GENERAL HISTORY. 
[11s 
CHAPTER XI. 
Spain.—Proclamation by the Inguisition.— Royal Manifesto.— Reguisi- 
tion to the congress.— Porlier’s Insurrection.—Spanish Armies enter 
France and retire.— Prosecution of the Liberales and final sentence.— 
Italy.—Papal Proclamation to the Legations.—Pope’s Allocution.— 
Aitempts for Ecclesiastical restorations.—Elba. 
4h HE degraded state to which 
Spain was reduced after ‘the 
return of its king, by a relapse to 
arbitrary government and eccle- 
siastical domination, had render- 
ed her at the close of the last 
year an object of little concern to 
the rest of Europe; and particu- 
larly had deprived her of the in- 
terest taken in her fate by those 
warm friends in England, who 
had indulged the hope of seeing 
light and liberty extending their 
beneficial influence through a 
country of ancient renown. It 
was long expected that the train- 
ing which the Spanish nation had 
received during its contest for in- 
dependence, and the liberal sen- 
timents with which it had been 
impregnated, would have pro- 
duced a struggle against the vio- 
lences of despotism and bigotry ; 
but experience seemed to prove 
that it was only an inconsiderable 
minority who had imbibed the 
spirit of freedom and improve- 
ment, and that the general mass 
was still fitted only for slavery 
and superstition. 
At the beginning of the year 
the Spanish government appears 
to have been chiefly intent upon 
fitting out the long-delayed expe- 
dition for reducing the insurgents 
in South America, and in putting 
an end to ail attempts at home to 
propagate obnoxious opinions. A 
proclamation was issued in Ja- 
nuary by the Inquisitor-general 
which, after reciting the Pope's 
bull against free-masons and other 
secret societies, takes notice of 
the connexion formed by a num- 
ber of Spaniards, who had resid- 
ed in foreign countries, with so- 
cieties ** leading to sedition, in- 
subordination, and to every error 
and crime,” and summons them 
within a fortnight to return to 
the bosom of the church, which 
is ready to receive them with be- 
coming tenderness, denouncing 
at the same time all the penalties 
inflicted by the civil and canon 
law against such as shall “ con- 
tinue obstinate in the path of per- 
dition.” 
When Buonaparte subverted 
the Bourbon throne of France, it 
was natural that a king of the 
same family should join the league 
of sovereigns to dispossess the 
Usurper; but Spain was too much 
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