be an end of all desire to court a foreign 
 yoke under which the rulers may pass, but under 
 which the people will not follow. 
 
 We regret, therefore, any reverse which may 
 
145 
 
 befal France, and we heartily wish we had no such 
 point of comparison to resort to ; but let our 
 readers compare the abundant supplies and excel- 
 lent clothing of those veteran soldiers of France, 
 with the half-starved, half-naked condition of the 
 Queen's troops ; the short march of the former, and 
 the one snow-storm which occurred on it, with the 
 month's bivouac of the latter upon marshy ground, 
 and in an almost unceasing tempest. Compare the 
 old Moorish fortifications of Constantina, against 
 which an experienced Marshal of France considered 
 7,000 men were more than a sufficient force, and 
 his inability to enter by the gates which he had 
 thrown down ; with the river, the forts, and the 
 heights which the Carlists had in their favour, and 
 the desperate resistance which, for awhile, their 
 superior numbers and positions enabled them to 
 make. Compare all these, and we shall see cause 
 for admitting that the relief of Bilboa is a splendid 
 deed of arms. 
 
 And what shall we say for that " chivalrous feel- 
 ing of honour " (p. 344) in Don Carlos, "which, 
 within the sphere of his authority," according to his 
 noble biographer, "has respected the property of 
 persons actually in arms against him :" what will 
 our readers say to this, when they know the manner 
 in which the siege of that unfortunate capital of the 
 enthusiastic Basques was carried on ? Bilboa was 
 not even summoned to surrender ; but, during the 
 first three days and nights, was bombarded by six- 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 teen pieces of heavy artillery. Upwards of 2,000 
 rounds of shot and fire-balls were sent into the town 
 — many houses received four and five shells — the 
 general devastation was tremendous, and the firing 
 only ceased when the ammunition was exhausted ; 
 it being evident, from the manner in which the 
 batteries were constructed, and from the defending 
 lines not being attacked, that the real intention of 
 the Carlists was, to burn or destroy every house in 
 the town : and be it remarked, that this fiendish 
 assault of a Prince upon his fellow-countrymen, and, 
 as he hopes, future subjects, was not the work of 
 " Navarrese enthusiasm," or of one of those men 
 who, by enlistment, had " sought the only road to 
 honour and independence ;" but of a Frenchman, 
 whose promises and whose projectiles had merited 
 the entire confidence of Don Carlos. 
 
 This was not all, however; for had the relieving 
 army delayed but a few hours longer, all that re- 
 mained of Bilboa would have been levelled with the 
 ground : the mine, which was to have blown up 
 the town and the inhabitants, had already reached 
 its termination, and Espartero saved the women 
 and children of Bilboa from the chivalry of the Pre- 
 tender, whose army we can only suppose was, in 
 this instance, acting without the " sphere of his 
 authority." We trust that the British public will, 
 henceforward, no longer be imposed upon by tales 
 of that Prince's respect for the property of his 
 enemies. Perhaps, indeed, as the men of Bilboa 
 
147 
 
 entertain opinions so different from those of their 
 brother Basques, they may be considered to be 
 without " a sense of religious duty to their king, 
 their country, and their God ;" and to have de- 
 served, therefore, the fate that was prepared for 
 them. But here, again, we have another sample 
 of the system which would be universally pursued 
 by the Carlist party against their opponents, if the 
 means of exercising their vengeance should ever be 
 in their power. 
 
 The failure at Bilboa, after all the glorious re- 
 sults of success which had been promised, has, as 
 may well be supposed, scattered dismay and dejec- 
 tion among the partizans of Don Carlos in the 
 North of Spain. They had staked their all, and 
 they have lost it. The greater part of the insur- 
 gents would at this moment lay down their arms, 
 if they did not fear the ill consequences of submis- 
 sion, to themselves and their families ; and had we 
 now the British standard in Biscay, with the small 
 force necessary to give confidence to the insurgents, 
 we should be able to mediate between the bellige- 
 rents and to bestow peace upon the country. The 
 Queen's Government desires but peace, the Basques 
 would be no more molested than Carlists in other 
 parts of the country are, and there would be even 
 a greater interest in conciliating them ; but still we 
 fear that from the character of the combatants neither 
 will of themselves come to an amicable settlement ; 
 and the nature of the country will prolong the war, 
 unless a third party intervenes to propose an ad- 
 
148 
 
 justment, which both will be ready to accept. We 
 are doubly anxious that this work of philanthropy 
 should be undertaken by England, since the solemn 
 announcement which the French Government has 
 made by the Speech from the Throne, that France 
 will not intervene in favour of the Queen of Spain 
 — a declaration which the Carlist will look upon 
 as rather more important than the accompanying 
 vows for the consolidation of the throne of Isabella. 
 Without entirely throwing off the outward forms 
 usually observed upon such occasions, it would 
 have been difficult for the French Minister to have 
 drawn up a speech more hostile to the Queen's 
 cause. — " Fatal dissensions still disturb the Penin- 
 sula" — " Serious events have shaken the institutions 
 at Madrid" — " Spain has been incessantly deso- 
 lated by civil war." Not a word of the gradual 
 consolidation of those shaken institutions, not a 
 word of the conduct of the Cortes, or of the anti- 
 revolutionary spirit which is on every side spring- 
 ing up, or of the little sympathy which the Pre- 
 tender's cause found in the provinces which have 
 been traversed by his bands — not a ray of hope for 
 Spain, in short, appears, and the speech only ap- 
 plauds the French Government for having de- 
 parted, with respect to Spain, from that policy 
 which sent the " children of France" to shed their 
 blood at Antwerp, and to offer battle at Ancona.* 
 
