Cantons, but which were all reft from them at one fell swoop by the ruthless tyranny of a democratic despotism.

It is impossible, in the limits of an article in a periodical, to quote all the documents, or detail all the facts, which Mr Walton has accumulated, with irresistible force, to prove every one of these propositions. If any one doubts them, we earnestly recommend him to study his work; and if he is not convinced, we say, without hesitation, neither would he be persuaded though one rose from the dead. But even in this cursory notice a few leading facts may be brought forward, which cannot fail to throw a clear light on this important subject, and may tend to aid the efforts of those brave and enlightened men who are now striving to prevent British blood from being any longer shed in the most unjust of causes, and hinder the British standards from being any longer unfurled, in the name of freedom and liberty, to uphold the cause of infidelity, rapine, and oppression.

Of the manner in which the Constitution of 1812 was fabricated by a clique of urban agitators, and thrust, amidst the agonies of the war with Napoleon, on an unconscious or unwilling nation, the following account is given by our author :

ance.

popular deputies, or one estate, the other When the inaugural two being excluded.

6

ceremonies were over, the members assembled declared themselves legally constituted in general and extraordinary Cortes,' in whom the national sovereignty resided; or, in other words, they at once declared themselves a constituent assembly."

"In one respect, the assembly of the Spanish Cortes of 1810 resembled that of the French States-general in 1791, the members being mostly new men whose names had scarcely been heard of before. In another sense, the disparity between the two assemblies was great. The Statesgeneral opened their sittings under legal forms, with the three orders, and, after stormy debates, one estate ejected or absorbed the other two, when the triumphant party, declaring themselves a constituent assembly, proceeded to enact laws and frame a constitution; in the end, rendering themselves superior to the authority which had convened them, and no longer responsible to those whom they were intended to represent. The Cadiz Cortes adopted a readier and less complicated plan. In utter defiance of legal forms and ancient usages, the Spanish Commons before-hand excluded the two privileged estates; and assembling entirely on their

own account, at once voted themselves to be a constituent assembly, possessing all the essential attributes of sovereignty, and deliberately proceeded to imitate the example of their Parisian prototypes.

"The examples given in our early pages show the little analogy between the ancient and new Cortes. The latter did not meet to supply the want of a regal power, to provide means of defence, obtain the redress of grievances, or reconcile opposite Their object was and jarring interests. not to heal the wounds in the state, to introduce order and concert, or remove those obstacles which had hitherto impeded the progress of the national cause. As the genuine offspring of the central junta, they rather thought of seizing upon power, enjoying its sweets, and carrying into effect those theories with a fondness for which an admiration of the French Revolution had infected many leading members, some of whom were anxious to shine after the manner of Mirabeau, whilst others thought they could emulate the example of Abbé Sièyes, or took Brissot as their model. In a word, wholly unpractised in the science of legislation, and unmindful that the enemy was at their gates, they set to work with a full determination to tread in the footsteps of the French Constituent Assem ly, and began by a vote similar to that passed by our House of Commons in 1648, whereby they de

clared that the sovereign power exclusively resided in them, and, consequently, that whatever they enacted was law, without the consent of either king, peers, or clergy."

The ruinous step by which, to the exclusion of the real representatives of the nation, a band of urban revolutionists contrived to thrust themselves into the supreme direction of the Constituent Assembly in the Isle of Leon, is thus explained.

"On the 10th September, 1810, a fortnight before the opening of the Cortes, the regents issued an edict, accompanied by a decree, in which the impossibility of obtaining proper representatives from the ultra-marine provinces and those occupied by the enemy is lamented, and a plan devised to remedy the defect, by means of substitutes chosen upon the spot. It was accordingly ordained that twenty-three persons should be picked out to represent the places held by the French, and thirty for the Indies; which number of substitutes, incorporated with the real delegates already arrived or about to arrive, it was thought would compose a respectable congress, sufficient under existing circumstances to open the house and carry on business, even although others should unfortunately not arrive.*

From the official records of the Cortes it appears that its numbers stood thus:

Members returned by provinces

of Spain unoccupied by the
French,

Substitutes provided at Cadiz for
the others,

127

45

"It would be almost insulting to the judgment of the reader to offer any remarks upon either the illegality or the incongruity of a legislature composed of such elements as the preceding sketch presents.

