cudgelled in the most unmerciful manner. The measure of ejectment was simultaneously carried into execution wherever the government could enforce its commands; the great object in view being to seize on money, plate, and valuables. "The liberals have appointed commissions to receive the confiscated property, and the same abuses occur as in 1822. One instance will suffice in the way of illustration. The convent of St John of God, at Cadiz, well known to many of our countrymen, formerly fed and clothed a large number of poor; and its members, being mostly medical men, attended the sick and administered medicine gratis. The relief afforded by this institution was incalculable; and yet its funds, economically administered, and aided only by voluntary donations, were sufficient to satisfy every claim. The liberals took its administration upon themselves; and the persons intrusted with it soon grew rich, and had their boxes at the theatre. They had profits on the contracts for provisions, medicine, and other supplies. The amount of relief afforded was also diminished; and yet, at the end of the first year, the ordinary funds were exhausted, and the new administrators obliged to make public appeals to the humane." The destitution thus inflicted on the clergy, and misery on the poor, has been unbounded. "The suppression lately ordained by the Cristino government may be called a general one, and the number of establishments to which it had extended at the end of last September, was estimated at 1937, leaving 23,699 ejected inmates, whose annual maintenance, if paid at the promised rate, would not be less than L.400,000." The creation of new jurisdictions, and the extirpation of all the ancient landmarks, was as favourite an object with the Spanish as it had been with the French, or now is with the Eng lish revolutionists. "The plan for the territorial divisions was also put forward. It may be here proper to observe, that formerly Spain was divided into fourteen sections, unequal in extent and population. It was now proposed to divide the territory, including the adjacent islands, into fortynine provinces, or districts, taking the names of their respective capitals, except Navarre, Biscay, Guipuseoa, and Alava, which were to preserve their ancient denominations. The principality of Asturias was to become the province of Oviedo. Andalusia was to be parcelled out into even provinces; Aragon, into three; eight; Catalonia, into four; Estremadura, into two; Galicia, into four; Leon, into three; Murcia, into two; and Valencia, into three. To each it was wished to give as near as possible a population of 250,000 persons; and the census taken in 1833, amounting to 12,280,000 souls, was taken for a standard. A new magistrate, called sub-delegate, was to be appointed to each province, and act under the immediate orders of the minister Del Fomento." And it is to support SUCH A CAUSE that the Quadruple Alliance was formed, and Lord John Hay, and the gallant marines of England sent out, and L.500,000 worth of arms and ammunition furnished to the revolutionary Government! Lord Palmerston says all this was done, because it is for the interest of England to promote the establishment of liberal institutions in all the adjoining states. Is it, then, for the "interest of England" to establish universal suffrage, a single chamber, and a powerless throne, in the adjoining countries, in order that the reflection of their lustre there may tend to their successful introduction into this realm? Is it for the interest, any more than the honour of England, to ally itself with a set of desperadoes, assassins, and murderers, and to promote, by all the means in its power, the extinction of liberty in those seats of virtuous institutions-the Basque provinces? What has been the return which the liberals of Lisbon have made for the aid which placed their puppet on the throne, and gave them the command of the whole kingdom? To issue a decree raising threefold the duties on every species of British manufacture. A similar result may with certainty be anticipated, after all the blood and treasure we have wasted, and more from Evans' co-operation, if he shall than all the character we have lost, succeed in beating down the Carlist cause; because the urban democracy, which will then be established in uncontrolled power, will be necessarily actuated by the commercial passions and jealousy of that class in society. One word more in regard to the Durango decree, on which such vehement efforts have been made to rouse the sympathy and excite the indignation of the British people. None can deplore that decree more than we do: none can more earnestly desire its repeal ; and if our humble efforts can be of any avail, we implore the counsellors New Castile, into five; Old Castile, into of Don Carlos, for the sake of hu manity, to stop its execution; to obtain its repeal. But when it is said that it is such a stain upon the cause of the Spanish Conservatives, as renders their cause unworthy of the support of any good man, we are prompted to ask what cause did the English mercenaries go out to support? Was it the cause of civilized, humane, legalized warfare? No! it was that of murder, robbery, and plunder, of massacred babes and weltering valleys, of