GENERAL HISTORY. 



[19 



ment for neglect of attempting to 

 appease the violences in Spain, 

 without enquiring into their truth. 

 His Majesty's ministers had never 

 ceased to attend to the interest 

 and fate of the indi\iduals whom 

 the motion concerned ; and he 

 might claim belief when he de- 

 clared, upon his honour, that he 

 was convinced that our govern- 

 ment had rather gone beyond, 

 than fallen short of its duty, in its 

 zeal to serve the body of men al- 

 luded to. At the same time he 

 must disclaim all the ntcessibj 

 which the hon. gentleman wished 

 to impose upon it so to act. It 

 was a mistake to suppose that the 

 Cortes had been guided by us, 

 and that we were boimd to rescue 

 its members because all that they 

 had done was by our direction. 

 The party called Liberales was 

 undoubtedly an Anti-French par- 

 ty, but in no other sense a British 

 party, and the term employed by 

 the hon. gentleman of English 

 Cortes was entirely inapplicable. 

 Of this a better proof could not 

 be given than their refusal to ad- 

 mit Lord Wellington into Cadiz, 

 when he was desirous of obtain- 

 ing a point within the Spanish 

 territory previously to entrench- 

 ing his army behind the lines of 

 Torres Vedras. Lord C. then pro- 

 ceeded to a kind of comment on 

 the principles and conduct of the 

 . Cortes, and a defence of the part 

 taken by the court of Spain. He 

 said, the Cortes thought they 

 could best effect their purpose by 

 ■entirely overturning tiie ancient 

 system of the kingdom, and es- 

 pecially by merging the whole 

 cla.ss of nobility and clergy in the 

 third estate, after the example 

 of the French jacobins, whence 



most of the calamities of the 

 country had arisen. This was prin- 

 cipally oAving to the party called 

 Liberales, who declared that they 

 would not admit Ferdinand's right 

 to the throne, unless he should 

 ])ut his seal to the principles 

 which they laid down, and among 

 the rest, that of the sovereignty 

 of the people. Their extremes 

 naturally produced a violent re- 

 action, and the swing taken in 

 the direction of Jacobinism had 

 now taken as violent a direction 

 towards desj)otism. When the 

 constitution of the Cortes had 

 been destroyed by Ferdinand, 

 there was not a murmur in Spain ; 

 in fact, the people were more at- 

 tached to some of those particu- 

 lars in their ancient constitution 

 which we thought defects, than 

 the people of this country were to 

 the most perfect part of our free 

 constitution. He then charged 

 the Cortes with having shewn a 

 determined disposition in many 

 of the members to withdraw from 

 the Duke of Wellington the com- 

 mand of the national troops, 

 which had been ronfei'red upon 

 him by a solemn act of the state, 

 so that he retained it by the ma- 

 jority only of six votes ; and the 

 minority were all Liberales. 

 Many of their acts had been of 

 the most cruel kind, such as their 

 prosecutions and punishments of 

 the generals Palafox and Abisbal, 

 and their proceedings against the 

 Bishop of Orense ; so that, wese 

 their authority to be restored, he 

 feared that Spain would not be 

 pui-ged from all enormities. 

 When, however, a minister of 

 the crown stated to parliament 

 that the British government liad 

 interfered, and that the four great 

 [C 2] powers 



