CHAPTER II.

INTERNAL POLITICAL TRANSACTIONS.

With the military affairs thus mismanaged, the civil and political transactions proceeded step by step, and in the same crooked path. Short as the period was between the first breaking forth of the insurrection, and Mr. Stuart’s Letters. Parliamentary Papers. the arrival of Mr. Stuart at Coruña, it was sufficient to create disunion of the worst kind. The juntas of Leon, of the Asturias, and of Gallicia, were at open discord, and those provinces were again split into parties, hating each other with as much virulence as if they had been of a hundred years growth. The money and other supplies sent by the English ministers were considered, by the authorities into whose hands they fell, as a peculiar donation to themselves, and appropriated accordingly. The junta of one province would not assist another with arms when there was a surplus, nor permit their troops to march against the enemy beyond the precincts of the particular province Ibid. in which they were first organized. The ruling power was in the hands of the provincial nobility and gentry, men of narrow contracted views, unused to business, proud, arrogant—as extreme ignorance suddenly clothed with authority will always be—and generally disposed to employ their newly-acquired power in providing for their relations and dependants at the expense of the common cause, which with them was quite subordinate to the local interests of their own particular province. Hence a jealousy of their neighbours regulated the proceedings of all the juntas, and the means they resorted to for increasing their own, or depressing a rival government’s influence, were equally characterised by absurdity and want of principle. The junta of Gallicia did their utmost to isolate that province, as if with a view to a final separation from Spain and a connexion with Portugal. They complained, Mr. Stuart’s Letters. MS. as of an injury, that the army of Estremadura had obeyed the orders of the junta of Seville; they at once struck up an independent alliance with the junta and bishop of Oporto, and sent troops, as we have seen, under Valladeras, to aid the war in Portugal, but, at the same time, refused to unite in any common measure of defence with the provinces of Castille, until a formal treaty of alliance between them was negotiated, signed, and ratified. In the mean time their selfishness and incapacity created so much disgust in their own district, that plots were formed to overthrow their authority. The bishops of Orense and St. Jago became their decided enemies; and the last-named prelate, an intriguing man, secretly endeavoured to draw Blake, with the army, into his views, and even wrote to him, to desire that he would lead the forces against Ibid. the government of Coruña; but the junta having intercepted the letters, arrested the bishop. Their own stability and personal safety were however still so insecure, that many persons applied to Mr. Stuart to aid in changing the form of government by force. The Asturians were even worse, they refused to assist Blake when his army was suffering, although the stores required by him, and supplied by England, were rotting in the harbours where they were first landed. Money also that was sent out in the Pluto frigate for the use of Leon was detained at Gihon, and Leon itself never raised a single soldier for the cause: and thus, only two months after the first burst of the insurrection, corruption, intrigue, and faction even to the verge of civil war, were raging in the northern parts of Spain.

The same passions were at work in the south, and the same consequences followed. The junta of Seville, still less scrupulous than that of Gallicia, made no [Appendix, No. 13], section 5. secret of their ambitious views; they stifled all local publications, and even suppressed the public address of Florida Blanca, who, as president of the Murcian junta, had recommended the formation of a supreme central government. They wasted their time in vain and frivolous disputes, and neglecting every concern of real importance, sacrificed the general welfare to views of private advantage and interest. They made promotions in the army without regard to public opinion Ibid. or merit; they overlaid all real patriotism; bestowed on their own creatures places of emolument, to the patronage of which they had not a legal right; and even usurped the royal prerogative of appointing Sir Hew Dalrymple’s Pap^rs.
Coxe’s Correspond^ce. canons in the church, for their cupidity equalled their ambition. They intercepted, as I have already related, the pecuniary supplies necessary to enable the army to act; they complained that La Mancha and Madrid, in whose defence they said “their troops were sacrificing themselves,” did not subsist and supply the force under Castaños; under the pretence of forming a nucleus for disciplining thirty thousand levies as a reserve, they retained five battalions at Seville, and, having by this draft weakened the army in the field, they neglected the rest, and never raised a man. The canonries filled up by them had been vacant for several years, and the salaries attached to those offices were appropriated to the public service. The junta now applied the money to their own and their creatures’ emolument; and at one period they appear to have contemplated an open partition of the funds received from England among themselves. Against this flagitious junta also the public indignation was Sir Hew Dalrymple’s Pap^rs.
Coxe’s Correspond^ce. rife; a plot was formed to assassinate the members; the municipal authorities remonstrated with them, the archbishop of Toledo protested against their conduct, [Appendix, No. 13], section 5. and the junta of Grenada refused to acknowledge their supremacy; but so great was their arrogance, so unprincipled their ambition, that the decided and resolute opposition of Castaños alone prevented them from commencing a civil war, and Ibid. marching the victorious army of Baylen against the refractory Granadans. Such was the real state of Spain, and such the patriotism of the juntas, who were at this time filling Europe with the sound of their own praise.

