In the answer to this letter, the dictation, as well as the purposes of Buonaparte, is apparent. Charles began, by declaring, that Spain could be saved by the Emperor alone. Since the peace of Basle, he had seen that the essential interests of his people were inseparably connected with the preservation of a good understanding with France; and he had spared no sacrifices to preserve it. Spain had been forced by the aggression of England into the war, and having suffered more by it than any other state, the consequent calamities had been unjustly attributed to his ministers; nevertheless he had the happiness of seeing the kingdom tranquil within, and was the only one among the Kings of Europe, who sustained himself amid the storms of these latter times. That tranquillity Ferdinand had disturbed: misled by the aversion of his first wife towards France, he thoughtlessly participated in the prejudices which prevailed against the minister and his parents. “It became necessary for me,” said Charles, “to recollect my own rights, as a father and a King. I caused you to be arrested; ... I found among your papers the proof of your crime. But I melted at seeing my son on the scaffold of destruction. I forgave you; and, from that moment, was compelled to add to the distresses which I felt for the calamities of my subjects, the afflictions occasioned by dissensions in my own family.”
The part which followed must have been designed by Buonaparte to conceal the manifest proofs of his own hand, which appear in the rest of the letter. The Emperor of France, it was here said, believing that the Spaniards were disposed to renounce his alliance, and seeing the discord that prevailed in the royal family, inundated the Spanish provinces with his troops, under various pretences. While they occupied the right bank of the Ebro, and appeared to aim only at maintaining the communication with Portugal, the King was not alarmed; but when they advanced towards the capital, then he felt it necessary to collect his army round his person, that he might present himself, in a manner becoming his rank, before his august ally ... all whose doubts he should have removed. For this purpose, his troops were ordered to leave Portugal and Madrid, not that he might abandon his subjects, but that he might support with honour the glory of the throne. Sufficient experience had also convinced him, that the Emperor of the French might entertain wishes comformable to his particular interest, and to the policy of the vast system of the continent, which might be inconsistent with the interests of the Spanish Bourbons. Ferdinand availed himself of these circumstances, to accomplish the conspiracy of the Escurial. Old, and oppressed by infirmity, his father was not able to withstand this new calamity; ... he repaired, therefore, to Buonaparte, not as a King, not at the head of his troops, not with the pomp of royalty, but as an unhappy and abandoned prince, who sought refuge and protection in his camp. To that Emperor he was indebted for his own life, and for the lives of the Queen, and of the minister whom he had appointed and adopted into his family. Every thing now depended upon that great monarch. “My heart,” said Charles, “has been fully unfolded to him. He knows the injuries I have received, and the violence which has been done me; ... he has declared that you shall never be acknowledged as King; and that the enemy of his father can never acquire the confidence of foreign states. He has, in addition to this, shown me letters written with your own hand, which clearly prove your hatred of France.
“Things being thus situated,” he continued, “my rights are clear, and my duties are much more so. It is incumbent upon me to prevent the shedding the blood of my subjects; to do nothing at the conclusion of my career, which should carry fire and sword into every part of Spain, and reduce it to the most horrible misery. If, faithful to your primary obligations, and to the feelings of nature, you had rejected perfidious counsels, and placed yourself constantly at my side, for the defence of your father; if you had waited the regular course of nature, which would have elevated you in a few years to the rank of royalty, I should have been able to conciliate the policy and interests of Spain, with those of all. For six months, no doubt, matters have been in a critical situation; but notwithstanding such difficulties, I should have obtained the support of my subjects. I should have availed myself of the weak means which yet remained to me, of the moral aid which I should have acquired, meeting always my ally with suitable dignity, to whom I never gave cause of complaint; and an arrangement would have been made which would have accommodated the interests of my subjects with those of my family. But in tearing from my head the crown, you have not preserved it for yourself; you have taken from it all that is august and sacred in the eyes of mankind. Your behaviour with respect to me ... your intercepted letters, have put a brazen barrier between yourself and the throne of Spain; and it is neither your own interest, nor that of the country, that you should reign in it. Take heed how you kindle a fire which will unavoidably cause your complete ruin, and the degradation of Spain! I am King by the right derived from my forefathers; my abdication was the result of force; I have nothing to receive from you; nor can I consent to the convocation of the Cortes ... an additional absurdity, suggested by the inexperienced persons who attend you. I have reigned for the happiness of my subjects, and I do not wish to bequeath them civil war, mutiny, popular Juntas, and revolution. Every thing ought to be done for the people, and nothing by the people: to forget this maxim, were to become an accomplice in all the crimes that must follow its neglect. I have sacrificed the whole of my life to my people; and in the advanced age to which I have arrived, I shall do nothing in opposition to their religion, their tranquillity, and their happiness. I have reigned for them; I will constantly occupy myself for their sakes; I will forget all my sacrifices; and when at last I shall be convinced that the religion of Spain, the integrity of her provinces, her independence, and her privileges are preserved, I shall descend to the tomb, forgiving those who have embittered the last years of my life.”
