186 
thirst for murder ; and at last emboldened by the 
impunity he enjoyed, Calvo proceeded to threaten 
the junta itself ; but there his career was check- 
ed. Those worthy personages who (with the ex- 
éeption of Mr. Tupper, the English consul, then a 
member) had calmly witnessed his previous vio- 
lence, at once found the means to crush his power 
when their own safety was concerned. ‘lhe 
eanon, being in the act of braving their authority, 
was seized by stratagem, imprisoned, and soon 
afterwards strangled, together with 200 of his 
band. 
Of the Madrid massacre, on the 2d of 
May—the source and prelude of these hor- 
rors—Colonel Napier speaks and reasons in 
these terms :— 
That it was commenced by the Spaniards is un- 
doubted—their fiery tempers, the irritation pro- 
duced by passing events, and the habits of violence 
which they had acquired by their late successful 
insurrection against Godoy, rendered an explo¢ 
sion inevitable. But if the French had secretly 
stimulated this disposition, and had prepared in 
cold blood to make a terrible example, undoubtedly 
they would have prepared some check on the 
Spanish soldiers of the garrison, and they would 
scarcely have left their bospital unguarded—still 
less, have arranged the plan, so that their own 
loss should far exceed that of the Spaniards ; and 
surely nothing would have induced them to relin- 
quish the profit of such policy, after having suf- 
fered all the injury. Yet Marshal Moncey and 
General Harispe were actively engaged in re- 
storing order; and it is certain that, including 
the peasants shot outside the gates, the ewe- 
cutions on the Prado, and in the barracks of 
the imperial guard, the whole number of 
Spaniards did not amount to 120 persons, while 
more than 700 French fell. Of the imperial guard 
70 were wounded, and this fact would suffice to 
prove that there was no premeditation on the part 
of Murat; for if he was base enough to sacrifice 
his own men with such unconcern, he would not 
have exposed the select soldiers of the French 
empire, in preference to the conscripts who 
abounded in his army. The affair itself was cer- 
tainly accidental, and not very bloody for the 
patriots ; but policy induced both sides to attribute 
secret motives, and to exaggerate the slaughter, 
&e. 
The convention of Cintra is stoutly de- 
fended by Colonel Napier :— 
_ The editors of the daily press,—says he, after 
discussing the circumstances—adopting all the 
misrepresentations of the Portuguese minister, 
and concluding that the silence of government 
was the consequence of its dissatisfaction at the 
convention, broke forth with such a torrent of 
rabid malevolence, that all feelings of right and 
justice were overburne, and the voice of truth 
stifled by their obstreperous cry. Many of the 
public papers were printed with mourning lines 
around the text, which related to Portuguese 
affairs ; all called for punishment, and some even 
talked of death to the guilty, before it was pos- 
sible to know if any crime had been committed ; 
the infamy of the convention was the universal 
subject of conversation—a general madness seem- 
ed to have seized all classes, and like the Athe- 
nians, after the sea-fight of Arginuss, the English 
Monthly Review of Literature, 
[Aueusr, 
people, if their laws would have permitted the ex- 
ploit, were ready to condemn their generals to 
death for having gained a victory. 
A court of inquiry was held at Chelsea— 
the report of which was not satisfactory to 
the government, and the members were re- 
quired to state their opinions individually. 
Colonel Napier is inclined to censure them 
for not speaking plainly. ‘‘ No set of men,”’ 
he says, “‘ were ever more favourably placed 
for giving a severe and just rebuke to popu- 
lar injustice.—Thus, ended,” adds he, ‘‘the 
last act of the celebrated convention of Cin- 
tra—the very name of which will always be 
a signal record of the ignorant and ridiculous 
vehemence of the public feeling; for the 
armistice, the negociations, the convention 
itself, and the execution of its provisions, 
were all commenced, conducted, and con- 
cluded at the distance of thirty miles from 
Cintra, with which place they had not the 
slightest connexion, political, military, or 
local: yet Lord Byron has gravely asserted, 
in prose and verse, that the convention was 
signed at the Marquis of Marialva’s house, 
at Cintra; and the author of the ‘ Diary of 
an Invalid,’ improving upon the poet’s dis- 
covery, detected the stains of the ink spilt 
by Junot on the occasion.”’ 
The conduct of Lord Castlereagh and Mr. 
Canning, successively foreign secretaries, 
and that of the agents, civil and military, 
sent by them to all parts of Spain—with au- 
thorities undefined, or incompatible, or con- 
tradictory, and independent of the com- 
mander-in-chief, and even controlling him— 
are sharply and deservedly censured. But 
we have no space, and can only direct the 
reader’s attention to the subject—and, in- 
deed, to every part of the volume may that 
attention be properly directed. 
Pelham, or the Adventures of a Gentle- 
man, 3 vols. 12mo.; 1828.—The proper 
and distinguishing qualities of a gentleman 
—of a very high-bred gentleman—it seems, 
are an exquisite taste in dress, cookery, 
wines, liveries, sofas, carpets, draperies, 
&c. ; and the scenes of his adventures the 
drawing-room, the gaming-house, the club, 
the hotel—the ring, turf, and chase belong- 
ing to a rougher class—and if his ambition 
be of the very loftiest description, Downing- 
street and the House of Commons—in- 
triguing for place, or planning revenge. 
For the most part, these are the pursuits of 
Pelham—he is a very superior person—a 
dandy in dress, fastidious in sentiment, and 
exclusive in taste ;—in appearance he is 
absorbed in exhibition and display, but 
within he has other aspirings—he is in pur- 
suit of higher and incompatible objects—his 
delight is to be other than he seems—to be 
thought an idler, but be in fact a fagger— 
a devotee’ of Mill, and Bentham, and the 
Edinburgh, under the cover of a skimmer of 
novels and verses. 
But the prominent object of the volumes, 
and which indeed constitutes the tale, is the 
a es Oe 
— 2a oe 
