SPAIN. 



715 



gall, all ministers were present, Echegaray 

 and Revery represented the situation of the 

 country in the darkest colors, and demanded 

 the immediate convocation of the National 

 Assembly, and the adjournment of the elec- 

 tions for the Constituent Cortes. The minis- 

 ters Castelar and Nicolas Salmeron opposed 

 this demand, and denied that there was cny 

 reason for adjourning the new election, or for 

 convoking the National Assembly. It was re- 

 ported that 3,000 volunteers belonging to the 

 old militia of Madrid were assembled near the 

 hall of the Assembly, and were ready in case 

 of emergency, to support the Standing Com- 

 mittee against the ministry. A request made 

 by Castelar that an adjournment take place for 

 twelve hours was denied. The ministers re- 

 tired for consultation, but did not return. In 

 the mean while Pavia, the Captain-General of 

 Madrid, retired, and the Government imme- 

 diatele appointed General Soria his successor ; 

 and General Contreras, who had recently re- 

 turned from Catalonia, Generalissimo of the 

 Volunteers of the Republic. As General Con- 

 treras, in the evening, was fired upon, the 

 Government resolved to dissolve the Standing 

 Committee. At two o'clock in the morning, 

 the Volunteers of the Republic, who sympa- 

 thized with the Federal Republicans, invaded 

 the hall, whereupon the members of the 

 Stnmling Committee immediately fled. Most 

 of them, as Serrano, and other leading politi- 

 cians, hid themselves from the rage of the peo- 

 ple, who suspected that the committee had an 

 intention of overthrowing the republic. On 

 April 24th the official paper published the de- 

 cree by which the National Assembly was dis- 

 solved. Another decree ordered the dissolu- 

 tion of seven battalions of infantry, and of the 

 battalions of the artillery, pioneers, and cav- 

 nlry of the militia of Madrid. The Minister of 

 War, Aeosta, who had formerly belonged to 

 the Radical party, resigned, and was succeeded 

 by N i in vihis, formerly commander of the Army 

 of the North, and a decided adherent of the 

 federal republic. The elections for the Con- 

 stituent Cortes took place without disturbance, 

 and, as the larger portion of the parties op- 

 posed to federal republicanism abstained from 

 voting, an overwhelming majority of the new 

 members were Federal Republicans (350 

 against only 40 belonging to all other parties 

 combined)." Only 85 per cent, of the enrolled 

 voters had taken part in the election, against 

 60 per cent, of the preceding year. 



The insurrectionary movements of the Car- 

 lists, which had begun in April, 1872, and con- 

 tinned throughout the remainder of that year, 

 assumed much larger dimensions after the ab- 

 dication of Amadeo. Between Bilbao and 

 Miranda they destroyed the railroads, and not 

 only in Catalonia, Aragon, and the Basque 

 provinces, but also in other parts of the coun- 

 try their bands appeared in increasing num- 

 bers. Their leaders, Olio and Dorregaray, 

 united in the valley of Echaury, and General 



Pavia undertook an expedition against them 

 without finding them. In the valleys of the 

 Lower Pyrenees, Dorregaray compelled all 

 young men, from eighteen to thirty years, to 

 enter the Carlist army, and for every one who 

 made his escape, the commune had to pay a 

 fine of 4,000 reals. One of the most prominent 

 leaders of the Carlist bands was the priest 

 Santa Cruz, who was charged with committing 

 and allowing to be committed the most fright- 

 ful cruelties. General Dorregaray, on April 

 1st, advanced into the province of Alava, and 

 General Olio united the scattered bands in the 

 province of Navarre and disciplined them. The 

 number of men who, in April, were under the 

 orders of General Dorregaray, in the five prov- 

 inces of Navarre, Biscayu, Guipuzcoa, Alava, 

 and Logroflo, was estimated at about 4,500, 

 of whom 3,500 were well-armed with Reming- 

 ton and other breech-loaders, while 1,000 were 

 either unarmed or only carried lunces. Be- 

 sides, there was a large number of scattered 

 bands, which, in Navarre alone, were estimated 

 at about 6.000 men, 500 of whom were cavalry, 

 and in the other four provinces, at 9,400. Tow- 

 ard the close of March the official Gazette pub- 

 lished a proclamation which had been signed 

 by all the ministers, in which the whole nation 

 was called upon to cooperate in the overthrow 

 of the irreconcilable enemies of the republic. 

 In the northern part of Catalonia the Carlists 

 under Saballs and Barrancot, who were ac- 

 companied by Don Alfonso, brother of Don 

 Carlos, and by a son of Don Enrique, captured 

 the town of Ripoll, on the Upper Ter, and took 

 the garrison of 180 men prisoners, after seven 

 of them had been shot. When on the next day 

 General Martinez Campos advanced against 

 them from Gerona they withdrew, but a 

 few days later, on March 29th, they surprised, 

 near the Upper Llobregat, the important town 

 of Berga, the garrison of which, consisting of 

 500 men, was compelled to surrender. Ac- 

 cording to official accounts of the Government, 

 Saballs ordered sixty-seven of the prisoners, 

 who were volunteers of Tarragona, to be shot. 

 In Barcelona, the news of this massacre pro 

 duced so great an excitement that several Car- 

 list prisoners were in danger of being torn 

 to pieces by the populace, and that several 

 churches, the priests of which were charged 

 with being favorable to the Carlist cause, were 

 closed and converted into barracks. The rail- 

 roads all through Northern Spain were broken 

 up by the Carlists. The little fortress of Pui- 

 cerdn, on the Segre, not far from the French 

 frontier, with a garrison of 500 men, repulsed 

 an attack made by Saballs, who had been 

 created Count of Berga. All the other leaders 

 of the Carlist party, Olio, Dorregaray, and 

 IJzarraga, in Navarre, Tristany, and ValMs, in 

 Catalonia, were beaten about this time, though 

 the permanent advantages accruing to the 

 troops of the republic from these victories 

 were of no long duration. Don Carlos ap- 

 pointed a new council of war, consisting of 



