If Ferdinand had now performed the promises which were distinctly made in his declaration, he might have averted much, if not all, of the subsequent danger which he incurred, and the just reproaches which will be attached to his name in history. It ought not to be said that in making those promises he had no intention of fulfilling them; for though he scrupled at no dissimulation when under duresse, they were voluntary in this case, and the temper of the nation, then unequivocally declared, was such, that no purpose was to be gained by it. Ferdinand was a person of narrow mind, and his heart seems to have been incapable of generous feeling; but he was not a wicked man, nor would he have been a bad King if he had met with wise ministers, and had ruled over an enlightened people. On the two important subjects of civil and religious freedom he and the great body of the nation were in perfect sympathy, ... both, upon both subjects, imbued with error to the core; and the popular feeling in both cases outran his. The word Liberty (Libertad) appeared in large bronze letters over the entrance of the Hall of the Cortes in Madrid. The people of their own impulse hurried thither to remove it; they set up ladders, forced out letter by letter from the stone, and as each was thrown into the street the spectators renewed their shouts of exultation. They collected as many of the journals of the Cortes, and of the papers and pamphlets of the Liberales, as could be got together; formed a procession in which the religious fraternities, and the clergy regular and secular, took the lead; piled up these papers in one of the public squares, and sacrificed them there as a political auto-da-fé, after which high mass was performed and Te Deum sung, as a thanksgiving for their triumph. The Stone of the Constitution, as it was called, was everywhere removed, and replaced as it had been at Valencia. The people at Seville deposed all the existing authorities, elected others in their stead to all the offices which had existed under the old system, and then required those authorities to re-establish the Inquisition. In re-establishing that accursed tribunal by a formal act of government, in suppressing the freedom of the press, which had been abused to its own destruction, and in continuing to govern not merely as an absolute monarch, but as a despotic one, Ferdinand undoubtedly complied with the wishes of the Spanish nation. He did these things conformably to his own misguided conscience and weak judgment, as well as to his inclinations; and for so doing he was, by the voice of the people, a patriotic and popular King. In all this he cannot justly be charged with anything worse than error of judgment; fearfully injurious indeed in its consequences, but in the individual to be pitied as well as pardoned. But, in his treatment of the more conspicuous persons among the Liberales, whom he condemned to strict and long imprisonment, many of them for life, he brought upon himself an indelible reproach, and incurred the guilt of individual sin. Quintana, who, more than any other person, contributed by his eloquent writings to excite and sustain the national spirit, and awaken the sympathy of other nations, was one of the victims thus sentenced, and his life is said to have been not the only one which was shortened by severe confinement.
♦Lord Wellington returns to England.♦
But the peninsular war concludes with the return of Ferdinand to Madrid; and its history may best be concluded with the return to his own country of the General by whom it was brought to this triumphant termination. A dukedom was conferred upon Lord Wellington, £300,000 were voted by Parliament for the purchase of an estate suitable to the dignity, and such an additional grant of income as made up the annual amount of his parliamentary allowances to £17,000. ♦He takes his seat in the House of Lords. June 28.♦ He had not been in England since he was raised to the peerage; and thus it happened, that when he was introduced into the House of Lords to take his seat, his patents of creation as Baron, Earl, Marquis, and Duke were all to be read on the same day. No ceremony of honour was omitted on this occasion: the Duchess his wife, and his mother, the Countess of Mornington, were present to behold it, being seated below the throne. After the oaths had been administered, and he had taken his seat, the Lord Chancellor ♦The Lord Chancellor’s speech.♦ Eldon addressed him for the purpose of conveying the thanks of the House, which had been voted to him on the preceding evening, for the twelfth time. In performing this duty, Lord Eldon said, he could not refrain from calling the attention of his Grace, and of the noble Lords present, to a circumstance singular in the history of that House, ... that upon his introduction he had gone through every dignity of the peerage in this country which it was in the power of the crown to bestow. These dignities had been conferred upon him for eminent and distinguished services; and he would not have the presumption to attempt to state the nature of those services, nor to recapitulate those brilliant acts which had given immortality to the name of Wellington, and placed this empire on a height of military renown of which there was no example in its history. He could not better discharge the duty which had devolved upon him than by recurring to the terms in which that House had so often expressed their sense of the energy, the unremitting exertions, the ardour, and the ability with which the noble Duke had conducted the arduous campaigns of the Peninsula, ... exertions and ability which finally enabled him to place the allied armies in the heart of France, fighting their way there through the blaze of victory. The glorious result of his victories had been to achieve the peace and security of his country; while, by his example, he had animated the rest of Europe, and enabled her governments to restore their ancient order. The Lord Chancellor then expressed his own satisfaction in being the instrument of informing the Duke that the House unanimously voted their thanks for his eminent and unremitted services, and their congratulations upon his return to his country.
♦The House of Commons congratulate him on his return.♦
The House of Commons in voting their thanks had voted also that a committee of the House should wait upon his Grace to communicate the same, and to offer him their congratulations on his return. The Duke in reply signified that he was desirous of expressing to the House his answer in person. He was admitted in consequence the following day; a chair was set for him toward the middle of the House: he came in making his obeisances, ♦July 1.He returns thanks to the House.♦ the whole House rising upon his entrance. The Speaker having informed him that there was a chair in which he might repose himself, the Duke sat down, covered for some time, the serjeant standing on his right hand with the mace grounded, and the House resumed their seats. The Duke then rose and uncovered, and addressed the Speaker thus: “I was anxious to be permitted to attend this House in order to return my thanks in person for the honour they have done me in deputing a committee of members to congratulate me on my return to this country; and this after the House had animated my exertions by their applause upon every occasion which appeared to merit their approbation; and after they had filled up the measure of their favours by conferring upon me, at the recommendation of the Prince Regent, the noblest gift that any subject had ever received.
“I hope it will not be deemed presumptuous in me to take this opportunity of expressing my admiration of the great efforts made by this House and by the country, at a moment of unexampled pressure and difficulty, in order to support the great scale of operation by which the contest was brought to so fortunate a termination.
“By the wise policy of Parliament the government was enabled to give the necessary support to the operations which were carried on under my direction; and I was encouraged by the confidence reposed in me by his Majesty’s ministers and by the Commander-in-chief, by the gracious favour of his Royal Highness the Prince Regent, and by the reliance which I had on the support of my gallant friends the general officers of the army, and on the bravery of the officers and troops, to carry on the operations in such a manner as to acquire for me those marks of the approbation of this House, for which I have now the honour to make my humble acknowledgments. Sir, it is impossible for me to express the gratitude which I feel; I can only assure the House that I shall always be ready to serve his Majesty in any capacity in which my services can be deemed useful, with the same zeal for my country which has already acquired for me the approbation of this House.”
♦The Speaker’s speech.♦
Mr. Abbot, the Speaker, who had sat covered during this speech, then stood up uncovered, and replied to his Grace in these words: “My Lord, since last I had the honour of addressing you from this place, a series of eventful years has elapsed, but none without some mark and note of your rising glory.
“The military triumphs which your valour has achieved upon the banks of the Douro and the Tagus, of the Ebro and the Garonne, have called forth the spontaneous shouts of admiring nations. Those triumphs it is needless at this day to recount. Their names have been written by your conquering sword in the annals of Europe, and we shall hand them down with exultation to our children’s children.