In the northern parts Mr. Stuart endeavoured to reduce this chaos of folly and wickedness to some degree of order, and to produce that unity of design and action without which it was impossible to resist the mighty adversary that threatened the independence of the Peninsula. He judged that to reduce the conflicting passions of the moment, a supreme authority, upon which the influence of Great Britain could be brought to bear with full force, was indispensable. To convoke the ancient cortez of the realm appeared to him the most certain and natural method of drawing the strength and energy of the nation into one compact mass; but there the foresight of Napoleon interfered; by an able distribution of the French forces, all direct communication between the northern and southern provinces was intercepted. Bessieres, Dupont and Moncey at that time occupied a circle round Madrid, and would have prevented the local governments of the north from uniting with those of the southern, if they had been inclined to do so. An union of the nearest provinces, to be called the Stuart’s Correspondence. Parliamentary Papers. northern cortez, then suggested itself to Mr. Stuart as a preliminary step, which would ensure the convocation of a general assembly when such a measure should become practicable. Accordingly he strenuously urged its adoption, but his efforts, at first, produced no good results. It was in vain that he represented the danger of remaining in a state of anarchy when so many violent passions were excited, and such an enemy was in the heart of the country. It was in vain that he pointed out the difficulties, that the want of a supreme authority fastened on the intercourse with the British cabinet, which could not enter into separate relations with every provincial junta. The Spaniards, finding that the supplies were not withheld, that their reputation for patriotism was not lowered in England by actions which little merited praise, finding, in short, that the English cabinet was weak enough to gorge their cupidity, flatter their vanity, and respect their folly, they assented to all Mr. Stuart’s reasoning, but forwarded none of his propositions, and continued to nourish the disorders that, cancer-like, were destroying the common cause.

The jarring interests which agitated the northern provinces were not even subdued by the near approach of danger. The result of the battle of Rio Seco rather inflamed than allayed the violence of party feeling. If Bessieres had not been checked in his operations by the disaster of Dupont, he would have encountered few obstacles in establishing Joseph’s authority in Gallicia and Old Castile. The enthusiasm of those provinces never rose to a great pitch; Bessieres was prepared to use address as well as force, and among the factions he must doubtless have found support. The reinforcements continually arriving from France would have enabled him to maintain his acquisition, and then the ability of the emperor’s dispositions would have become apparent; for while Bessieres held Gallicia, and Dupont hung on the southern frontier of Portugal with twenty-five thousand men, Junot could have securely concentrated his army in the neighbourhood of Lisbon, and have rendered an English disembarkation on the coast nearly impracticable.