Independently of a total abandonment of ancient usages, and an utter disregard of the elective franchise practised in former times; besides the exclusion of two estates, and the enlargement of the third on a basis not only impracticable, but also ridiculous; substitutes are put in to represent an infinitely larger proportion of territory in both hemispheres than that which, with the free agency of the inhabitants, is enabled to return representatives, elected according to the scale proposed by the conveners of the Cortes themselves, founded on rules of their own framing. The representative principle was thus entirely lost; and how a party of politicians and

philosophers, circumscribed to a small spot of ground, and protected only by the naval force of an ally, could, during eighteen months, sit quietly down and frame a constitution for the acceptance of nearly thirty millions of people, situated in three quarters of the globe, and opposed in interests as well as in habits, on a plan so defective in all its parts, is the most extraordinary of the many singularities which marked the Spanish contest.

"In the new representative plan, neither population nor wealth was taken as a basis. Valencia, with 1,040,740 souls, was allowed nineteen deputies; whilst Granada, including Malaga, and containing 1,100,640, had only two. The ancient kingdom of Navarre with 271,285 souls, Biscay with 130,000, Guipuscoa with 126,789, and Alava with 85,139, are rated at one each; whereas, the mountains of Ronda had two. Spain, with fourteen millions of souls, is set down at one hundred and fifty-four deputies; when the South American and Asiatic provinces, by the central junta declared integral and equal parts of the monarchy, and containing a population of more than seventeen millions, were represented by fifty-four. Never was any thing more monstrous than the organization of the Cadiz legislature-more opposed to the practice in ancient times, or more at variance with the objects for which the Cortes were to meet. It was not even in accordance with the wild theories of the day. The absence of opposition was the only sanction given to their labours; a circumstance which may be easily accounted for in the existing state of the Peninsula."

These Revolutionists were not long in invoking the aid of the same principles which, emanating from the Jacobins of Paris, had consigned France to slavery and Europe to blood. "Eight or nine journals were immediately established in Cadiz, of which one was called The Robespierre.'”

"The principles proclaimed by the constitution, if possible, are more monstrous than the manner in which it was constructed. It begins by declaring that the legislature is composed of the general and extraordinary Cortes of the Spanish nations represented by deputies from Spain, America, and Asia; that the national sovereignty resides in the Cortes, and that the power of making laws belongs to them, joi.tly with the king; that the population is to be taken as a basis for the new electoral law, without any defined qualification for eligibility; that the Cortes were to

meet every year, and, on closing, leave a permanent deputation sitting, to watch over the observance of the constitution, report infractions, and convene the legislature in extraordinary cases, and that the king should be at the head of the executive and sanction the laws. A new plan was also formed for the government of the provinces, the election of municipalities, the assessment of taxes, and a variety of In a word, the Cadiz

other purposes.

code deprived the king of the power of dissolving or proroguing the Cortes, and in other respects destroyed the royal prerogative, as well as feudal tenures and the rights of property. It confounded the various classes, reduced the power of the clergy, extinguished the civil rights of a whole community, cancelled all previous compacts made between the sovereign and the people, broke the bond of union, tore asunder the charters, confiscated the privileges and franchises so highly valued by the inhabitants, and, in a word, obliterated every line and feature of the ancient institutions, by transforming Spain into the reverse of what she had been. It was a sweeping proscription of every privileged and corporate body in the country, annihilating the whole, and leaving neither wreck nor vestige behind."

Of this constitution, which is now the constitution of Spain, which the arms, ay, the Royal arms of England are employed to uphold, it is suflicient to say that it establishes 1. UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE; 2. ONE LEGISLATIVE CHAMBER; 3. ANNUAL PARLIAMENTS; 4. It annihilates all the power of the nobles and clergy; 5. Sweeps away all corporate rights and feudal privileges; 6. Exterminates the whole royal prerogative. long would the British empire withstand the shock of such a constitution? Not one week.

How

Even before it was brought into operation, or the French armies had been driven by British valour from the soil of Spain, the ruinous effect of this monstrous constitution was so clearly perceived, that the democratic despots were fearful of its overthrow.

"Such a transition as that which this code was calculated to effect, was too sudden and too violent not to meet with decided opposition. Its levelling principles and subversive doctrines were accordingly denounced from the pulpit and by the press. Every epithet of odium and contempt was applied to its officious framers; and so great was the apprehension of disturbances entertained by the government itself, that, within a month after its promulgation, they prevented arms from being

entrusted to the Galician peasantry. Individuals of rank and influence were banished for merely expressing their disapprobation of its provisions or their dread of the calamities which it was likely to produce."

