WILLIAM MAC LURE. 19 



His views were almost exclusively directed to the 

 lower and consequently uneducated classes, whom 

 he hoped to elevate above the thraldom to which 

 they had been subjected by the institutions of their 

 country. lie purchased of the government 10.000 

 acres of land near the city of Alicant : and having 

 repaired the buildings, and placed the estate in com- 

 plete order, he prepared to commence his scheme of 

 practical benevolence. Scarcely, however, were these 

 arrangements made when the Constitutional govern- 

 ment was overthrown, and the old institutions, with 

 all their abuses, were again imposed upon this unfor- 

 tunate country. The property which Mr. Maclure 

 had purchased from the Cortes had been confiscated 

 from the Church: and as the priesthood were now 

 reinvested in their estates, they at once dispossessed 

 him without ceremony or reimbursement. 



Disappointed and mortified by this adverse termi- 

 nation of his plans. Mr. Maclure abandoned them as 

 hopeless, and prepared to return to the United States. 

 1] mre doing so, however, he visited various parts of 

 southern Spain with a view to scientific investigation. 

 But even in this unoffending employment he found 

 himself surrounded by new dangers, which compelled 

 him to relinquish much that he had proposed to ac- 

 complish in these researches; and his feelings, and 

 the causes which gave rise to them, are forcibly ex- 



