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CHAP. kingdom, was to restore everything to the condition in which it was before the Revolution. He was not slow

VII.

1814.

July 21.

Aug. 3.

1 Ann. Reg.

1814, 71,

73; Moni

teur, Aug.

1 and 15, 1814.

35.

in various

in following their advice. Disregarding a patriotic and moderate address from the University of Salamanca, in which he was prayed to follow up the gracious intentions professed in the declaration from Valencia, of convoking a Cortes, and establishing with their concurrence the laws which were to govern the kingdom, he re-established by a decree from Madrid the Inquisition, and as a natural consequence recalled the Pope's nuncio, who had left the country on its abolition by the Cortes. The use of torture, however, in all the civil tribunals, was prohibited by a decree soon after; and in a memorial to the Pope by the Spanish government it was proposed to abolish it also in the dungeons of the Inquisition, and various regulations were submitted for mitigating the severity of that terrible tribunal. These proposals were carried into effect; and thereafter its proceedings were confined to a species of police surveillance over opinions, to check the progress of heresy, but without the frightful tortures which had characterised its secret, or the Autosda-fé which had for ever disgraced its public proceedings.1

The open assumption of absolute power by the GovernDiscontent ment, the delay in convoking the Cortes, and, above all, quarters. the re-establishment of the Inquisition, excited the utmost alarm in the liberal party throughout Spain, and spread great dissatisfaction even among the officers of the army, by whose support alone they could be carried into effect. Symptoms of disturbance soon appeared in various quarters; for in Spain the habits of the people are so independent, and danger or life are so little regarded, that from dissatisfaction to hostility, as with the Bedouins, is but a step. The roads in the whole of Estremadura, the Castiles, Andalusia, Aragon, and Catalonia, were so infested by bands of guerillas, who, long inured to violence and rapine, had now become mere robbers and bandits, that

VII.

1814.

the captains-general of those provinces were enjoined to CHAP. take the most effectual measures for their suppression ; but they had no adequate armed force at their disposal to effect that object. A proclamation by the governor of Aug. 7. Andalusia revealed the existence of more serious disturbances, having a decided political tendency, and threatened every person who should be found either speaking or acting against Ferdinand VII. with death, within three days, by the sentence of a court-martial. A great number of arrests took place soon after in Madrid-ninety persons were apprehended in a single night; and so numerous did the prisoners soon become that the ordinary places of finement would not contain them, and the spacious con- Espoz y vent of San Francisco was converted into a vast state 166, 169. prison, to embrace the increasing multitude.1

1

1814, 74,

Ann. Reg. con- 75; Memo

rias del

Mina, ii.

Mina in

These proceedings excited the greatest consterna- 36. tion among the liberals, and great numbers of persons Revolt of who deemed themselves compromised fled across the Navarre. Pyrenees into France. Among the rest, the famous Sept 26. ESPOZ Y MINA, who had gained such great celebrity as a partisan chief in Navarre in the war with Napoleon, fell under the suspicion of the Government, who sent him an order, on 16th September, to fix his residence at Pampeluna, and place the troops he had formerly commanded under the orders of the Captain-general of Aragon. Regarding this injunction, as it certainly was, as a decided measure of hostility, this daring chief, at the head of the 1st Regiment of Volunteers, approached that fortress in the night of the 26th. They were provided with scalingladders, and acted in concert with the 4th Regiment, then in garrison in the city, by whom Mina was admitted into the fortress, and with the officers of which he spent a part of the night on the ramparts, expecting a movement in his favour. Although the greater part of the officers, however, had been engaged in the conspiracy, the private soldiers nearly all remained faithful; and in Mina's own regiment of volunteers they sent information to the gover

1814.

1 Memorias

CHAP. nor of Aragon of what was in agitation, and warned him VII. to be on his guard. The consequence was, that the attempt proved abortive; Mina himself with difficulty del Espoz made his escape, his troops nearly all deserted him, and Mina, ii. he deemed himself fortunate in being able to retire to Moniteur, France by Puente la Reyna-thus seeking refuge among 1814; Ann. the enemies whom he had so strenuously combated, from the king he had so powerfully aided in putting on the throne.1

168, 169;

Oct. 9,

Reg. 1814,

75,77.

37.

bitrary de

cree of

Sept. 15.