conflagration, rapine, and extermination. They voluntarily joined their standards to those of a power which had begun the in famous system of giving no quarter, and despite all the efforts of the Duke of Wellington's mission, had resumed it, and was prosecuting it with relentless rigour. They marched along with those exterminating bands, into valleys, where they had burned every house, and slaughtered every second inhabitant, and clothed in weeds every mother and sister that survived. They marched along with these execrable bands, without any condition, without either proclaiming for themselves, or exacting from their allies any other and more humane system of warfare. By their presence, however inefficient they may have been on the Biscayan shore, they have prolonged for two years beyond the period when it would otherwise have terminated the heart-rending civil war of Spain. If the 20,000 English and French auxiliaries, who retained an equal force of Carlists inactive in their front, had been removed, can there be a doubt Don Carlos would have been on the throne, and peace established in Spain two years ago? How many thousand of Spanish old men and women have been slaughtered, while Evans held the hands of their avenging heroes? We have thus voluntarily ranged ourselves beside a frightful exterminating power: can we be surprised if we are met by the severities which his atrocities have rendered unavoidable? We have joined hands with the murderer: though we may not have ourselves lifted the dagger, we have held the victim while our confederates plunged it in his heart, and can we be surprised if we are deemed fit objects of the terrible law of retribution? Do we then counsel aid to Don Carlos, or any assistance to the cause he supports? Far from it: we would not that one Englishman should be exposed to the contagion of the hideous atrocities which the revolutionists have committed, and to which the Carlists, in self-defence, have been driven in every part of Spain. What we counsel is, what we have never ceased to urge ever since this hideous strife began in the Peninsula: Withdraw altogether from it: Bring home the marines, the auxiliaries, the steamboats: send no more arms or ammunition from the Tower: declare to the Christinos, that till they return to the usages of civilized war we will not send them another gun under the quadruple treaty. It is a woful reflection, that our vast influence with the revolutionary Government, after the quadruple alliance, was perfectly adequate, if properly exerted, to have entirely stopt this exterminating warfare. But what must be our reflection, when we recollect that we have actually supported it! And if hereafter a band of Cossacks or Pandours shall land on the coast of Kent, to perpetuate a bloody strife in the realms of England, to support the savage excesses of an Irish civil war, and spread mourning weeds and woe through every cottage in England, it is no more than we have done to the Biscay mountaineers, and no more than what, under a just retribution, we may expect to endure from some equally unjust and uncalledfor aggression. 600 THE WORLD WE LIVE IN. No. VII. LORD RADNOR, only too fortunate in finding an opportunity to distinguish himself in this glorious day of enquiry levelling, has demanded an " into the constitution," and so forth, of the Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge. For any thing like an useful enquiry on such subjects, his Lordship is probably about as much qualified as one of his own coach-horses. But the old routine of the patronage-hating ministers will take place on the occasion; half a dozen commissioners will be sent down to the universities; college by college will be examined day by day, at the rate of ten guineas a-day to the lucky commissioners. The enquiry may be prolonged for months, It is too good a probably for years. thing to be let loose easily. The whole affair is completely of the Grey school; and, in fact, we are perfectly convinced, that to Lord John Russell some of the most painful of his public tribulations arise from the necessity of delegating such capital sinecures to others. But our present business is more with Lord Radnor's principles than his brains. His Lordship, man and boy, has been about thirty years in Parliament, and between sleeping on the back benches, and making motions to and from the coffee-house, has fulfilled every legislative duty of which nature had decided him to be capable. But ambition, which, in the generality of men, cools with the consciousness of decaying powers, has suddenly kindled within his Lordship. Naturally unchecked by the consciousness of decay in what he never possessed, he now comes forward to claim his share in the honours of a time, when a Lord Melbourne plays Premier in the House of Lords, and Lord John Russell plays Leader in the House of Commons. ship is now in the third stage of his transformation. First a bitter Radical, then a lazy Whig, and now a bustling O'Connellite. First the worm, next the larva, and now the gnat, buzzing and stinging with all his little might, until he gets himself crushed, and there is an end of his little existence. His Lord As to the new allegiance to which Some time he has pledged himself, we have the tie under his own hand. ago O'Connell, to