wore the air of menace. Llauder, the captain general of Catalonia, had distinguished himself in the recent history of the Peninsula by his devotion to the cause of despotism; but he had likewise distinguished himself by devotion to the cause of his own personal ambition, and there was no reward which he might not expect from liberalism, if he made, at the present crisis, a hardy movement in its favour. Although a native Catalonian, he had been brought up in one of the Irish brigades, and owed his first promotions and future fortunes to General Lacy. When Ferdinand returned Spain, restoring all the iron abuses to of the old government, Lacy attempted, in 1817, a military revolution in the neighbourhood of Barcelona. He failed, and endeavoured, with some of his officers to escape into France. The regiment, in which Llauder was then a captain, was quartered at the time in Barcelona, and was sent out in different directions in pursuit of the fugitives,-the officers, however, having private instructions from Castanos, who commanded in the province, and entertained a high esteem for Lacy, not to overtake the general if they could avoid it, but to allow him to get across the frontier. Llauder, in particular, unfortunately for the general, was sent with his company in a different direction from the rest of the regiment, and in that direction which Lacy was secretly known to have taken; for it was thought his life would be safe in the hands of a man who owed everything to him. ambition is "made of sterner stuff." But Honours and preferment awaited the captor of the insurgent general. Llauder pressed the chase of the hunted fugitive by forced marches, and seized his prize. Llauder factor was shot. In his turn he was made a general, and his benewas compelled, by the triumph of the liberals in 1820, to seek refuge in France; he had no friend, whom he had loaded with favours to lead him to the scaffold. He repursue his flying footsteps, and turned in the train of the French army in 1823, and was appointed to the office of inspector-general of infantry. When the Parisian revolution of 1830, again exposed the northern provinces of Spain liberals, Llauder was named to the to the armed inroads of her exiled command of the army of Navarre, as being a tried exterminator of all who bore that odious name He justified the confidence which had been reposed in him, frustrating all the ill-arranged designs of the invaders, and directing the chase after Mina as eagerly though not so successfully, as he had pursued general Lacy. Soon afterwards his well-proved inclination to use the extremities of fire and sword against the enemies of the absolute prerogative was rewarded with the captainship-general of Catalonia. Such was the man who now stood forth all at once the bold and frank asserter of popular rights, demanding from his sovereign the establishment of popular institubayonet,-a change more likely to tions almost at the point of the be the result of views of private interest, than the slower process of altered convictions. days of December, 1833, he adIn the last dressed to the queen regent an ately rendered public-in which, epistle, or remonstrance-immedi * Vide Vol. LXXII. p. 293. [2 B 2] after eulogizing his own conduct in the different offices he had held, he attacked the minister by name, and informed her majesty that an armed insurrection, and the overthrow of her daughter's throne, would be the inevitable result of his continuance in power. The government, he said, was in the hands of "men who, in studying arbitrary governments in foreign countries, have forgotten the wants and wishes of their own, and everything that could secure the well-being of the administration. The administration of Zea is arrived at such a point of unpopularity, that its continuance menaces public tranquillity, and endangers the throne of Isabella II. While Spain is afflicted with civil war, ministers, not satisfied with having been too feeble to save the whole kingdom from this scourge, seem to regret that it has not reached Catalonia, and have followed measures which would justify a charge against them of conspiring equally against the interests of your majesty and the tranquillity of the province." "The nation," continued this new apostle of the constitution, who had so valiantly persecuted the audacious men that had dared to recal to the recollection of Ferdinand his royal pledges, "the nation cannot forget that the late king promised her solemnly, by his ordinance of the 4th of May, 1823, that the Spaniards should not be deceived in their expectations; that he detested a despotism which the light and civilization of the age no longer permitted; that, in order to hinder the caprices of the rulers from again overthrowing, or betraying the throne, he had decided to maintain alike, on the one side, the dignity and prerogative of the crown, and on the other, the rights of the people, which are equally inviolable; to consult the procurators of Spain and of America, and to assemble the Cortes in the form, and in the same manner, in which his ancestors had done be fore him; that at the same time that the royal inviolability would be firmly assured by laws which should guarantee order and public tranquillity, guarantees should be given for the good administration of the taxes, which cost so much time and trouble to the contributaries, and that those taxes should no longer be arbitrarily fixed by a minister, but regulated and dis cussed in a general Cortes of the kingdom; that the same Cortes should make and promulgate the laws which should establish the rights of Spain; and, lastly, that all the nation should see that he did not wish to be a despot and a tyrant, but, indeed, the king and father of the Spaniards. The promises of kings are sacred, Madam; their accomplishment ought to be infallible, like that of the prophecies of divinity. This is why I and the nation, who will not attempt to demand anything which is not due, and has not been promised to us, do recall to your mind, with hearts full of bitterness, such solemn declarations, which came from the mouth of our king at the moment he was receiving, from our hands, a crown re-conquered by the blood of a million of men. The principles of these declarations are so closely connected with the very rights of the queen minor, that only madmen could have advised your majesty to follow the steps you have been walking in up to the present day; and what responsibility does not weigh upon the perfidious counsellors who have given room to distinguished writers in Europe, to Martignac and others, to consign to history this failing of a royal and sacred promise? The existence of the throne of the