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VII.

1814.

26

CHAP. had been opened, came to the hall of the Cortes, in the Isle of Leon, with feelings wound up to the highest pitch, from the wrongs they had so long endured from the selfish and monopolising policy of the mother country, and the free and independent spirit which the breaking out of the revolution in the Caraccas and elsewhere had excited in her transmarine possessions. They found themselves in a highly democratic and vehemently excited assembly, in which the noble name of liberty was continually heard, in which the sovereignty of the people was openly announced, the whole fabric of the new constitution was made to rest on that foundation, and in which the most enthusiastic predictions were constantly uttered as to the future regeneration and happiness of mankind from the influence of these principles. They returned to South America, under the restriction which had been adopted of each Cortes to two years' sitting, before these flattering predictions had been brought to the test of experience, or anything had occurred to reveal their fallacious character. They instantly spread among their constituents encroachments, injustice, and violence to which it is at all times liable, particularly in the progress of revolutions. Such a guard can only be afforded by the establishment of an assembly of the great landed proprietors-like our House of Lords, having concurrent power with the Cortes; and you may depend upon it there is no man in Spain, be his property ever so small, wh is not interested in the establishment of such an assembly. Unhappily, legislative assemblies, the most tyrannical and unjust measures are the m popular. I tremble for a country such as Spain, in which there is no ba for the preservation of private property, excepting the justice of a legis assembly possessing supreme power. It is impossible to calculate up plans of such an assembly: they have no check whatever, and t governed by the most ignorant and licentious of all licentious presses Cadiz. I believe they mean to attack the royal and feudal tenths, of the Church, under pretence of encouraging agriculture; and f supplies from these sources not so extensive as they expected, the the estates of the grandees. Our character is involved in a gr than we are aware of in the democratical transactions of the opinion of all moderate, well-thinking Spaniards, and, I am af rest of Europe. It is quite impossible such a system can last is, that I am the person who maintains it. If the king shoul overturn the whole fabric, if he has any spirit; but the gent are so completely masters, that I fear there must be anoth WELLINGTON to DON DIEGO DE LA VEGA, Jan. 29, 1813; G 247; xi. 91.

[graphic]

VII.

1814.

the flattering doctrines and hopes with which the halls of CHAP. the Cortes had resounded in Europe. Incalculable was the influence of this circumstance upon the future destinies of South America, and, through it, of the whole civilised world. To this, in a great degree, is to be ascribed the wide-spread and desperate resolution of the 1 Comte de vast majority of the inhabitants in the revolutionary con- Tequil test in those magnificent settlements; their frightful deso- l'Anglelation by the horrors of a war worse than civil; and their Lord Palfinal severance, by the insidious aid of Great Britain, from ii. 265. the Spanish crown.1

mont, de

terre et

merston,

25.

Portugal:

removal of

In all the particulars which have been mentioned, PORTUGAL was in the same situation as Spain; but in Situation of two respects the situation of that country was more effect of the favourable for innovation, and her people were more the seat of ripe for revolt than in the Spanish provinces. The royal government family having, during the first alarm of the French inva- neiro. sion, migrated to Brazil, and dread of the terrors of a sea voyage having prevented the aged monarch from returning, he had come to fix his permanent residence on the beautiful shores of Rio Janeiro. A separation of the two countries had thus taken place; and the government at Lisbon, during the whole war, had been conducted by means of a council of regency, the members of which were by no means men either of vigour or capacity, and which was far from commanding the respect, or having acquired the affections, of the country. While the weight and influence of Government had been thus sensibly weakened, the political circumstances of Portugal, and the events of the war, had in an extraordinary manner diffused liberal ideas and the spirit of independence through a considerable part of the people.

Closely united, both by political treaties and commer- 26. cial intercourse, with Great Britain, for above a century Its general Portugal had become, in its maritime districts at least, adoption of English almost an English colony. English influence was pre- habits and dominant at Lisbon: English commerce had enriched

VII.

1814.