The fate of this monstrous democratic abortion is well known. On Ferdinand's accession it fell to the ground from its own weight; not a fired to dissolve the destructive fabric. sword required to be drawn, or a shot His famous decree from Valencia, on May 4, at once extinguished the Cadiz constitution. In that instrument Ferdinand justly said—

"To this Cortes, in 1810, convened in a manner never practised in Spain, even in the most arduous cases, and in the turbulent times of minorities, when the meeting of deputies has been more numerous than in usual and ordinary Cortes, the estates of the nobility and clergy were not called, notwithstanding the central junta ordered this to be done by a decree, artfully concealed from the council of regency, who were equally unaware that to them the junta had assigned the presidency of the Cortes; a prerogative which otherwise would never have been left at the will of the Congress. Every thing was thus placed at the disposal of the Cortes, who, on the very day of their installation, and as a commencement of their acts, stripped me of the sovereignty which the deputies themselves had just before acknowledged, nominally attributing it to the nation, in order to appropriate it to themselves, and by this usurpation enact such laws as they deemed fit, imposing on the people the obligation of forcibly receiving them in the form of a new constitution, which the deputies established, and afterwards sanctioned and published in 1812, without powers from either provinces, towns, or juntas, and without even the knowledge of those said to be represented by the substitutes of Spain and the Indies.

"This first outrage against the royal prerogative was, as it were, a basis for the many others which followed; and, notwithstanding the repugnance of many deputies, laws were enacted, adopted, and called fundamental ones, amidst the cries, threats, and violence of those who frequented the Cortes galleries; whereby to that which was only the work of a faction the specious colouring of the general will was given, and for such made to pass among a few seditious persons at Cadiz, and afterwards at Madrid. These are notorious facts, and thus were those good laws altered which once constituted the felicity of our nation. The ancient form

The joy of the nation at this pacific liberation from their revolutionary tyrants knew no bounds. It was like that of the English on the Restoration. The journey of the king from Valencia to the capital was a continued triumph.

"Some members and other flaming patriots proposed open resistance, but soon found that they possessed neither physical nor moral power. As far as outward appearances went, they preserved their consistency, or rather their delirium, till the close. Some of the most vociferous were however seized; and this put an end to the show of opposition. Ferdinand VII. entered the capital on the 14th, amidst general acclamations and other demonstrations of joy. Persons present attest that never did Madrid witness such a scene of general exultation. When the king alighted, the people took him up in their arms, and triumphantly showed him to the immense concourse assembled in front of the palace, and in their arms conveyed him to his apartment. From Aranjuez to Madrid, his carriage had been previously drawn by the people. In the afternoon of the 16th, he walked through several parts of the town, the streets thronged with spectators; but not a single constitutionalist ventured to show his

face."

We have dwelt the longer on the original illegal formation, and revolutionary principles of the constitution, because it lies in truth at the bottom of the whole question. The Cadiz demo crats, like all other reckless revolutionists, bestowed on the nation at once, without either preparation or reason, the prodigal gift of unbounded political influence. The whole powers of Government were by them vested in one Chamber: the Cortes combined the powers of the executive and legislature in England, being vested at once with the exclusive right of imposing taxes, passing laws, declaring war and peace. These vast powers were vested in one single assembly, unfettered by any separate House of Peers, or the representation of the clergy in any shape. And

how was this omnipotent assembly chosen? By universal suffrage; by the votes of every man in Spain who had a house and was twenty five years of age. No qualification was required either in the electors or the representatives. A majority of beggars might rule the state, and dispose at will of all the property it contained!!!

The urban revolutionists of Spain, an ardent, energetic, insolvent class, instantly perceived the enormous advantages which this extravagant constitution gave them. They saw clearly that under this radical constitution, they would in fact be the rulers of the state; that its whole offices, emoluments, influence, and property would ere long be at their disposal; and that by simply sticking to that one point, "the constitution of 1812," they would soon, and without bloodshed as they hoped, and by the mere force of legislative enactment, strip all the holders of property, not only of their influence, but their possessions. In the few great towns, accordingly, which the Peninsula contains, in Madrid, Cadiz, Seville, Barcelona, Valencia, Bilboa, and Malaga, a clique of agitators was immediately formed, who, destitute of property, education, or character, were yet formidable to the holders of property over the kingdom by their influence over the population in these great centres of profligacy, pauperism, and ambition. They were closely held together by the hellish bond of anticipated plunder. Freedom, liberty, and independence were ever in their mouths tyranny, plunder, massacre unceasingly in their hearts. But though a miserable minority, not amounting to a tenth part of the whole nation, they had great advantages in the political strife in which they were engaged, from their position in the great fortified towns of the kingdom, from their sway over the depraved and deluded populace, from the rapid communication which they maintained with each other, from the want of union, organization, or intelligence among their rural antagonists, from the possession of a plausible cri de guerre, "the constitution of 1812," which was supposed to be a sovereign charm by its supporters for every evil; and from the union, energy, and resolution which present insolvency and the prospect of future plunder, had diffused universally through their ranks.

