Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

VII.

1817.

CHAP. concentrated his forces; the troops continued faithful; the respectable inhabitants remained in their houses, and took no part in the insurrection; and the populace, meeting with no other support than what they could derive from their own numbers, were at length defeated, but not before much blood had been shed, and General Elio himself wounded. He immediately published a severe decree, denouncing the penalty of death against all persons, except those privileged as cavaliers to carry arms, found with weapons in the dark, and authorising the patrol to fire upon them. This was soon followed by a March 2. decree prohibiting the importation of a great variety of

books into Spain, among which the works of Voltaire, Gibbon, and Robertson, Benjamin Constant, and a great many others, are specially mentioned as "false in politics, and to the hierarchical order, subversive of the 1 Moniteur, power of the church, and tending to schism and religious 1817; Ann. toleration, and pernicious to the state." It was easy to see what influence had been predominant in the preparation of this decree. 1

Feb. 2,

Reg. 1817, 117, 118.

46. Abortive

lona, and

death of General Lacy.

April 5.

Ere long another conspiracy broke out in Barcelona of a very extensive character, in which Generals Lacy and in Barce Milans, who had distinguished themselves so much in the late war, were implicated. The object of the conspirators, as of all the preceding ones, was the re-establishment of the Constitution of 1812, and the convoking of the Cortes. It was to have broken out on the night of April 5, and a great number of officers, besides a considerable part of the battalion of the light infantry of Tarragona, were engaged on the side of the conspirators. Castaños the captain-general of the province, however, received intelliproclama gence of the plot, and arrested Lacy and three hundred tion, April officers who were implicated in his designs. He was Moniteur, immediately tried by a court-martial, and sentenced to 1817; Ann. be shot.2 Being sent over, however, to Minorca, to have the sentence carried into execution, as it was deemed

Castaños'

12, 1817;

May 7,

Reg. 1817, 119, 120.

unsafe to attempt it in Spain, he attempted, when on the

[ocr errors]

VII.

beach of that island, and attended only by a slender CHAP. escort of prisoners, to make his escape. The soldiers pursued him, and in endeavouring to defend himself he was, fortunately for himself, accidentally killed.

1817.

47.

regarding

April 16.

A very important papal bull was issued in the same month, regarding the property of the church in Spain. Papal bull Such had become the penury of the royal treasury, in the contriconsequence of the loss of the South American colonies, bution by and the cessation of industry in Spain during the dread- Church. ful war of which, for six years, it had been the theatre, that it had become absolutely necessary to have recourse to some extraordinary resources, and the church, as the body which was most tractable and capable of bearing such a burden, was selected to make up the deficiency. A negotiation in consequence was opened with the court of Rome, to which the necessity of the case was fully represented, and the consequence was, that on the 16th April a papal bull was issued, which, on the narrative of the "enormous expenses at which we have had the satisfaction of seeing an extremely glorious victory gained, as well for religion as the monarchy, authorised Ferdinand to exact annually, during six years, the sum of 30,000,000 reals (£300,000) from the estates of the church, as well regular as secular." This was an immense relief to the treasury, but, great as it appears, it was not more than sufficient to fill up the annual deficit which had been constantly 1Moniteur, increasing since the restoration. Such as it was, however, 1817; Ann. Reg. 1817, it led to incalculable calamities, both to the nation and 120, 121. the monarchy.1

April 29,

Queen of

The King of Spain had certain claims on the part of 48. the Infanta, Queen of Etruria, on the states of Parma, Treaty rePlacentia, Guastalla, which had been made the subject of garding the anxious claim and negotiation at the Congress of Vienna Etruria. in 1815, and subsequently with the allied powers. Such were the difficulties with which the question was involved that it led to a very protracted negotiation, which was not brought to a conclusion till this year, when

СНАР.

VII.

1817.

a treaty was concluded, by which, on the one hand, Spain was admitted into the European alliance and the treaties signed at the Congress of Vienna; and, on the other, the reversion of the duchies of Parma, Placentia, and Guastalla was secured to the Infant Don Carlos Louis, the Infanta's son; and until that reversion opened, the states Mar- of Lucca were assigned to her majesty the Queen of Etruria. It is in virtue of this treaty that the present 1817, 121. Duke of Parma, who married the daughter of the Duke de Berri, now enjoys the duchy of Parma.1

1 Treaty, May 5, 1817; tens' Sup. vii. 122;

Ann. Reg.