The whole of the French monarch’s combinations were overturned by the disgraceful capitulation of Baylen, and when Joseph evacuated Madrid a fresh impulse was given to the spirit of the people; but, unfortunately for Spain, as a wider scope for ambition was obtained, the workings of self-interest increased, fresh parties sprung up, and new follies and greater absurdities stifled the virtue of the country, and produced irremediable confusion, ending in ruin. The fact of Dupont’s capitulation was made known to the council of Castile before king Joseph was informed of it, and the council, foreseeing all the consequences of such an event, immediately refused, as I have already related, to promulgate officially his accession to the throne. Joseph permitted this act of obedience to pass without much notice. He was naturally averse to violence, Azanza and O’Farril, Mem. and neither he, nor his brother Napoleon, did at any period of the contest for Spain constrain a Spaniard to accept or retain office under the intrusive government. Joseph went further; before he abandoned Madrid, he released his ministers from their voluntary oath of allegiance to himself, and left them free to choose their party once more. Don Pedro Cevallos and the marquis of Pinuelo changed with, what appeared to them, changing fortune; but five others remained steadfast, preferring an ameliorated government under a foreign prince to what they believed to be a hopeless struggle, but which, if successful, they knew must end in a degrading native despotism; perhaps, also, a little swayed by their dislike to England, and by the impossibility of obtaining that influence among their countrymen which, under other circumstances, their talents and character would have ensured.

The boldness of the council of Castille was not publicly chastised by the intruding monarch, but secretly he punished the members by a dexterous stroke of policy. General Grouchy wrote to Castaños, saying, that circumstances had arisen which required the presence of the French troops in another quarter, and he invited the Spanish general to take immediate possession of Madrid for the preservation of public tranquillity. This communication gave rise to an opinion that the French were going to evacuate Spain; a report so congenial to the vanity and indolence of the Spaniards was greedily received, and contributed among other causes to the subsequent supineness of the nation in preparing for its defence; thus by appealing to Castaños, and affecting to treat the council of Castille as a body who had lost their influence with the nation, Joseph gave a handle to their enemies which the latter failed not to lay hold of. The juntas dreaded that the influence of such a body would destroy their own; that of Gallicia would not communicate with them, affirming that, individually, the members were attached to the French, and that, collectively, they had been the most active instrument Sir H. Dalrymple’s Papers.
Coxe’s Correspondence. of the usurper’s government. The junta of Seville endeavoured not only to destroy the authority of the existing members, but to annul that of the council, as an acknowledged tribunal of the state. The council, however, was not wanting to itself, the individuals composing it did not hesitate to seize the reins of government the moment the French had departed; and the prudence with which they preserved tranquillity in the capital, and prevented all re-action, proves that they were not without merit; and forms a striking contrast to the conduct of the provincial juntas, under whose savage sway every kind of excess was committed, and even encouraged.

Aware of the hostility they had to encounter, the members of the council lost no time in forming a party to support themselves. Don Arias Mon y Velarde, dean or president for the time being, wrote a circular letter to the local juntas, pointing out the necessity of establishing a central and supreme power, and proposing that deputies from each province, or nation, as they were sometimes called, should repair to Madrid, and there concert with the council the best mode of carrying such a measure into effect. If this proposal had been adopted, all power would inevitably have fallen into the hands of the proposers. Confessedly the first public body in the state, and well acquainted with the forms of business; the council must necessarily have had a preponderating influence in the assembly of delegates, and it appeared so reasonable that it should take the lead, when an efficient authority was required to direct the violence of the people in a useful channel, before the moment of safety was passed; that all the juntas trembled at the prospect of losing their misused power. The minor ones submitted, and agreed to send deputies. The stronger and more ambitious felt that subtlety would avail more than open opposition to the project.

The council followed up this blow by the publication of a manifesto, containing an accurate detail of the events of the revolution, defending the part taken by its members, and claiming a renewal of the confidence formerly reposed in them by the nation. Mr. Stuart’s Correspondence. This important state paper was so ably written, that a large party, especially at Valladolid, was immediately formed in favour of its authors; and the junta of Seville were so sensible of the increasing influence of the council, that they intercepted a copy of this manifesto, Cox’s Correspon^ce. addressed to sir Hew Dalrymple, and strictly [Appendix, No. 13], section 5. suppressed all writings favourable to the formation of a supreme central authority. Nothing they dreaded more; but it was no longer possible to resist the current, which had set strongly in favour of such a measure. The juntas, however they might oppose its progress, could not openly deny the propriety of it, and in every province, individuals of talent and Mr. Stuart’s Correspondence. consideration called for a change in the Hydra polity, which oppressed the country, and was inefficient against the enemy. Every British functionary, civil or military, in communication with the Spaniards, also urged the necessity of concentrating the executive power.