It is the more material to attend to these considerations, because it is the struggle to re-establish this radical constitution which is the real matter that has ever since been at issue between the two parties in the Peninsula. The Queen at Madrid was from the first a mere puppet; the Estatuto Real a mere instalment; the revolt of La Granja brought to light their real projects, and revealed, in its pristine nakedness, the violence and iniquity of the democratic faction. By it the constitution of 1812 has again become the basis of the constitution: a nocturnal revolt, an irruption into the bed-chamber of the Queen, a drunken sergeant and ten treasonable grenadiers were sufficient to knock down the phantom of a constitutional monarchy, which, as a mask to their ulterior designs, the revolutionists had set up. And it is to support such a cause, to establish such a revolutionary regime, that General Evans and his unhappy band have been exposed to defeat and dishonour, and L.500,000 worth of arms and ammunition sent to the democrats of the Peninsula, and the royal flag of England displayed beside the abettors of spoliation, rob. bery, and murder!

The evils experienced and anticipated from this radical constitution, however, were so powerful, that it probably never again would have reared its hated head in Spain, were it not that in an evil hour Ferdinand VII. resolved upon an expedition to South America in 1821, to subdue the revolted provinces, and assembled 20,000 men in the Isle of Leon for that purpose. This distant service was to the last degree unpopular in the Spanish army; its inglorious dangers, its certain hardships, its boundless fatigues, its remote situation, its probable disastrous termination, were present to every mind, and filled both officers and men with the most gloomy presentiments, and left them in that state of moody despair when the most desperate and flagitious projects are most likely to be embraced with alacrity. The presence of 20,000 men close to Cadiz or within its walls, influenced by these feelings, was too favourable an opportunity for the revolutionists in that great centre of democracy to let slip for re-establishing their hated dominion. While the troops were waiting for the transports to convey them across the Atlantic, which, with

the usual want of foresight in the Spanish character, were very long of being prepared, intrigues were actively set on foot by the Cadiz clique; and in the subaltern officers of the army, which is almost wholly destitute of men of property in Spain, and filled with mere adventurers, they found the most ready reception. Soldiers, unless restrained by preponderance of property and education in their officers, are never averse to playing the part of prætorians; they are seldom disinclined to setting an empire up to sale. The glittering prospect, on the one hand, of escaping a perilous, hate. ful, and inglorious foreign service, and on the other, disposing of the whole emoluments and advantages of government for themselves or their connexions, was more than the military adventurers of the Isle of Leon could withstand; they revolted; raised the cry of "The constitution of 1812," amidst the transports of the democra tic party over all Spain; and the King, destitute of any military force to withstand so formidable an insurrection, was, after a trifling attempt at resistance, forced into submission. The promised boon was not withheld from the traitor soldiers, who had, by violating their oaths, brought about the revolution; they were retained at home; the expedition against South America was laid aside, and the crown of the Indies for ever lost to the throne of Castile. But what was that to the Spanish democrats? What did it signify that the empire was dismembered, and the Transatlantic colonies consigned to an anarchy, despotism, and suffering, unparalleled in modern times? They had got to the head of affairs; the pillar of the constitution was raised in

every considerable town of Spain; the Cadiz clique had become prime ministers; and every province of the Peninsula was placed under the rule of a set of low rapacious revolutionary employés, who made use of all their authority to promote the election of such extreme deputies for the Cortes as might ensure the total revolutionizing of the state.

Even while the Liberals lay at Cadiz, they had begun their system of rapacious iniquity :

"M. Alcala Galiano," says Walton, "assisted in a civil capacity, and when the mutineers were shut up in La Isla, wrote the principal proclamations and addresses which served to extend the insur