This abortive insurrection, as is ever the case in such Fresh ar circumstances, strengthened the hands and increased the rigour of the monarch. It soon appeared that the restoFerdinand. ration of the absolute government, and the chief privileges of the nobles, had been resolved on by the camarilla which ruled the State. Already, on 15th September, a decree had been issued restoring the feudal and seignorial privileges of the nobles, which had been abolished by a decree of the Cortes on 6th August 1811; and this was soon followed up by the still more decisive step of reinvesting the council of the Mesta with its old and ruinous right of permitting its flocks to pasture at will over the downs in Leon, Estremadura, and the two Castiles, thus rendering the enclosure of the land or the improvement of the soil impracticable. On 14th October, on occasion of the king's going to the theatre of Madrid, an amnesty for State offenders was published, which professed to be general, but contained so many exceptions that it in reality was little more than nominal; and the resolution of the Government to extinguish anything like free discussion in the kingdom was evinced by the king in person arresting and committing to prison M. de Macanay, the MinisDec. 17. ter of Justice and of the Interior. Soon after, the state

Nov. 7.

2

Nov. 14

and Dec.

25, 1814;

3 Moniteur, prisoners at Madrid were sentenced, some to ten, some to six, and some to two years of the galleys, or of imprisonment in strong castles; and they included the editors of, or contributors to, the Redacta General, and principal liberal journals published at Madrid.2

Ann. Reg.

1814, 77,

79.

VII.

1814.

38.

violent pro

the king,

lier's revolt.

Open war was now proclaimed by the Spanish Govern- CHAP. ment against the liberals of all grades, and, unhappily, the violence of the Government kept pace with the increasing desire of the inhabitants of the great towns for Farther constitutional privileges. As it had now become a mat- ceedings of ter of imminent danger to hazard such opinions in public, and Po the liberal leaders had recourse to the usual resource of a zealous and determined party under such circumstances. Secret societies were formed under the direction of the chiefs of their party, and the ancient and venerable order of free-masons was laid hold of as a cover for designs against the Government. The Inquisition, in consequence, issued a proclamation denouncing these societies; and March 5. ere long it appeared that there was too much foundation for their apprehensions. On 18th September, General Porlier, who had greatly signalised himself in the Peninsula, assembled the troops stationed at St Lucia without the gates of Corunna at night, and suddenly entering the city, the sentinels of which had been gained, put the Captain-general of Galicia, the governor of the town, and a few other persons, under arrest. No sooner was this done than he issued a proclamation, in which he proposed the reassembling of the Cortes, and dismissal of the Ministers; and another, purporting to be from the Moniteur, Provincial Junta of Galicia, under the "presidency of 1815; Ann. General Porlier, General-commandant of the Interior of 117. the Kingdom." 1

Sept. 29,

Reg. 1815,

and his

In taking these bold steps, which at once committed 39. him with the Government, the principal reliance of Porlier Its failure, was on a body of grenadiers and light infantry stationed death. at St Iago, which he had reason to believe would join him. Being informed, however, that they hesitated, and that his presence might probably determine them, he set out in haste from Corunna at the head of eight hundred men and four guns, and arrived at a village within four leagues of St Iago, where he halted to rest his men, who were much fatigued by their march. While there, some

VII.

1815.

Oct. 3.

CHAP. emissaries from the convent of St Iago introduced themselves in disguise among his men, and urged them to arrest their general by the promises of ample rewards in case of success. These promises proved successful: Porlier and his officers were suddenly surrounded and seized by their own men, while reposing in a cabaret in the heat of the day after their march; and the general, being taken back to Corunna, was condemned by a court-martial to be hanged, which sentence was immediately carried into execution. He wrote, on the eve of his death, a pathetic letter to his wife, with a handkerchief steeped in his tears, in which he exhorted her not to afflict herself on account of the species of death to which he was sentenced, since it was dishonourable only to the wicked, but glorious to the virtuous. He met his fate with dignity and resolution. Then began the days of tragedy in Spain, which ere long led to such frightful reprisals on both sides, and for many long years deluged the Peninsula with blood: 1 Moniteur, the unhappy bequest of the insane liberals, who estab1815; Ann. lished a constitution utterly repugnant to the vast majo117. rity of the people, but eminently attractive to the ardent and generous among the educated classes.1

Oct. 10,

Reg. 1815,

40.

In the end of August, one Spanish army, under CasInvasion of taños, crossed the frontier near Perpignan; and another, France, and under the Conde d'Abisbal, the Bidassoa, with the prothe Fresh fessed design of aiding Louis XVIII. in his contest with tyrannical the partisans of Napoleon. As that contest had been

retreat of

iards.

acts of the

king.

Sept. 4.

2 Ante, c. iii. § 29.

already decided by the battle of Waterloo and the presence of a million of the allied troops in France, it may readily be imagined that the presence of the Spanish auxiliaries was anything but desirable, and accordingly the Duke d'Angoulême, as already mentioned, hastened to the Spanish headquarters, where he had an interview with Castaños, whom he prevailed on to retire; and his retreat on the eastern was soon after followed by that of the Conde d'Abisbal on the western frontier.2 The people both in Pampeluna and Corunna had taken no part in

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