raise the drooping spirits of his Corn-Exchange Parliament, and still more to raise the drooping funds on which his beggary lives, wrote an atrocious letter, as is his custom, to his slaves, attorneys, and taxgatherers, in the " Grand National After a hint in the Association." native style, which was no other than a direct demand of money, stating, that if, "out of the eight millions of patriots in Ireland, but one million subscribed a farthing a-week, the yearly rent would amount to fifty thousand pounds," he proceeded to lay open his plan for pacifying Ireland. With the Irish school, money and massacre seem to have some indissoluble conA highwayman priming his nexion. pistols does not more instinctively figure to himself the purse which is to be their fruit. A swindler slipping the loaded die into his box does not more unequivocally calculate on the result of his turning up sixes. Revolution and the rent are the Siamese twins of the hungry Showman of the Emerald Isle. "Would I could," said the mendicant ruffian, "transfer my spirit of constitutional agitation to some person of equal integrity [hear this, Ex-Sheriff Raphael-hear this, Mr Factory Potter, and smile], who, being able to reside in Dublin, would consecrate sufficient time to the complete expansion of the ASSOCIATION OF IRELAND. [So it is ALL Ireland already!] Now is the time. The eyes of Europe and of the world are on us! The friends of freedom in England and Scotland are awaiting our determination [a hint which we dare not translate. We well know the only determination that can find a place in that coward heart.] If we associate and agitate as men ought to do, who hate violence, abhor revolution, and shudder at blood [so innocently writes the man of the death's head and cross-bones] we shall receive the support of the wise," &c. Then comes the native revelling in vengeance. "Our glorious example will be more closely imitated than it was before in Scotland and England. In the next organic change [so we are to have more of them, and more still, while one stone stands upon another] the franchise will be so extended, as to deprive the bigoted, selfish, and sordid Tory of all hope of ever again regaining power." The letter worthily finishes with the roar of a drunken rabble at an Irish fair "Hurrah, then, for association, Hurrah, then, for agitation." Still adding the slight but expressive touch which thrills through the sensibilities of every pikeman in every bog of Ireland. “ Remember, oh, remember, that the fate of Ireland now depends upon her own exertions. Hereditary bondsmen- I believe you know the rest. "Yours, faithfully," &c. Whether Lord Radnor was struck by the proposal for a new office in the stewardship of Mr O'Connell-for the management of the rent, is, we believe, a remarkably comfortable job for a narrow income, or a narrow mind, which amounts to the same thing; or whether he had any idea of any kind beyond signalizing himself by an act of measureless foolery, his Lordship instantly poured himself out in the following epistle to the Beg. garman: "Sir, I have just read in the Morning Chronicle your address to the people of Ireland. It is what I fully expected, and I rejoice that I have not been disappointed. "Believing that some such measure as that which you propose can alone save Ireland from confusion, and probably civil war, I enclose a small contribution to the rent of Ireland, in aid of your proposed General Association.' After some farther nonsense about O'Connell's claim to the "eternal gratitude of all who love peace and dread, above all things, a civil and religious war," his Lordship, to prevent any possible mistake as to his being one of the most absurd lords alive, and anxious not to be shorn of the very smallest beam of his political glory by the suppression of his authorship, writes "You are welcome to make what use you please of this letter-[we could easily point the use for which it is fit]-but I am anxious that, in Ireland at least, it should be publicly known that Englishmen sympathize with the Irish in their wrongs and sufferings." The Association," of course, received this new contributor with great joy, as they would any contributor; but they little know Lord Radnor if they think that they can squeeze any thing out of his generosity. It would be amusing to ask, what has been the amount of his Lordship's assistance to any of the great charitable institutions of England during the last thirty years? We have never discovered his name among their lists. When the national feelings have been appealed to for the widows and orphans of our brave men lost in the victories of England, we never recollect an instance in which this patriotic personage mulcted his revenues, or put his soul to pain by the expenditure of five pounds for the purpose. Yet this sensitive peer yearns for the prosperity of peaceful agitation, and groans over the sufferings of Ireland-where, however, Popery is not yet sovereign-and magnifies the ruffian Agitator as the object of his patriotic homage. And with this public display of the texture of his brains, and the British nature of his opinions, this foolish man is to be the Reformer of Oxford and Cambridge! There are years which have, like ages, their characteristics. The year 1825 was the