CHAP. Oporto the English market for port had covered the slopes of Tras-os-Montes with smiling vineyards. In addition to this, the events of the late war had spread, in an extraordinary degree, both admiration of the English institutions, and confidence in the English character, through the entire population. Thirty thousand Portuguese troops had been taken into British pay: they had felt the integrity of British administration: they had been led to victory by British officers. Unlike the native nobles who had held the same situations, they had seen them ever the first in the enemy's fire- the last in acts of domestic corruption. Immense had been the influence of this juxtaposition. Standing side by side with him in battle, they had learned to respect the English soldier in war, to admire the institutions which had trained him in peace. Even the hatred in which they had been bred of the heretic, yielded to the evidence of their senses, which had taught them his virtues. In daily intercourse with the British soldiers, they had learned to appreciate the liberty which had nurtured them; they had come to envy their independence of thought, and imitate their freedom of language. The mercantile classes in Lisbon and Oporto, almost entirely supported by British capital, and fed by British commerce, were still more strongly impressed with the merits of the political institutions, from intercourse with a nation governed by which they had derived such signal benefits. Thus a free spirit, and the thirst for liberal institutions, was both stronger and more wide-spread in Portugal than in the adjoining provinces of Spain; and it was easy to foresee that, if any circumstances impelled the latter country into the career of revolution, the former would be the first to follow the example.

27.

FERDINAND VII., whom the battle of Leipsic and Character of conquest of France had restored to the throne of his VII. ancestors, was not by nature a bad, or by disposition a cruel man; and yet he did many wicked and unpardon

Ferdinand

VII.

1814.

able deeds, and has, beyond almost any other of his con- CHAP. temporary princes, been the object of impassioned invective on the part of the liberal press in Europe. Placed in the very front rank of the league of princes, ruling a country in which the vast majority were decidedly monarchical-a small minority vehemently democratic-brought, the first of all the monarchs of Europe, in contact with the revolutionary spirit by which they were all destined to be so violently shaken, it was scarcely possible it could be otherwise. But the character of Ferdinand was, perhaps, the most unfortunate that could have been found to tread the path environed with dangers which lay before him. He had neither the courage and energy requisite for a despotic, nor the prudence and foresight essential in a constitutional sovereign: he had neither the courage which commands respect, the generosity which wins affection, nor the wisdom which averts catastrophe. Indolence was his great characteristic; a facility of being led, his chief defect. Incapable of taking a decided line for himself, he yielded easily and willingly to the representations of those around him, and exhibited in his conduct those vacillations of policy which indicated the alternate ascendancy of the opposite parties by which he was surrounded. His inclination, without doubt, was strongly in favour of despotic power; but he had great powers of dissimulation, and succeeded in deceiving Talleyrand himself, as well as the liberal ministers subsequently imposed upon him by the Cortes, as to his real intentions.

Supple, accommodating, and irresolute, he had learnt Martignac, hypocrisy in the same school as the modern Greek has 100, 106. learned it from the Turk-the school of suffering.1

arrival in

The treaty of Valençay, as narrated in a former work,* 28. restored Ferdinand VII. to liberty, and he re-entered the Ferdinand's kingdom of his fathers on the 20th March 1814, just ten Spain, and days before the Allies entered Paris. This treaty had treatment been concluded with Napoleon while the monarch was

* History of Europe, 1789-1815, chap. lxxxvii. § 71.

by the

Cortes.

CHAP. still in captivity, and it was a fundamental condition of VII. it that he should cause the English to evacuate Spain.

1814.

The subsequent fall of the Emperor, however, rendered this stipulation of no effect; and, after having been received with royal honours by the garrisons, both French and Spanish, in Catalonia, the monarch proceeded by easy journeys to Valencia, where he resided during the whole of April. The reason of this long sojourn in a provincial town was soon apparent. He was there joined by the Duke del Infantado, and the leading grandees of the kingdom, as well as many of the chief prelates. Meanwhile the Cortes, who had testified the greatest joy at the deliverance of the king, refused to ratify the Treaty of Valençay, as having been concluded without their consent -continued resident at Madrid, without advancing to meet their sovereign-and soon began to evince their imperious disposition, and to show in whom they understood the real sovereignty to reside. At the moment when Ferdinand reentered his kingdom, they published of their own authority a decree, in which they enjoined him to adopt, without delay, the Constitution of 1812, and to take the oath of fidelity towards it. Until he did so, he was enjoined not to adopt the title, or exercise the power, of King of Spain; and they even went so far as to prescribe the itinerary he was to follow on his route to the capital, the towns he 1814; Mar- was to pass through, and the expressions he was to use in Ann. Reg. answer to the addresses he was expected to receive. It 68. is not surprising that he turned aside from such task

1 Decree, March 20,

tignac, 107;

1814, 67,

29.

rity of the

Cortes.

masters.1

Scarcely had the monarch set his foot in Spain when Universal he received the most unequivocal proofs of the detestation unpopula- in which the constitution was generally held, and the universal hatred at the subordinate agents to whom the Cortes had intrusted the practical administration of government. From the frontier of Catalonia, to Valencia-in the fortresses, the towns, the villages, the fields-it was one continual clamour against the Cortes: "Viva el Rey

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