However suspicious were the circumstances under which the decree of abdication appeared, the probabilities that that decree was obtained by compulsion were not in the slightest degree strengthened by the testimony of Charles at Bayonne, where he was in far stricter duresse, and far greater danger, than at Aranjuez. But, in every line of this letter, the language of Buonaparte may be recognized: his dread and hatred of popular assemblies ... the tone and manner of his philosophy ... his perpetual reference to force, as that to which all things must bow; and there is one of those direct, plain, palpable, demonstrable falsehoods, of which no other man, who ever affected greatness, so often and so impudently availed himself. If Ferdinand originally intended to supplant his father, it was by the help of France that he hoped to effect it. The only act of conspiracy proved against him and his party was, that they had attempted to form such an alliance. For this very act, Buonaparte, in his letter to Vittoria, had censured him; and yet, one reason here assigned for depriving him of the crown, is his hatred of France.
♦May 4. Ferdinand’s reply.♦
Ferdinand’s answer to this extraordinary paper was, like his former letter, honourable to himself and his advisers. He calmly reminded his father of the inconsistencies in the charges thus adduced against him. Concerning the affair of the Escurial, he said, eleven counsellors, chosen by the King himself, had unanimously declared their opinion, that there was no ground for the accusation; nor could such an opinion have been obtained by undue means, wholly without influence as he was at that time, and virtually a prisoner. The King spoke of the distrust occasioned by the entrance of so great a foreign force into Spain: ... might he be told, that no alarm need have been given by troops entering as friends and allies? He said, that his own troops were collected at Aranjuez to support the glory of the throne: ... might he be reminded, that he had given orders for a journey to Seville, and the troops were intended to keep open that road? Every person believed there was an intention of emigrating to America, manifest as it was that the royal family were going to the coast of Andalusia; and it was this universal belief which occasioned the tumults at Aranjuez. In those tumults, the King knew that his son had taken no other part than by his own command, to protect from the people the object of their hatred, who was believed to be the proposer of the journey. The Emperor, in a letter to Ferdinand, had said, his motive was to induce the King to make certain reforms, and separate from his person the Prince of the Peace, whose influence was the cause of every calamity. The universal joy which his arrest produced throughout the whole nation, evidently proved that this was indeed the case. As to the rest, Charles himself was the best witness that, in the tumults at Aranjuez, not a word was whispered against him, nor against any one of the royal family: ... on the contrary, he was applauded with the greatest demonstrations of joy, and heard the loudest professions of fidelity to his august person. On this account, the abdication surprised every one, and no person more than Ferdinand himself. No one expected, or would have solicited it.... “Your Majesty,” said Ferdinand, “yourself communicated your abdication to your ministers, enjoining them to acknowledge me as their natural lord and sovereign. You communicated it verbally to the diplomatic body, professing that your determination proceeded from your own will, and that you had before determined upon it. You yourself told it to your beloved brother, adding, at the same time, that the signature which your Majesty had put to the act of abdication was the happiest transaction of your life; and, finally, your Majesty told me personally, three days afterwards, I should pay no attention to any assertion that the abdication had not been voluntary, inasmuch as it was in every respect free and self-originating.”
He proceeded to comment upon the charge of his hatred towards France. Wherein had it appeared? Were not the various letters which, immediately after the abdication, he addressed to the Emperor, so many proofs that his principles, with respect to the relations of friendship and strict alliance happily subsisting between the two countries, were those that the King had impressed upon him? Had he not shown his unbounded confidence in the Emperor, by going to Madrid the day after the Grand Duke of Berg had entered that city with a great part of his army, and garrisoned it; so that, in fact, to go there, was to deliver himself into his hands? Had he not, in conformity to the principles of alliance, and to his father’s wish, written to request a princess of the house of Buonaparte in marriage? Had he not sent a deputation to Bayonne to compliment the Emperor in his name? then persuaded his brother the Infante Don Carlos to set off, that he might pay his respects to him on the frontier? lastly, had he not left Madrid for the same purpose himself, on the faith of the assurances given him by the French ambassador, by the Grand Duke, and by General Savary, who had just arrived from France, and who solicited an audience, to tell him that the Emperor only expected he should follow the same system towards France which his father had adopted, in which case he was to be acknowledged as King of Spain, and all the rest would be forgotten? How any of his letters, proving an enmity towards France, should have come into the Emperor’s hands, he could not comprehend, knowing, as he did, that he had never written any.
♦Terms upon which he offers to restore the crown.♦
Ferdinand then referred to his former proposals. “I signified,” said he “my willingness to renounce the crown in your favour, when the Cortes should be convened; and if not convened, when the council and deputies of the kingdom should be assembled; not because I thought this was necessary to give effect to the renunciation, but because I judged it convenient to avoid injurious novelties, which frequently occasion divisions and contentions, and wished every thing might be attended to which concerned your dignity, my own honour, and the tranquillity of the realm. If your Majesty should not choose to reign in person, I will govern in your royal name, or in my own; for no one but myself can represent your person, possessing, as I do, in my favour, the decision of the laws, and the will of the people; nor can any other person have so much interest in their prosperity. I repeat again, that, in such circumstances, and under such conditions, I am ready to accompany your Majesty to Spain, there to make my abdication in the form expressed. But in respect to what you have said of not wishing to return to Spain, with tears in my eyes, I implore you, by all that is most sacred in heaven and earth, that in case you do not choose to re-ascend the throne, you will not leave a country so long known to you, in which you may choose a situation best suited to your injured health, and where you may enjoy greater comforts and tranquillity of mind than in any other.