660 Spanish Highways and Bi/ways. [Dec. 



bouring town for a blacksmith, and as an incentive to diligence on his 

 errand, one of the party injudiciously shewed him some gold. The 

 boy, on reaching the village, related the circumstance, which soon 

 reached the ear of the alcalde, who, suspecting the flight of some persons 

 of rank, assembled the armed peasantry, and surrounded the venta. 

 Riego and his campanions finding, when too late, that they were be- 

 trayed, and seeing escape hopeless, surrendered at discretion. The 

 general was secured with his aides-de-camp, bound, and hurried off in 

 a coach to Madrid, a distance of three hundred miles. 



After the lapse of a day and a night, the guards released them from 

 their fetters; and on one occasion, when they were carousing at a 

 wine-house, an opportunity was offered the prisoners for escape. It 

 was eagerly seized upon by Mathews, who suggested it to the general. 

 But Riego's heart was broken. He had lived to see the cause betrayed 

 on which he had staked everything. His associates in the great work 

 were traitors, and had desei'ted him. The very people for whom he had 

 dared so much had delivered him up to deatli ! It is no wonder that 

 the slight prospect of life had but little temptation for him ; he rather 

 anticipated his approaching sacrifice, as a noble consummation to a career 

 of honour and patriotism. 



From the moment of Riego's capture to his death, a feeling of unmanly 

 revenge took possession of his enemies. He was treated with every 

 indignity, and made to suffer every privation. All intercourse with his 

 friends was prohibited, to the moment of his death ; and on the day of 

 his execution, he was dressed in a dirty smock frock, drawn by an ass, 

 on a hurdle, to the Plaza Cevada, and hanged on a gallows ! But the 

 name of Riego will be honoured and respected by posterity, while 

 those of his executioners will be remembered only for their ci'iraes. 



The next day the king and queen made a sort of triumphal entry 

 into Madrid. French bayonets and French gold had succeeded in 

 extinguishing every vestige of liberty tln-oughout Spain. Of the 

 best and bravest of her sons — many have perished by the bullet and the 

 cord, and the rest are in poverty and exile. 



CHOLERA SPECULATIONS. 



We are sick of the Cholera. Not that it has been imparted to us 

 in a letter from " our own Sunderland Correspondent ;" nor in our 

 coals, nor in our share of the controversy between unfortunate Dr. Daun 

 and every body else ; nor in the " Orders of the Board of Health," 

 absurd as they are. But we are sick of the subject. It meets us in 

 all shapes of twaddledum. It " mounts the stage-coach and it boards 

 the barge," it figures fatally in aldermanic speeches, and it poisons the 

 jjleasantry of tlie court news from Brighton. One set of personages, 

 however, have been the better for it, to a most undesirable, and we will 

 say, most scandalous degree. " The druggists have tasted the sweets 

 of the cholera. We hear fortunes have already been made on the sale 

 of their drugs, which have enormously increased in value since the 

 alarm became general ; and the consumption has been great beyond pre- 

 cedent. The undertakers are now all jilive, expecting their turn will 



