HISTORY OF EUROPE. 



217 



most all the members voted for 

 the motion, and a committee, 

 composed of eight members, was 

 appointed accordingly. > — It was 

 decreed that all individuals and 

 public bodies should be at full li- 

 berty to print and publish their 

 potiTicAL (not' religious) senti- 

 ments, with the exception of defa- 

 matory libels, calumnious libels, 

 those subversive of the funda- 

 mental laws of the monarchy, and 

 those that were licentious and 

 contrary to public decorum and 

 morals. Laws that should fix the 

 proof and the punishment in these 

 cases, were afterwards to be pass- 

 I ed and promulgated. For exa- 

 I mining all works denounced by 

 i the executive government, or any 

 public tribunal, a supreme Junta 

 of Censorship consisting of nine 

 individuals, was to reside at the 

 seat of government ; and a similar 

 Junta, of five members, to be es- 

 tablished in the capital of every 

 province. Three of the nine mem- 

 bers of the Supreme Censorial 

 Council, and two out of the 

 five members of the Provisional 

 Junta were to be ecclesiastics. 

 A resolution passed for publish- 

 ing their proceedings in regular 

 journals. 



It was resolved, that none of 

 their deputies, whether those now 

 attending, or those that might 

 thereafter be admitted to complete 

 their number, should be permitted 

 during the period of their exer- 

 cising those functions, nor for a 

 year afterwards, to solicit or ac- 

 cept for themselves, or to solicit 

 for any other person, any pension, 

 favour, or reward, or any honour 

 or distinction whatever, from the 

 interim executive power, nor from 

 any otlicf goveruraent that might 



thereafter be appointed under any 

 designation whatever. From this 

 regulation, however, it was under- 

 stood that those persons should 

 be exempted who, from rank or 

 age, were accustomed to succeed 

 according to the rules or statutes 

 which were observed in military, 

 ecclesiastic, and civil bodies ; and 

 at the same time, such cases as 

 might occur in which extraordi- 

 nary and confessedly very eminent 

 services performed in behalf of 

 the king and country, might de- 

 serve, in the opinion of the Cortes 

 themselves, a reward also extraor- 

 dinary. 



It was decreed, that all pre- 

 bends not annexed to public of- 

 fices, nor charged with the cure of 

 souls, were adjudged to the pub- 

 lic treasury. Committees were 

 appointed both standing or per- 

 manent, and also such as might 

 be required, from time to time, 

 by incidental circumstances, as in 

 the British parliament ; the form 

 of procedure in which the Cortes 

 seem, in various instances, to have 

 taken for a model. 



Of all the measures of the 

 Cortes, in the first week of their 

 sittings, there was only one in 

 which the people did not go along 

 with them in enthusiastic confi- 

 dence and j oy . This was the pro- 

 rogation, pro tempore, of the au- 

 thority of the Regency. But this, 

 though a very unpopular act, was 

 a very wise and even a patriotic 

 one ; for a change in the adminis- 

 tration could not have been made 

 without creating a kind of anar- 

 chy ; and there might have been 

 some risk that the assembly of the 

 Cortes might have taken, and even 

 been obliged to take, theexecutive 

 government into their own hands. 



