speech from the king, and proceeded immediately to deliberate and determine on almost every point counected with the internal economy of a great kingdom. New commercial regulations were adopted, not more remarkable for wisdom than the old; the press was declared free; entails were abolished; and all the convents and monasteries, except eight, were dissolved, and their revenues ordered to be applied to the payment of the national debt. That debt amounted to about a hundred and sixty millions sterling. Great endeavours were made to reduce every branch of the expenditure; and, in some branches of the public service, it was reduced to a third, in others, to a half of its former amount : yet, after every saving, the revenue fell short of the charge for the outgoings of the year, by nearly two millions sterling. This deficiency was provided for by lean.

The Cortes did not, in their attention to the public interest, forget the stability of their own system. To plot against the constitution was made a capital crime: to dissuade the people by words or writing from the observance of it, was punished with banishment for eight years. The deputies, who had joined with the king in 1814, in overthrowing the constitution, were incapacitated to hold any office; those who had been banished for their adherence to the French during the usurpation, were restored to all their rights, and perpetual annuities were granted to the military chiefs, who had been most active in effecting the revolution.

During the sitting of the Cortes, disturbances took place in Anda

lusia, Valencia, Catalonia, Gallicia, and Estremadura. In the latter, the movement was excited by a person of the name of Morales, who prevailed on some of the Bourbon cavalry to join him, and, by spreading reports of the great accession of strength which he was soon to receive, acquired more importance than he deserved. These events gave rise to some keen debates in the Cortes, where the ardent revolutionists urged ministers to adopt a more decided system.

The ambition of some of their own partisans was another source of embarrassment to the constitutionalists. It had been resolved advisable to disband the army of the Isle of Leon ; and Riego had, as a compensation for the loss of his military command, been appointed captain-general of Gallicia. Little disposed to acquiesce in a change which annihilated his power, he came to Madrid to resist the measure; and finding that he could not succeed with the ministers, he endeavoured, by means of his popularity with the mob, and his influence in the political clubs of Madrid, to overawe the Cortes. The government, however, acted with firmness. Laws were passed to prevent the abuses of factious clubs; several of those who had been active in promoting disturbances in the capital, were punished; Riego himself was deprived of his office of captaingeneral, and exiled to his native town of Oviedo.

On the 9th of November the session of the Cortes was closed. The king remained at the Escurial, pretending that he was prevented by sickness from being present at the termination of their labours; but a speech (which, as well as

that addressed to the Cortes on its assembling, will be found in the Appendix to the Chronicle, page 795) was read to them in his name. The Cortes, before they separated, resolved, that threefourths of their number should always remain at their posts. The garrison of Madrid, at the same time, renewed its oath of fidelity. Such measures prove, that the constitutionalists did not think their authority firmly established. They believed, that the king, while he acquiesced in every thing that was demanded of him, was watching for an opportunity of subverting all that they had laboured to effect.

The absence of the king from Madrid had given umbrage to the populace and the revolutionists, because his motions could be less easily watched at the Escurial than in the capital. While still at the Escurial, he, on the 16th of November, nominated general Carvajal to the government of New Castile, without causing the appointment to be duly countersigned by the ministers. The permanent deputation of the Cortes, and the municipal body of the capital, immediately met, and, while the city was in a state of the greatest fermentation, drew up and presented the following extraordinary remonstrance to the king:

"Sire,-The provisional deputation, and the municipal body of Madrid, united in the council chamber, in extraordinary permanent sitting, inform your majesty, with all the respect due to you, that notwithstanding the continual effort for the preservation of public tranquillity, the mind of our noble inhabitants is extremely agitated, and in such a

state of effervescence, that without some prompt and energetic remedy, it may produce the most dreadful consequences. Their desires, and the manner of expressing them, are conformable to the wisdom, prudence, and moderation of a great people. At this moment, five o'clock in the evening, a considerable number are united in the great square; and in abstaining from all violence, and even from guilty insubordination, have manifested, with the firmness and energy worthy of freemen, the certain, and perhaps the only, means of saving the state from the crisis into which it has fallen, namely, the extraor◄ dinary convocation of the Cortes.

"The deputation and the mu nicipality would be wanting in their duty, and would ill deserve the confidence reposed in them by this numerous population and the whole province, if they were not to assure your majesty that this demand of the people of Madrid is as wise as it is just; and that in refusing to follow it, they could not be answerable for the sad consequences which should result from their refusal,

"Your majesty's absence has occasioned apprehensions that are aggravated by nominations to important employments of persons notoriously opposed to the constitutional system, which your majesty has sworn to preserve, and which we are all ready to defend to the last drop of our blood. We are compelled, sire, to say, that without some public manifestation to the new institutions, of a nature to destroy every hope in their most determined enemies, confidence cannot be re-established. Every other measure would be illusory, and the vessel

of the state would threaten shipwreck.

"This manifestation, in our opinion, can be none other than your majesty's return to the midst of your children, and the immediate extraordinary convocation of the Cortes. This is what the people demand, and what in such circumstances they ought to demand, as the only means of saving us from the imminent dangers that surround us. The deputation and the municipality consequently hope and pray that your majesty will accede to their just desires, showing yourself, as hitherto, the worthy father of your people, and causing, by this wise and provident measure, all our present anxiety to cease.

"Nov. 17, 1820."

On the same evening an answer was received from the king, in which he stated, that, in appointing Don Jose Maria Carvajal to be captain-general of Madrid, his majesty never imagined that this nomination would give rise to the events that have taken place in the capital; and that, having entire confidence in his ministers, he charged them to propose persons who might fill, to the satisfaction of his people, the vacant posts of captain-general and political chief of Madrid, and of inspector-general of militia. He added, that he would have flown to his children in the capital, if the state of his health had permitted him; that he would do so, as soon as the permanent deputation of the Cortes assured him that the uneasiness and effervescence had subsided, since the acclamations of joy, which his return to the capital would occasion might perhaps be confounded with the cries of sedition; that

he did not resolve, without grief, to remove from him his confessor and chief major-domo, the latter of whom had never interfered in political affairs, and the other had never given him any counsels not conformable to the principles of piety and virtue, on which the felicity of states depends; but that, if the removal of those two individuals was thought necessary to ensure the tranquillity of his people, his majesty consented to this sacrifice, to which the two persons interested would readily submit. As for the extraordinary convocation of the Cortes, the king stated, that the permanent deputation might point out to him the object for which their convocation was necessary, and that doing it in this manner, conformably to the provisions of the constitutional law, his majesty would take it into consideration, his sole desire being, the prosperity and the tranquillity of his people.

On the 21st his majesty returned to the capital, and, shortly afterwards, the commands in the different provinces were entrusted to the most violent partisans of the new order of things. Riego was appointed captain-general of Arragou. The archbishop of Valencia, who had opposed himself openly to the confiscation of ecclesiastical property, was banished from the kingdom. Morales, the leader of the disturbauces in Estremadura, was forced to fly into Portugal, followed by twelve or fourteen adherents; and, being taken by the Portuguese, was delivered over to the Spanish authorities.

Immediately before the return of the king from the Escurial, the organization of the army was definitively settled by receiving the