Such a government could not fail to have a dire influence on the interior prosperity of the country; but it is difficult to imagine the extent of the disorder into which everything had been thrown. It was necessary to resort to arbitrary taxes which caused discontent without affording much relief to the treasury and to exorbitant custom duties which completed the destruction of commerce by breaking off all relations with foreign countries. The old régime, to remain in possession of Spain, would have needed the treasures of the New World to hold the country in subjection, and to defray the expenses of an administration useless at its best. But then it would have had to get the better of the insurrections already victorious or soon to be so in Venezuela, Chile, Peru, Buenos Ayres, and Mexico, and to combat all the points of that immense continent at once. In order to quell their revolution, which was termed a revolt, an army needed first to be procured. To embark this army a fleet was necessary for the equipment of which both time and means were lacking; the government was reduced to bargaining for ships with Russia. In order to obtain immediate assistance it had to resort to a system of credit and give some assurance of a good administration together with securities for the public debt. This necessity was so pressing that in the ministerial council Don Martin Garay, surnamed the Necker of Spain, and several others of the same school were placed at the side of men like Eguia and Lozano de Torres, those defenders of ancient customs.
Garay had to promise services for which he had no resources and at the same time establish credit for an enormous public debt, the securities for which had just been taken away. Garay had counted on resources which were daily becoming more illusory through the complete cessation of commerce and the disastrous state of agriculture. Events in America demanded an expenditure of forces which Spain could not have mustered even in her palmiest days. When Garay wished to resort to more radical measures, he was sent into exile. Nothing seemed able to uplift the credit of the industrial situation of Spain, blockaded from Cadiz to Corunna by the corsairs of the insurgent colonies, compromised with the United States for Florida, and obliged to purchase the seeming neutrality of England in the struggle with the colonies.
A SERIAL REVOLUTION (1814-1822 A.D.)
[1814-1818 A.D.]
By reason of so much capricious violence the upper classes had become discontented and the people indifferent, the government was reduced to relying on armed force. But the army itself, ill equipped and ill paid, was become a hotbed of insurrection. Secret societies were organised everywhere and complaints led to plots. The well-known guerilla Mina responded by an armed revolt to a refusal to give him the title of captain-general in Navarre, but he was abandoned by his companions and escaped death only by flight to France in 1814. In 1815, General Diaz Porlier incited the garrisons of Corunna and Ferrol to revolt for a brief space, and proclaimed the constitution of Cadiz. He was also abandoned and ended his life on the gallows. Even in Madrid a conspiracy was formed headed by War Commissioner Richard, who perished on the scaffold in 1816. The next year General Lacy undertook in Catalonia what Porlier had attempted in Galicia. The plot was discovered and Lacy shot. In Valencia in 1818 also revolts took place; the captain-general Elio[127] seized the insurgent chief Vidal, who was immediately hung with twelve of his accomplices.
General Francisco Mina
So many unsuccessful attempts served only to irritate the malcontents who still hoped to find better support among their companions at arms. Such was the disposition of a number of officers at Cadiz, where an army was slowly and with difficulty being got together for a definitive expedition against the rebellious colonies, upon which all the hopes of the Spanish government were concentrated. The soldiers were frightened by tales of old mutilated warriors who had returned from Colombia. They were made to see the possibility of escaping the misfortune which awaited them without being exposed to the reproach or suspicion of a lack of courage. They were told stories of the last war, of the liberty conquered and then lost, of honour compromised.
[1818-1820 A.D.]
The conspirators had more hope of success because they had the chief of the expedition himself, O’Donnell, the count of Abisbal, on their side; but this general turned traitor, denounced the conspirators, and even arrested some of them. But he too was later suspected, and was recalled with all the signs of disgrace. Persecutions recommenced. Everything pointed to a redoubling of rigour which in turn produced a redoubling of irritation and also of hope. The conspirators again took up their plans which had been interrupted for an instant, but this time they did not look to generals for help. A less distinguished leader gave the impulse to revolt in one of the cantonments.