Ibid.

The provincial juntas were become universally odious. Some of the generals alone, who had suddenly risen to command under their rule, were favourable to them; but Palafox was independent, as a captain-general, whose power was confirmed by success; Castaños openly declared that he would no longer serve under their control, and Cuesta was prepared to put them down by force, and to re-establish the royal audienzas and the authority of the captains-general according to the old practice. In this state of affairs, the retreat of Bessieres’ army freed the communication with the southern parts, and removed all excuse for procrastination. The juntas of Gallicia, Castille, Leon, and the Asturias, gave way to the unceasing remonstrances of Mr. Stuart, and at his instance agreed to meet in cortez, at Lugo; Gallicia, however, first insisted upon a formal ratification of the treaty with Castille already mentioned.

When the moment of assembling arrived, the Asturians, without assigning any reason, refused to fulfil the engagement they had entered into, and the three remaining juntas held the session without them. The bishop of Orense, and the junta of Gallicia, were prepared to assert the supremacy of that province over the others, but the Baily Valdez of Castille, an able and disinterested man, being chosen president of the convocation, proposed, on the first day of assembly, that deputies should be appointed to represent the three provinces in a supreme junta, to be assembled in some central place, for the purpose of convoking the ancient cortez of the whole kingdom according to the old forms, and of settling the administration of the interior, and the future succession to the throne. This proposition was immediately carried by the superior number of the Castillians and Leonese; but the bishop of Orense protested against it, and the Gallician members strongly opposed an arrangement, by which their province was placed on the same footing as others, a glaring injustice (in their opinion) when the numbers of the Gallician army were taken into consideration; for the local feeling of ambition was uppermost, and the general cause disregarded. The other party answered, with great force, that the Gallician army was paid, armed, and clothed, by England, and fed by Castille and Leon.

Mr. Stuart’s Correspondence.

Meanwhile the influence of the council of Castille greatly increased, and the junta of Seville, quickened by fear, took the lead in directing what they could not prevent. The convocation of the cortez they knew would be fatal to their own existence; wherefore, in a public letter, addressed to the junta of Gallicia, dated one day previous to the circular of don Arias Mon, but evidently written after the receipt of the latter, they opposed the assembling of the cortez on the ground that it was “the prerogative of the king to convoke that body, and if it was called together by any other authority, the provinces would not obey.” “There would be no unanimity.” The futility of this argument is apparent. The question was not one of form, but of expediency. If the nation was in favour of such a step, (and after facts proved that the people were not opposed to it) the same necessity which constituted the right of the junta to declare war against the French, (another prerogative of the monarch) would have sufficed to legalize the convocation of the national assembly. But their sole object was to preserve their own power. They maintained that the juntas, being chosen by the nation, were the only legitimate depositaries of authority, and that to members of their own bodies only could any of that authority be delegated; and adopting thereupon the suggestion contained in the letter of Arias Mon, they proposed that two deputies from each supreme junta should repair, not to Madrid, but to Ciudad Real, or Almagro, and at the moment of meeting should be in fact constituted governors-general of the kingdom, and as such obeyed. Nevertheless, the local governments were, with due subordination to the central junta, to retain and exercise in their own provinces all the authority with which they had already invested themselves. Thus they had only to choose subservient deputies, and their power would be more firmly fixed than before.

This arrangement would, doubtless, have been readily adopted by the junta of Gallicia; but the rapidity with which Valdez carried his proposition, prevented that cause of discord from being added to the numerous disputes which already distracted the northern provinces. Mr. Stuart, impelled by the political tide, proceeded onward to Madrid, observing, wherever he passed, the same violence of local party feeling, and the general disgust occasioned by the conduct of the oligarchical provincial governments. Pride, vanity, corruption, and improvidence, were every where obtrusively visible.

