370 
first of kings, and a nation greater 
which makes a king great, than one 
which owes its greatness to the 
chances of legitimacy, and a govern- 
ment of favourites, placed above the 
law. 
We confess we had hoped much 
‘or Europe in the regeneration of the 
Neapolitan, Portuguese, and Spanish, 
governments; but it appears that, 
when courts make common cause, 
they have the address to turn man- 
kind on one another ; and the philoso- 
phers of the three countries have 
deceived themselves, and put back 
their cause a whole generation, by a 
spirit of moderation which has not 
been respected by the common 
enemy. 
Many persons in England still hope 
something from Mina, and even from 
the desperation of the traitors, who 
were deceived by the sheep’s clothing 
of the foreign banditti; but what can 
be done, with any chance of success, 
by men scattered, who were every 
where bafiled while their power was 
concentrated and unbroken. Others 
charge the Spanish people with want 
of energy, but forget the sacrifices 
specious: pretences of the invaders, 
and the allies which they found in 
the priests and devotees. In our 
opinion, the liberal party in Spain did 
all that the same party could or 
would do in any country, under si- 
milar circumstances. France in 
1792-3 escaped the fate of Spain 
owing to a system which mankind 
now agree to condemn. Like the 
conspiracy of the Holy Alliance, the 
French committees disregarded the 
means, for the sake of the end. ‘The 
moral principle was respected by the 
Neapolitans, the Portuguese, and the 
Spaniards ; and we sce the result. 
To speak historically on the sub- 
ject, we must state, that, after the 
French had succeeded by treachery 
in their assault on the Trocadero, they 
bombarded Cadiz; and both events 
so completed the divisions among the 
garrison and the inhabitants, that the 
Cortes and the Spanish ministers 
judged it merciful and expedient 
not to hazard furtber contest. An 
abortive convention was entered into 
with Ferdinand, the Cortes dissolved 
themselves, and the royal family 
leaped into the arms of their Bourbon 
Political Affairs in October. 
made, the treasons that appalled, the © 
[Nov. 1, 
confederate, at Bort St. Mary’s, on 
the 80th of September. The details 
of what took place in Cadiz are as yet 
imperfect ; but it seems that many of 
the principal patriots escaped to 
Gibraltar, and that Ferdinand issued 
in succession the following decrees :— 
First Decree. 
The scandalous excess which preceded, 
accompanied, and followed, the establish- 
ment of the democratical Constitution of 
Cadiz, in the month of March, 1820, have 
been made public, and known to all my 
subjects. 
The most criminal treason, the most 
disgraceful baseness, the most horrible of. 
fences against my royal person—these, 
coupled with violence, were the means 
employed to change essentially the pater- 
nal government of my kingdom into a de- 
mocratical code, the fertile source of dis- 
asters and misfortunes, 5; 
My subjects, accustomed to live under 
wise and moderate laws, and such as were 
conformable to their manners and cus- 
toms, and which, during so many ages, con- 
stituted the welfare of their ancestors. 
soon gave public and universal proofs of 
their disapprobation and contempt of the 
new Constitutional system, All classes 
of the state experienced the mischiefs 
caused by the new institutions. 
Tyrannically governed, by virtue and 
in the name of the Constitution, secretly 
watched in all their private concerns, it 
was not possible to restore order or jus- 
tice; and they could not obey laws esta- 
blished by perfidy and treason, sustained 
by violence, and the source of the most 
dreadful disorders, of the most desolating 
anarchy, and of universal calamity. 
The general voice was beard from all 
sides against the tyrannical Constitution ; 
it called for the cessation of a code null in 
its origin, illegal in its formation, and un- 
just in its principle; it called for the 
maintenance of the sacred religion of 
their ancestors, for the re-establishment 
of our fundamental laws, and for the 
preservation of my legitimate rights; 
rights which I have received from my 
ancestors, and which my subjects have 
solemnly sworn to defend. 
This general cry of the nation was not 
raised in vain. 
In all the provinces armed corps were 
formed, which leagued themselves against 
the soldiers of the Constitution; some. 
times they were conqnerors ; sometimes 
they were conquered; bunt they always 
remained firm to the cause of religion and 
of the monarchy. 
Their enthusiasm, in the defence of 
objects so sacred, never deserted them 
under the reverses of war, and, preferring 
death to the sacrifice of those great hig 
ts 