well-known year of panic. It was also the year of projectors. The plans set on foot for getting rid of the national money were on the most gigantic scale, and it was computed (if we do not much mistake) that the capital, if fully subscribed, would have amounted to three hundred millions sterling. Some of this extravagance was undoubtedly due to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, now Lord Ripon, who thence obtained for himself the soubriquet of Prosperity Robinson; his Lordship, in the fulness of his heart, having said that the great difficulty of the nation in the sudden tide of wealth that was to pour in upon us would be how to spend it. Some was to be laid to the charge of the Bank, which by the sudden lowering of its discounts apparently opened the national purse for every hand that would take the trouble to plunge into it. Some to the natural passion of all men for showy speculation, but more than all to the very busy and very knavish intrigues of the whole host of brokers, solicitors, and dealers connected with the money market of England. It is a remarkable instance of the shortsightedness which seizes on the wisest, when avarice once lays hold on them, that, with the exception of one or two enter prises in Spanish and Portuguese colonial mines, there is probably not one of these projects in existence at this moment. The mere list of them would be curious. Every part of the earth was made the location of some new contrivance for marvellous wealth. Gum companies for Africa-ivory companies from India- companies for cutting down the American forests, were among the most familiar conceptions. It is equally remarkable, as an instance of the blindness which cannot discover obvious utility, as well as of the precipitation which hurries men into waste, that there was probably not a single attempt in the whole list at any of those contrivances for locomotion which have since opened out such important views to mankind. The railway seems to have been almost unthought-of in that day of showy anticipations. It is true, that the railway itself has been made the subject of speculators, nine-tenths of which must be productive of ruin. But the invention will last-the results will be permanent; and England and mankind will yet acknowledge it as the great discovery of the century of mechanism. One of the most interesting, and apparently most feasible projects of 1825, was the company for pearl-fishing off the coast of South America. It was long known that the pearl-oyster was to be found there; but the poverty of the fishers, and the general ignorance of the people, strongly favoured the idea, that European ingenuity might sweep the bottoms of the bays, harbours, and creeks where the oysters lay, and carry to the European market the gathered treasures of many an age. Accordingly, a vessel was fitted out, equipped with all the modern improvements for catching those little bright ornaments of the ears and bosoms of the fair. It was put under the command of Lieutenant Hardy, an intelligent officer, well acquainted with the navigation, and despatched on its errand for this new philosopher's stone hidden in the bosom of the deep. But how many things are to be considered to gain any one point in this world? The principal instrument on which the whole enterprise depended was a diving-bell of the most complete construction. One thing, and one alone, had been omitted in the calculation— the nature of the ground on which the It oysters were to be looked for. seems to have been taken for granted, that it was a sort of subaqueous bowling-green, or billiard table. It is possible that no one thought of asking the question. The vessel reached the coast: the diving-bell was let down, and returned with the report that the bottom, instead of being the smooth bed of sand on which the pearls lay in heaps, was a succession of pointed rocks and deep clefts, where the animal hid itself and where a diving-bell was of little more use than a balloon. The experiment was made over and over again, with the perseverance of the British sailor; but the oysters would not be found; the machine could do nothing in the midst of those dells and caverns, swept, too, by the currents of the heady ocean; and the expedition was finally abandoned, producing as its only fruits a book by the officer in command, a very spirited and amusing production. Lieutenant Hardy, in the course of his adventures, became acquainted with the native pearl divers, some of whose exploits he narrates; some of those, too, being instances of remarkable peril, encountered with remarkable intrepidity. One of those divers had plunged into eleven fathoms, in the expectation of finding some peculiarly fine pearls. He was pursuing his search, when seeing the water suddenly darken, he looked up, and to his horror beheld at some distance above him, a huge shark, leisurely surveying all his movements, and evidently intending to make prize of him. The diver made a dart forward towards a rock, where he thought that he might elude the eye of the monster, and then spring up to the surface; but the shark shook his tail, and followed quietly, but with the same evident determination to eat him the moment he rose. As under water time is every thing, and the diver had only to choose |