The dispute between Blake and Cuesta, which was raging at the period of the battle of Rio Seco, a period when division was most hurtful to the military operations, was now allayed between the generals; but their political partizans waged war with more bitterness than ever, as if with the intent to do the greatest possible mischief, by continuing the feud among the civil branches of the government, when union was Stuart’s Correspondence. most desirable in that quarter. The seeds of division had taken deep root. The Baily Valdez chosen, as I have said, a deputy to the supreme junta, was obnoxious to general Cuesta, a man not to be offended with impunity when he had power to punish.

Don Gregorio Cuesta was haughty and incredibly obstinate. He had been president of the council of Castille, and he was captain-general of Castille and Leon when the insurrection first broke out. Disliking all revolutionary movements, although as inimical to a foreign domination as any of his countrymen, he endeavoured to repress the public effervescence, and to maintain the tranquillity of the country at the risk of losing his life as a traitor. He was an honest man, insomuch as the Spanish and French interests being put in competition, he would aid the former, but, between his country’s cause and his own passions, he was not honest. He disliked, and with reason, the sway of the local juntas, and with consistency of opinion, he wished to preserve the authority of the captains-general and the royal audienzas, both of which had been overturned by the establishment of those petty governments; but, sullen and ferocious in his temper, he supported his opinion with an authority and severity which had no guide but his own will, and he was prepared, if an opportunity offered, to exercise military influence over the supreme, as well as over the subordinate juntas. He had himself appointed one for Leon and Castille as a sort of council, subordinate to the authority of captain-general; but, after the battle of Rio Seco, the members fled to Ponteferrada, assumed the supreme authority, and putting themselves under the protection of his enemy Blake, disregarded Cuesta’s orders, and presumed to command him, their superior, to deliver up his cavalry to the former general; wherefore he annulled all their proceedings at Ponteferrada, and now asserting that the election of Valdez and his colleagues was void, as being contrary to the existing laws, he directed new juntas to be assembled in a manner more conformable to existing usages, and a fresh election to be made.

His mandates were disregarded; Valdez and the other deputies proceeded in defiance of them towards the place appointed for the assembly of the central and supreme government, and Cuesta, in return, without hesitation, abandoned the operations of the campaign, which, in the council of war held at Madrid, he had promised to aid, and falling back to Segovia with twelve thousand men, seized the deputies, and shut up Valdez a close prisoner in the tower of that place, declaring his intention to try him by a military tribunal for disobedience; and such was the disorder of the times, that Cuesta was not without plausible arguments to justify this act of stubborn violence; for the original election of members to form the junta of Castille and Leon had been any thing but legal; several districts had been omitted altogether in the representation of those kingdoms, many deputies had been chosen by the city of Leon alone, and Valdez was named president, although neither a native nor a proprietor, and for those reasons ineligible to be a deputy at all. The kingdom of Leon also had appointed representatives for those districts in Castille which were under the domination of the French, and when the enemy retired, the Castillians in vain demanded a more equitable arrangement.

However, amidst all this confusion and violence, the plan of uniting to form a central government gained ground all over the kingdom. Seville, Catalonia, Arragon, Murcia, Valencia, and Asturias, appointed their deputies. Fresh disputes relative to the place of assembly now arose, but after some time it was agreed to meet at Aranjuez. This royal residence was chosen contrary to the wishes of many, and notably against the opinion of Jovellanos, an eloquent person, and of great reputation for integrity, but of a pertinacious temper, unsuitable to the times. He urged that the capital was the meetest spot; but he was answered, that the turbulent disposition of the inhabitants of Madrid would impede the formation of a government, and that the same objection would exist against the choice of any other large town. It is extraordinary that such an argument should be held in Spain at a moment when the people were, in all the official and public papers, represented as perfectly enthusiastic, and united in one common sacred pursuit, and in the British parliament were denominated the “universal Spanish nation!”