queen minor is, I repeat, bound up with the accomplishing of the promises of the late king; for no one will be able to think that fifteen long years of minority can pass on, resting upon anything so frail as a power without responsibility. What is now taking place, and all that has happened for twenty-five years past, ought to convince your Majesty that, if there are now in Spain fanatics and malcontents of every opinion (as happens in all classes and in all countries), it is in the immense majority of the nation, with the knowledge she has received from circumstances, that the surest support of the throne of your royal daughter is to be found, whom just and sage laws will soon deliver from the attacks of usurpation. It is because these laws have failed, and that the state of things has not been acknowledged, as well as the wants of the different populations, that the nation has had to traverse this long period of disasters and calamities. Spain bas still before her eyes the first acts of your majesty, which have assured the rights of your daughter by filling all hearts with enthusiasm! but this enthusiasm is growing cold; the people, overladen with taxes for so many years, are beginning to lose the hope that the dynasty would at last take pity upon their situation, and the progressive decrease of the resources which must at once supply its subsistence, and provide for the public charges. This situation, if it is prolonged for some months longer, will do more for the enemies of Isabella II. than all the efforts of a party which derives its importance only from the errors of its opponents. How many Spauiards hesitate to embrace the cause of your daughter from the fear of seeing her legally succeeded by the Pretender, through the chances to which her life may be exposed, before she attain the age that would justify the nation in expecting another successor. Those who may compromise themselves in the cause of your majesty have a legitimate claim to guarantees, and it is only the nation, assembled in Cortes, that can give them. The minister Zea has done so much, that the comparison is sad, and even dangerous, between his arts and the promises of the pretender, who is offering free Cortes, with other advantages, and still farther guarantees." As the only remedy for all these evils, and the only safeguard against all these dangers, the framer of this remonstrance concluded with requesting her majesty instantly to dismiss her ministers, and choose servants in whom the country would repose complete confidence, and immediately to order the convocation of the Cortes, in their three estates, giving to that assembly "the powers and the latitude with which the present circumstances require that it should be invested." It was not unnatural that the queen should be both offended and alarmed, when such a tone was assumed by one of her own servants, -a servant who was at the head of the military force and civil resources of one of the most important provinces of the monarchy. Barcelona, moreover, the capital of Catalonia, in consequence of its commercial character, and its more constant intercourse with foreign countries, was better disposed to constitutional doctrines than any other great city of Spain. Llauder had undoubtedly calculated beforehand the support which he might expect in that quarter, and the weight which public opinion might thus lend to his representations. On the queen regent's disapprobation of the step which he had taken being notified to him, he assembled the principal authorities of Barcelona, read to them his memorial, and desired to know whether they coincided in his views of the existing government? They all answered in the affirmative. The commanders, too, of the troops in garrison at Barcelona, and of the volunteer corps, joined him in demanding the expulsion of the ministry, and promised to support him in any measures which the crisis might render expedient. He obeyed with such reluctance the order to give up the civil government of the district of Barcelona to the subdelegate, that the population of the city assembled,ex. pressing their determination to allow no diminution of his authority, and did not disperse till assured that the installation of the new functionary had been postponed. On the morning of the day on which this occurrence took place, Llauder had gone to the country, after publishing in the newspapers that he intended to do so, as if the swearing in of the subdelegate were a mortification and insult which compelled him to withdraw his presence from the ceremony; and, on his return, he issued a proclamation imputing to the intrigues of the Carlists the disturbance which he had thus prepared. Even in his memorial to the regent he took credit to himself for having preserved Catalonia by intentional disobedience of the orders transmitted to him from court. The example of Llauder was followed by Quesada, the captain general of Old Castille, who insisted, less on political considerations, than on his own unrequited services, and the influence of his enemies, but was equally strenuous in demanding the dismissal of the minister. The regent found it necessary to comply, even at the risk of the concession wearing the air of having thus been extorted. In the beginning of January, M. Zea and several of his colleagues resigned. Their successors necessarily were sought among the constitutionalists, for a more moderate administrator of an absolute government, than the displaced premier, could not reasonably be looked for; and, at the same time, the risk was to be avoided of calling into the service of the crown, men whose innovations might both endanger its security, and alarm the large mass who still wished to depart no farther than might be necessary from the ancient usages of the kingdom. The office of prime minister was given to don Martinez de la Rosa; don Nicholas Gazeli, a member of the council of regency, was named minister of justice; don Vasquez Figuerosa, was made minister of marine; the ministry of the finances was sepa➡ rated from that of the home department, and conferred on don Josef Arnalde. Of the former Cabinet Burgos still retained his place as minister of the interior, and Zarco del Valle as minister of war. None of the men thus admitted into the cabinet were distinguished for exaggerated or dangerous opi nions, although all of them were declared friends of representative governments. The new premier had filled the same office for a short period in 1822, and his ministry of that day enjoyed the character of having been the only one that discouraged political extravagances and aimed at moderate councils, its office. Arnalde held political opi- As the politics of the |