36 SWABEY DIARY. 
muftins. The civil part of the procession was well conducted, and the 
constitution audibly proclaimed. It was likewise necessary to proclaim 
Ferdinand King; it did not seem clear to the Spaniards themselves 
that some few villains might not be found to dissent from the general 
acclamations of joy; of this I had no fear and my expectations were 
justified. I never saw in any part of Spain I have been in a single 
mark of disloyalty amongst the inhabitants, though uniformly I have 
had to lament that there was nobody of sufficient character, abilities, 
or influence to guide the good disposition of a people who had no 
government to direct their efforts. 
I believe the revolutions of most countries have produced energetic 
and enterprising characters who have risen from the ruins of the times. 
But in Spain, had such men been found, the insufferable arrogance of 
all ranks would have prevented their counsels being followed, and the 
neglected state of all mental endowments has been so general, as to 
produce no such characters. Hxcept the Marquis of Romana! there 
has been no one of sufficient intelligence to see the interest of his 
country in its true light, and he unfortunately was not alive to it till 
after the moment for action was gone by, which has happily now again 
returned owing to the late successes. 
12th July.—Happy will Spain be if she is enabled to preserve her 
liberty when a few years under the new constitution have tested the 
legislation of those into whose hands it has committed the administration 
of justice and the protection of individual rights. The impoverished 
state of its provinces however will be for a long time an obstacle to its 
success; for instance, the scheme of general instruction cannot yet be 
pursued. I shall not attempt to prophesy that the new government 
will have the success which I wish it to have, even though it is the 
structure to which happiness and an equal distribution of property are 
willing to trust themselves. In all changes the ignorance, the pre- 
judices, and the superstitions of people are to be combated, and the 
genius of a nation may render the most perfect model unavailing to 
their happiness. I could have wished for the sake of this experimental 
government that property had changed masters more than it has. 
In every new publication I see the Spanish revolution compared, not 
in the course of its history, but in its consequences, to the hellish sub- 
version of order that took place in France, a storm which bid fair to be 
succeeded by a calm until it was again aroused by oppressions arising 
from the necessities of war. But in no one feature can I trace the 
_ justice of the comparison. Spain has been impoverished, and indi- 
viduals have been ruined, but the terrible hand of murder has not been 
seen, neither have executions under the sacred veil of legality been 
inflicted by the French army. I have seen no massacres, but few 
remains of burnt towns, nor indeed any violence that has not been im- 
mediately occasioned by war conducted by disciplined troops under the 
1 Marquis de la Romana, a Spanish General born in 1761, distinguished himself in the campaigns 
against the French on the Pyrenees frontier 1793-95. When Spain rose against the French in 
1808, La Romana played a prominent part in the war. He died of heart disease at Cataxo, on 
January 25th, 1811. Wellington greatly deplored his loss, he wrote, “I don’t know how we are 
to replace him.’’—(f.4.W.) 