To seek thus for protection in a corner, instead of manfully and confidently identifying themselves with the people, and courting publicity, augured ill for the intentions of the deputies, nor was the augury belied by the event. The junta of Seville, who had so bitterly reviled the council of Castille, for having partially Cox’s Correspondence. submitted to the usurper, had, notwithstanding, chosen for their own deputies, don Vincente Hore, a known creature of the prince of peace, and the count de Tilly Gusman, who was under the stigma of a judicial sentence for robbery. Hore declined the appointment; but Tilly, braving the public disgust, repaired to Aranjuez, and his place as resident with the head-quarters of the Andalusian army was filled up by Miñiano, another member of the junta, who received an enormous salary for performing the mischievous duties of that office. The instructions given by the different provinces to the deputies were to confine their deliberations and votes to such subjects as they should, from time to time, receive directions from their constituents to treat of. Seville again took the lead in this fraudulent policy, and when public indignation and the remonstrances of some right-minded persons, obliged the juntas of that town and of Valencia to rescind these instructions, both substituted secret orders of the same tenor; in short the greater part of the deputies were the mere tools of the juntas; agents, watching over the interests of their employers, and (conscious of demerit) anxious to hide themselves from the just indignation of the public until they had consolidated their power; hence the dislike to large towns and the intrigues for fixing the government at Aranjuez.

Count Florida Blanca, a man in the last stage of decrepitude, was chosen first president in rotation for three months, and all idea of choosing an independent executive was abandoned; Jovellanos proposed to establish a regency selected from their own body; but his plan was rejected on the ground that the members were not authorised to delegate their powers even to one another. It was palpable that the juntas had merely appeared to comply with the public wish for a central government, but were determined not to part with one iota of their own real power.

The first act of authority executed by the assembly was, however, a necessary assertion of its own dignity, which had been violated in the case of Valdez. Cuesta, who was personally unpopular, and feared by the central, as well as by the provincial juntas, was summoned to release his captive, and to repair to Aranjuez, that cognizance might be taken of his proceedings; he was at the same time denounced by the juntas of Castille and Leon as a traitor, and exposed to great Mr. Stuart’s Correspondence.
Col. Graham’s ditto. danger of popular commotion. At first Cuesta haughtily repelled the interference of Castaños and Florida Blanca, but finally he was forced to bend, and after a sharp correspondence with Mr. Stuart, whose influence was usefully employed to strengthen the central government, he released his prisoner, and quitting the command of the army, appeared at Aranjuez. No formal proceedings were had upon the case; but after much mutual recrimination, Valdez was admitted to the exercise of his functions, and the old general was detained at the seat of government, a kind of state prisoner at large, until, for the misfortune of his country, he was, by subsequent events, once more placed at the head of an army.

About this time lord William Bentinck joined Mr. Stuart at Madrid. Perfectly coinciding in opinions, they laboured earnestly to give a favourable turn to affairs, by directing the attention of the central junta, to the necessity of military preparations, and active exertion for defence; but the picture of discord, folly, and improvidence exhibited in the provinces, was here displayed in more glaring colours. The lesser tribunals being called upon to acknowledge the authority of the assembled deputies, readily obeyed; but the council of Castille, reluctant to submit, and too weak to resist, endeavoured to make terms; they were forced, however, to an unconditional submission.

Mr. Stuart’s Correspondence.

A good management of the revenue, a single chief for the army, and, above all, the total suppression of the provincial juntas, were the three objects of public anxiety. With respect to the army, no doubt was at first entertained that Castaños would be appointed commander-in-chief; his services entitled him to the office, and his general moderation and conciliating manners fitted him for it at a time when so much jealousy was to be soothed and so many interests to be reconciled. The past expenditure of the money received from England was also a subject of great importance, and it was loudly required that an account of its disbursement should be demanded of the local juntas, and a surrender of the residue instantly Ibid. enforced. These just expectations lasted but a short time; scarcely were the deputies assembled, when every prospect of a vigorous administration was blasted. Dividing themselves into sections, answering in number to the departments of state under the old king, they appointed a secretary not chosen from their own body, to each, and declared all and every one of these sections, supreme and independent, having equal authority.

