generals, as many officers of the supreme court of justice, the secretary of the finance-office, Don Xavier de Burgos, editor of the Miscellanea; and Don Sebastian Minano, co-editor of the Censor. When it was completed, a band of fifty or sixty proceeded with it to the municipality, and in the name of the sovereign people, presented the filthy scrawl of which they were the bearers. It was full of erasures and interJineations. The municipality, not daring to give a direct refusal, objected to the form of this truly revolutionary document. They declared, that they could not act upon a writing, which, besides that it was not signed, and contained no statement of the grounds on which it proceeded, bore upon the face of it so many successive obliterations and insertions. They therefore recommended to the bearers, to bring it into proper shape. This delay gave the government time to take measures for checking the madness of the populace. This was a day of terror to the royal family; it was rumoured, that a conspiracy, which aimed at their destruction, was on the point of breaking out. Under these circumstances, the garrison of the palace was reinforced; four pieces of cannon were planted before the entrance, and piquets of cavalry and infantry sent to patrol all suspected quarters and the squares. Towards night the king descended into the court of the castle, where a battalion of the guards was bivouacked. His majesty asked the soldiers, if 'he could depend upon them. They all protested their devotion to his august person. On the same night, at 12 o'clock, Morillo was appointed by the king captain-general of New Castile. Morillo, in communicating to the minister of war the orders which he had received, to take upon him the command' of that province and its army, begged to be permitted to decline that high office, on the ground that, having returned only lately to Spain, he could not be acquainted with the situation of the country. The minister replied, that he had communicated the general's letter to the king, who, however, insisted upon his immediately assuming the command. He then obtained an audience of his majesty, and repeated his reasons for wishing to decline the employment; but, as their validity was not admitted, he was forced to accept the office, which was thus pressed upon him; and on the 6th of May, addressed a very temperate proclamation to the garrison of Madrid. This nomination was by no means satisfactory to the ultrarevolutionary party. They looked upon Morillo as hostile to their views, and were not without apprehensions excited by his reputation for decision of purpose and military talent. The attention of the Cortes, in their sitting on the day after the murder of Vinuesa, was wholly absorbed by that melancholy event. One of the ministers, after giving a succinct account of the transaction, communicated a message from the king, in which he warned the Cortes, that if such deeds passed unpunished, or were repeated, it would be impossible to establish the constitutional system; and Spain and her government would be degraded in the eyes of Europe. He added, that expresses had :: was invested with the power and the means necessary to provide for good order; whereas the Cortes were confined byinviolable limits to the faculties of a legislative body, and could only set the example of respect to the laws; and that the diplomatic relations of the country with other powers, were such, that a single fact would not suffice to give Europe an unfavourable opinion of the new institutions of Spain. General Quiroga asked why so much bustle was made about the murder of a priest, when the individuals who assassinated two constitutional soldiers of the regiment of Seville, far from being punished, had not even been discovered. He declared, that the king was surrounded by perfidious counsellors, who concealed the truth from him. Count Torreno remarked several important omissions in the proposed answer, and insisted more especially on the profound silence, in which it passed over the scenes of disorder which had filled all the great cities of the Peninsula with terror. M. Golfin made a vehement invective against the ministers. He accused them of having counselled the king not to show himself to the people, and with having suggested to him, the antipatriotic idea of haranguing the troops to animate them to defend his person; and he concluded by moving, that a new committee should be appointed, to draw up another address, which might make the king acquainted with the real causes of the event in question, and of all the evils which affected the state. The new committee was named. Elio was at this time, a prisoner in the citadel of Valencia, and was soon afterwards brought to trial before the tribunal of the first instance in that city, for his share in overturning the constitutional system in 1814. The result of the process was, that judgment was given against him; and on the 28th of May, the following sentence was pronounced:-" In the process carried on before us on the accusation of the king's attorney-general against Don Francis Xavier Elio, lieutenant-general of the national army, ex-general of the second corps of the army in 1814, detained in the citadel of this city of Valencia in consequence of the events which, in the said year, prepared the promulgation and execution of the decree of May 4, 1814, and the destruction of the constitutional system, and other things contained in the said process, proceeding to judgment conformably to the dispositions of the law of April 26, we have resolved to condemn, and we accordingly condemn, general Francis Xavier Elio to the punishment of strangulation, he being first degraded with the formalities used on such occasions; and we condemn the said Elio to the expenses of the process. (Signed) "MARTIN SERRANO, "JOHN BAPTISTE Ros." This sentence, however, was not carried into execution during the present year; and the ministry probably had no intention that he should ever suffer. Such, at least, was the opinion of the people of Valencia, and the tranquillity of the city was more than once disturbed by rumours, that he was about to be set at liberty. During the remainder of the session, the Cortes were chiefly occupied with matters which do not deserve to be recorded, either because they were in themselves of little general interest, or because they were not brought to a conclusion. A law was passed against sending money to Rome for bulls, indulgencies, matrimonial dispensations, and other articles of spiritual traffic; and, as a compensation to the pope, nine thousand hard piastres were to be remitted to him annually, over and above any sums stipulated by preceding concordats. The relations between Spain and the court of Rome were in a very dubious and precarious state. Two ecclesiastics, who had distinguished themselves by their zeal for the new system, were named to the sees of Seville and Guadia; but the pope refused his bull for their consecration; and it was intimated, or at least understood, that he grounded his