STATE P A P E R S. 



741 



those which support and direct it ; 

 and that government will be the 

 best which shall most pronaote and 

 fulfil these three wishes of the 

 Spanish nation. Does the regency 

 of which that law speaks promise us 

 this security? What inconveniences, 

 what dangers, how many divisions, 

 how many parties, how many ambi- 

 tious pretensions,withinandwithout 

 the kingdom ; how much, and how 

 just, discontent in our Americas, 

 now called to have a share in the 

 present government ? What would 

 become of our Cortes, our liberty, 

 the cheering prospects of future 

 welfareandglory whichnow present 

 themselves? What would become 

 of the object most valuable and dear 

 to the Spanish nation — the pre- 

 servation of the rightsof Ferdinand ? 

 The advocates for this institution 

 ought to shudder at the immense 

 danger to which they exposed 

 themselves, and to bear in mind, 

 that by it they afforded to the ty- 

 rant a new opportunity of buying 

 and selling them. Let us bow with 

 reverence to the venerable antiquity 

 of the law ; but let us profit by the 

 experience of ages. Let us open 

 our annals, and trace the history 

 of our regencies. What shall we 

 find ? — a picture equally melancho- 

 ly and frightful, of desolation, of 

 civil war, of rapine, and of human 

 depravity, in unfortunate Castile. 



Doubtless, in great states, power 

 ismorebeneficially exercised by few 

 than by many. Secrecy in delibera- 

 tion, unity in concert, activity in 

 measures, and celerity in execution, 

 are indispensable requisites for the 

 favourable issue of the acts of go- 

 vernment, and are properties of a 

 concentrated authority only. The 

 supreme junta has therefore just 

 concentrated its own with that pru- 



dent circumspection which neither 

 exposes the state to the oscillations 

 consequent upon every change of 

 government, nor materially affects 

 the unity of the body which is en- 

 trusted with it. Henceforth a sec- 

 tion composed of the removable 

 members, will be specially invested 

 with the necessary authority to di- 

 rect thosemeasures of the executive 

 power, which from their nature re- 

 quire secrecy, energy, and dispatch. 

 Another opinion hostile to the re- 

 gency, equally contradicts whatever 

 innovation may be attempted to be 

 made in the political form which 

 the government has at present, 

 and objects to the intended cortes, 

 as an insufficient representation, if 

 they are constituted according to 

 the ancient formalities, as ill-timed 

 and perhaps hazardous, in respect 

 to present circumstances ; in short 

 as useless, since it supposes that the 

 superior juntas, elected immediately 

 by the people, are their real repre- 

 sentatives. But the junta had ex- 

 pressly declared to the nation, that 

 its first attention in the great object 

 would be occupied with thenumber, 

 mode, and class with which the meet- 

 ing of this august assembly in the 

 present situation of affairs should be 

 carried into effect; and after this de- 

 claration it is quite superfluous, not 

 to say malicious, to suspect that fu- 

 ture cortes are to be confined to the 

 rigid and exclusive forms of our an- 

 cient ones. Yes, Spaniards, you 

 are going to have your cortes, and 

 the national representation will in 

 them be as perfect and full as it can 

 and ought to be in an assembly of 

 such high importance and eminent 

 dignity. You are going to have 

 cortes, and to have them immedi- 

 ately, because the urgent situation 

 in which the nation is placed, impe- 

 riously 