Florida Blanca informed Mr. Stuart and lord William Bentinck that Castaños would be named generalissimo, and the latter was even appointed to confer with him upon the plan of campaign for the British troops, then marching from Portugal to the assistance of the Spaniards. The necessity of having a single chief at the head of the armies was imperious, and acknowledged by every individual, military or civil; yet such was the force of jealousy, and so stubborn were the tools of the different juntas, that all the exertions of Mr. Stuart and lord William Bentinck, and all the influence of the British cabinet, failed to get one appointed. The generals were all confirmed in their separate and independent commands, the old and miserable system of the Dutch deputies in Marlborough’s time, and of the commissaries of the convention, during the French revolution, was partially revived, and the expressed wishes of the English government were totally disregarded at a Parliamentary Papers. time when it had supplied Spain with two hundred thousand musquets, clothing, ammunition of all kinds in proportion, and ten millions of dollars. Such ample succours, if rightly managed, ought to have secured to the English cabinet unlimited influence; but as the benefits came through one set of persons, and the demands through another, the first were taken as of right, the last unheeded, and the resources of Great Britain were wasted without materially improving the condition of Spain; the armies were destitute, the central government was without credit, and notwithstanding the ample subsidies, contracted a large debt.

The provincial juntas were still permitted to retain their power within their own districts, and the greatest timidity marked all the proceedings of the central Stuart’s Corresp^ce.
Lord W. Bentinck’s Ditto. government in relation to those obnoxious bodies. Attentive, however, to their own interests, the members of the supreme junta decreed, 1st. that their persons should be inviolable; 2d. that the president should have the title of highness, with a salary of 25,000 crowns a year; 3d. that each of the deputies, taking the title of excellency, should have a yearly salary of 5,000 crowns; and lastly, that the collective body should be addressed by the title of majesty. Thinking that they were now sufficiently confirmed in power to venture upon a public entry into Madrid, the junta made preparations to ensure a favourable reception from the populace. They resolved to declare a general amnesty, to lower the duties on tobacco, and to fling large sums among the people during the procession; but, in the midst of all this pomp and vanity, the presence of the enemy on the Lord W. Bentinck’s Corresp^ce. soil was scarcely remembered, and the details of business were totally neglected, a prominent evil that [Appendix, No. 13], section 6. extended to the lowest branches of administration. Self-interest, indeed, produced abundance of activity, but every department, almost every man, seemed struck with torpor when the public welfare was at stake; and withal, an astonishing presumption was common to the highest and the lowest.

To supply the place of a generalissimo, a council or board of general officers was projected, on whose reports the junta proposed to regulate the military operations. Castaños was destined to be president; but some difficulty arising relative to the appointment Lord W. Bentinck’s Corresp^ce. of the other members, the execution of the plan was deferred, with the characteristic remark “that when the enemy was driven across the frontier, Castaños would have leisure to take his seat.” The idea of a defeat, the possibility of failure, never entered their minds; the government evincing neither apprehension, nor activity, nor foresight, were contented if the people believed the daily falsehoods they promulgated relative to the enemy; and the people, equally presumptuous, were content to be so deceived; in fine, all the symptoms of a ruined cause were already visible to discerning eyes. The armies neglected even to nakedness, and the soldier’s constancy under privations cruelly abused; disunion, cupidity, incapacity, in the higher orders; the patriotic ardour visibly abating among the lower classes; the rulers grasping, improvident, and boasting; the enemy powerful; the people insubordinate, and the fighting men without arms or bread; as a whole, and in all its parts, the government unfitted for its task; cumbrous and ostentatious, its system, to use the comprehensive words of Mr. Stuart, “was neither calculated to inspire courage nor to increase enthusiasm.”

The truth of this picture will be recognized by men who are yet living, and whose exertions were as incessant as unavailing to remedy those evils at the time. It will be recognized by the friends of a great man, who fell a victim to the folly and base intrigues of the day; and finally, it will be recognized by that general and army, who, afterwards winning their own unaided way through Spain, found that to trust Spaniards in war was to lean against a broken reed. To others it may appear exaggerated; for without having seen it is difficult to believe the extent of a disorder that paralized the enthusiasm of a whole people.