 * We have alluded only to the King's Speech, for the quibbling 
 speeches of his Ministers are but embarrassed comments upon that 
 text. They have, moreover, been dissected, analyzed, and scattered 
 
149 
 
 We have no right to doubt that which the speech 
 so solemnly states, that France is still closely united 
 with Great Britain, as regards the treaty of the 
 Quadruple Alliance, and our Government should 
 therefore join with those of Spain and Portugal, 
 and invite the fulfilment of the 4th article of that 
 treaty, by which it is stipulated, that " if the co- 
 operation of France should be deemed necessary by 
 the High Contracting Parties for the complete at- 
 tainment of the object of this treaty, His Majesty the 
 King of the French, engages to do in this respect 
 whatever might be settled by common consent be- 
 tween himself and his three august Allies. " If the 
 invitation be rejected, we then urgently repeat ; Let 
 England singly do the work, and singly reap the 
 
 to the winds by the arguments and powerful eloquence of M. Thiers, 
 and by the honest and open statement of facts made by his late col- 
 leagues : — u Look at the Treaty," says M. Thiers, M Portugal 
 gave an army, England a naval force, and France gave nothing but 
 promises. These promises evidently meant succour. If they were 
 given and meant succour, then to refuse it was to break the Treaty. 
 If the promises were given and meant nothing, then the French 
 Government has meanly sought to dupe England and Europe. * * 
 * * * Others talk of moral support given by France. But 
 the only moral support is the certitude that France will aid Spain if 
 aid be necessary ; and this moral support has not been given, but 
 withdrawn. Nay, the refusal of succour has thrown our moral 
 support altogether to the Carlist side." 
 
 " As to the Quadruple Alliance," says M. Sauzet, u the use you 
 have made of it has been to give promises and break them ; excite 
 hopes in the weak, and withdraw them in the hour of peril. You 
 have made it a great weakness and a great lie." 
 
150 
 
 reward — let us establish the Queen's authority; hu- 
 manity and the peace of Europe render necessary 
 the trifling sacrifice, by which this might be ac- 
 complished, and w r e need have no fear with Lord 
 Carnarvon, that the royal tenure in Spain (p. 342) 
 will have the same inherent taint as " the Bourbon 
 dynasty in France, which was replaced on the 
 throne of that country, by a foreign force." 
 
 Why, however, in order to exemplify his case, 
 did Lord Carnarvon go out of Spain, where he 
 might have found a parallel example, to seek a 
 foreign one, which is not so. Louis XVIII. was 
 placed, and for a time supported upon the throne, 
 (after many doubts of the Allies as to the policy of 
 allowing the Bourbon dynasty again to reign in 
 France,) by the armies against which France had 
 been so long fighting, and whose presence and 
 support might have been sufficient to secure the 
 national hatred for the king thus imposed. But by 
 whose exertions was Ferdinand placed on the 
 throne? Did British support give an " inherent 
 taint" to his tenure ? Did Spaniards during the 
 Peninsular war look upon " British troops not only 
 with political aversion, but as the natural enemies 
 of their faith ?" None of all this, but the contrarv of 
 all this occurred, and hence it became necessary 
 to look in other countries for a case which does not 
 apply to that of the Queen of Spain. 
 
 A few troops sent to Spain, to which Spanish 
 divisions would be attached, and a guarantee of a 
 
151 
 
 loan for which ample security might be given us, 
 are all that is wanted to make Spain tranquil, and 
 England even more honoured and respected than 
 she already is. We repeat our hope that such a 
 measure may be proposed by the Government to 
 Parliament, or by Parliament to the Government, 
 and that it may be executed with the energy and 
 determination that should always characterize the 
 policy of England. 
 
 Of the success, no man who knows any thing of 
 Spain, can possibly doubt. 
 
 THE END, 
 
 NORMAN AND 8KEEN, PRINTERS, MAIDEN LANE, COVENT GARDEN. 
 
 * 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
 on the date to which renewed. 
 
 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
 - 
 
 -^-tf*- 
 
 REC'D UD 
 
 NOV 13 1962 
 
 SEMTONILL 
 
 FEB 5 1998 
 
 U. C. BERKELEY 
 
 LD 2lA-50m-3/62 
 (C7097sl0)476B 
 
 General Library . 
 University of California 
 Berkeley 
 
983063 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 

 'A'jHH|n 
 
 - 
 
 r. 
 
 M 
 
 .** ■ - ■- . A^. *& -•■ >S *' </*'.' " 1 V^ 
 
 
 a , : :-::;| 
 
 
 ^ " ' ' - '. 
 
 
 
 
 - |T\. ; aW* Tvia ' " 'j 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 «.£nv Of^l^^H^&. 1 ' 1 
 
 H 
 
 
 
 
 
 ,'^8lff^W^ "1 
 
 
 • %nift.r IV'T W*' 
 
 
 
 
 
 A/ 
 
 
 
 
 w 
 
 
 
 
 m 
 
 ' Aft A 
 
 '?m(~ ■ t 
 
 mm 
 
 wW-