refusal on their conduct in the Cortes. There was no subject which was more anxiously considered in the Cortes, than the state of the American provinces; but the discussions were of little interest, because they all had a reference to the means of keeping these provinces a part of the Spanish monarchy-an end which had long ceased to be practicable. The committee, to whom this matter was referred, proposed a scheme of a law for extending the constitution to the trans-atlantic provinces. It contained sixteen articles, of which the most important were, that there should be a section of the Cortes in Mexico, including deputies chosen from New Spain, New Galicia, the peninsula of Yucatan, Guatimala, the interior provinces of the east and west, and both Californias: that out of this section five deputies should be sent to the general Cortes of Spain; that this section should meet at the times, and in the circumstances, which required the meeting of the general Cortes, and exercise the same rights and pri'vileges, except those that refer to the general government of the monarchy; that a royal delegate should reside in Mexico, to hold, in the name of the king, the government of the territories above specified; and that the delegation exercised through the means of a distinguished person, worthy of the confidence of the sovereign, should be assisted by four secretaries of state, for the treasury, grace and justice, war, and marine-named by the representative of his majesty, and responsible to the above-mentioned section of the Cortes. The proposal of such a scheme, served to amuse the public, and to prolong the delusive hope, so dear to the country, of yet recovering its transmarine possessions. M. Zea, political agent in Europe for the republic of Columbia, arrived in Madrid on the 19th of June; and, though he avowed the resolution of the Columbians to be satisfied with nothing short of complete independence, was well received. Policy, in this case, prevailed over haughtiness. While the Cortes were engaged in vain debate, the country continued in the same distracted state which we have already described-a melancholy scene of plots, insurrections, and deeds of vengeance. Merino, though he had retired into the mountains, had gained rather than lost strength, and three generals, who had been sent against him (of A these Riego was one), had been unable to expel him from his haunts. Similar disturbances broke out on other points. partizan, of the name of Zaldivar, harassed Andalusia; and, in the middle of June, a conspiracy was discovered at Seville. Two generals of the names of Grimalest and Mir were at the head of the plot. Assuming the titles of first and second commanders of the army of the Faith, they were to lead their adherents to seize the horses of the dépót of a regiment near Bornos; then, after having liberated the prisoners who were confined at Xeres, and being reinforced by Zaldivar, they were to proclaim the king absolute, to overturn the monumental stones of the constitution, and, marching upon Seville, to join their companions there. The session of the Cortes, which, on the 18th of May, had been prolonged by the king for one month, was now drawing to a close. Before its termination, that body represented to his majesty, the necessity of an extraordinary convocation of their body, and accordingly, on the 28th of June, Ferdinand communicated to them his intention of convoking an extraordinary Cortes, and of fixing the day, of meeting, for the 1st of the ensuing October. Two days afterwards, he proceeded to the hall of the Cortes, accompanied by the Queen, and the whole of the royal family, and closed the session with a speech from the throne, which, as well as the president's reply to it, will be found in our Appendix. Thus ended the second session of the Spanish legislature-a session, which, however fruitful it might be in lofty speculations, and plans of far distant improvement, did little or nothing for the present tranquillity and happiness of the country. Though, at the prorogation of the Cortes, all was apparent amity between the king and the nation, the public mind still continued in a very unquiet state. The orators of the Club la Fontana, indulged in the most violent invectives, and excited so much suspicion of Ferdinand's intentions, that the ministers, intimidated, presented a petition to him, urging him to convoke the extraordinary Cortes before his departure from Madrid. The king wrote on the margin of the petition :-"I have pledged my royal word, that I will convoke the extraordinary Cortes before the 1st of October, which I will do. I see no motive for hastening the re-assembling of the deputies. The general opinion of Spain cannot be represented by a few individuals, whose intemperate conduct is known." About the same time, several assassinations took place in the streets of Madrid. On the 12th of August, the secretary of state, in the name of his majesty, notified officially to the permanent deputation of the Cortes, the wish of the king, that an extraordinary Cortes should be assembled for the purpose of taking into consideration the division of the Spanish territory, and the proper means for arranging, according to it, the political government-the plan of a decree respecting charitable establishments-the measures which the government might propose for securing the tranquillity and promoting the welfare of the Americas-the criminal code, and the forms of process-the reform of the market regulations-the liquidation of the contracts-the measures necessary to guard against the serious injury which the country might sustain from the circulation of forged or deficient foreign money-the provision respecting the renewed credits-the military system and regulation,-the decree for organizing the active militia-and the plan of an organic decree for the navy. "It will be particularly satisfactory to his majesty," added the secretary of state," if the installation of the extraordinary Cortes, coincide as far as may be possible with the 24th of September, because that day must, both within and without the country, awaken the recollection of the valour of the Spaniards against their external enemies, their constancy in adversity, their wish and determination to live under a system of just liberty, and their loyalty and affection to the august person and family of the king." In pursuance of this notification, the permanent deputation convoked the extraordinary Cortes, for the 28th day of September; the first preparatory meeting being to take place on the 22nd of that month, and the installation on the 24th. The promotion of Morillo had never been a popular measure; and circumstances now occurred, which rendered that officer still more obnoxious than before. On the evening of the 20th of August, a crowd assembled in front of the prison, in which some of the royal body-guards were confined; and there is reason to believe, that it was intended to perpetrate there an outrage similar to that, of which the unfortunate Vinuesa had been the victim. |