EXTERNAL POLITICAL RELATIONS OF SPAIN.

At first these were of necessity confined to a few foreign courts; England, Sicily, and Portugal; the rest of the Old World was either subject to Buonaparte or directly under his influence; but in the New World it was different: the Brazils, after the emigration of the royal family of Braganza, became important under every point of view, and relations were established between the junta and that court, that afterwards under the cortez created considerable interest, and threatened serious embarrassments to the operations of the duke of Wellington.

The ultra-marine possessions of Spain were, of course, a matter of great anxiety to both sides; Napoleon’s activity balanced the natural preponderance of the mother country. The slowness of the local juntas, or rather their want of capacity to conduct such an affair, gave the enemy a great advantage. It Mr. Stuart’s Corresp^ce. MS.
Sir Hew Dalrymple. was only owing to the exertions of Mr. Stuart in the north, and of sir Hew Dalrymple and lord Collingwood in the south, that, after the insurrection broke out, vessels were despatched to South America to confirm the colonists in their adherence to Spain, and to arrange the mode of securing the resources of those great possessions for the parent state. The hold which Spain retained over her colonies was, however, very slight; her harsh restrictive system had long before weakened the attachment of the South Americans; the expedition of Miranda, although unsuccessful, had kindled a fire which could not be extinguished; and it was apparent to all able statesmen, that Spain must relinquish her arbitrary mode of governing, or relinquish the colonies altogether; the insurrection at home only rendered this more certain; every argument, every public manifesto put forth in Europe, to animate the Spaniards against foreign aggression, told against them in America. Yet for a time the latter transmitted the produce of the mines, and many of the natives served in the Spanish armies.

Napoleon, notwithstanding his activity, and the offers which he made of the vice-royalty of Mexico to Cuesta, Castaños, Blake, and probably to others residing in that country, failed to create a French party of any consequence. The Americans were unwilling to plunge into civil strife for a less object than their own independence: the arrogance and injustice of Old Spain, however, increased, rather than diminished, under the sway of the insurrectional government, and at last, as it is well known, a general rebellion of the South American states established the independence of the fairest portion of the globe, and proved, how little the abstract love of freedom influenced the resistance of the old country to Napoleon.

The intercourse with the English court, which had been hitherto carried on through the medium of the deputies, who first arrived in London to claim assistance, was now placed upon a regular footing. The deputies, at the desire of Mr. Canning, were recalled, and admiral Apodaca was appointed envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary at St. James’s, and Mr. John Hookham Frere was accredited, with the same diplomatic rank, near the central junta.

Mr. Stuart, whose knowledge of the state of the country, whose acquaintance with the character of the leading persons, and whose able and energetic exertions had so much contributed to the formation of a central government, was superseded by this injudicious appointment, and thus a great political machine, with every wheel in violent action, was, at the critical moment, left without any controlling power or guiding influence; for Mr. Stuart, who, on his own responsibility, had quitted Coruña, and repaired to Madrid, and had remitted the most exact and important information of what was passing, remained for three months without receiving a single line from Mr. Canning, approving or disapproving of his proceedings, or giving him instructions how to act at this important crisis: a strange remissness, indicating the bewildered state of the ministers, who slowly and with difficulty followed, when they should have been prepared to lead. Their tardy abortive measures demonstrated, how wide the space between a sophist and a statesman, and how dangerous to a nation is that public feeling which, insatiable of words, disregards the actions of men, esteeming more the interested eloquence and wit of an orator like Demades, than the simple integrity, sound judgment, and great exploits, of a general like Phocion.

Such were the preparations made by Spain in September and October, to meet the exigencies of a period replete with danger and difficulty. It would be instructive to contrast the exertions of the “enthusiastic Spaniards” during these three months of their insurrection, with the efforts of “discontented France,” in the hundred days of Napoleon’s second reign. The junta were, however, not devoid of ambition, for even before the battle of Baylen, that of Seville was occupied with a project of annexing the Algarves to Spain, and the treaty of Fontainebleau was far from being considered as a dead letter.