49.

In the close of this year the negotiations, so long and Treaty for anxiously conducted on the part of the British governtion of the ment, for the suppression of the slave trade, were brought slave trade. to a successful issue with Spain. By it the King of

the limita

Dec. 20,

1817.

Spain prohibited, absolutely and immediately, all purchase of negroes in Africa north of the line, and denounced ten years' transportation against whoever should infringe the present decree. Leave was to be given, however, to purchase slaves south of the line, to such as might apply for a license to that effect, until the 30th May 1820, when it was to cease absolutely and for ever in the Spanish dominions in every part of the world. Foreign vessels trading to Spanish ports were to be subject to the same regulations, in every respect, as the Spanish. This decree was only extorted from Spain with great difficulty by the British government, by the engagement, as already mentioned, on their part, to pay to Spain £400,000 for the abolition, on 20th Feb. 1818, which was punctually done.2 It is a singular circumstance, as creditable to the English as it was discreditable to the Spanish government, that the one consented to give and the other to receive so considerable a sum for an xxxvii. 67, act called for by every consideration of humanity and 996; De- justice. It will appear in the sequel how entirely both 1817; Ann. parties to this treaty departed from the object it ha 123. in view, and how the one, by its fiscal policy, restore

2 Ante, c.

iv. § 45.

3 Decree, Dec. 26, 1817; Moniteur, Jan. 5, 1818;

[ocr errors]

Xxxviii.

cree, Dec.

Reg. 1817,

the slave trade to a frightful extent, and the other, b

[ocr errors]

VII.

repeated evasions, continued to practise it until it arose to CHAP. the enormous amount of from fifty to seventy thousand slaves annually sent into Cuba alone.

1818.

50.

Spain: its

navy.

The internal situation of Spain had not sensibly ameliorated during the years the transactions of which have Miserable been now briefly enumerated. The Inquisition had state of spread its leaden arms over the kingdom, and crushed army and any approach to independent thought the severance of South America had dried up the principal sources of its material industry. The army, in great part without pay, always long in arrears, was with difficulty held to its standards, and the effective strength of the regiments exhibited a very different return from the rolls on paper. So great had the dilapidation of the military force of the kingdom become, from the penury of the Exchequer, and discontent and desertion of the troops, that, by a decree on June 1, its organisation was entirely changed, and June 1. they were divided into forty-seven regiments of common and light infantry, twenty-two regiments of cavalry, five thousand artillery, two regiments of guards: in all, seventy thousand men, to which were to be added fortythree regiments of provincial militia, which mustered about thirty thousand combatants. As to the navy, it had fallen into such a state of decay, that the power which, two hundred and thirty years before, had fitted out the invincible Armada, and planted such magnificent colonies in the Indies, and even in later times had all but rivalled the power of England upon the seas, was unable to fit out a fleet to transport the military succours which were so loudly called for to the New World. In this extremity the Government, with the money extorted the preceding year from the priests, bought a squadron of old worn-out lineof-battle ships from Russia, to which Alexander, out of pure generosity, added three frigates in a present. Such, however, was their state of decay that they took five1 Ann. Hismonths to make the voyage from Cronstadt to Cadiz, 301, 302. and had to put into Plymouth to refit. At length the

VOL. II.

torique, i.

CHAP. squadron arrived at Cadiz, on 21st February, and two thousand men were embarked on board of it for Lima.

VII.

1818.

51. Extreme

penury of

of Spain. Decree, April 3, 1818.

The extreme penury of the finances, in consequence of the loss of the mines of South America to the Governthe finances ment, and its commerce to the country, was the cause of this woeful state of decrepitude-a memorable proof of the straits to which even the greatest naval power may be reduced by the severance of its colonies. The Government was overwhelmed with demands for payment of debts by foreign countries, when by no possible contrivance could they raise money to pay their own armaments. The most pressing part of the debt consisted of 1,500,000,000 reals (£14,500,000), composed of vales, a species of assignats issued in former times by the treasury. The Cortes had provided for the payment of the interest of this debt by assignation of the property of the Inquisition; but as the restoration of the property of that body left nothing for the creditors, the minister of finance, by a decree on 3d April, reduced the debts to a third of their amount, and made provision for the interest of that third from the estates of the Church. By another March 30. decree, Corunna, Santander, Cadiz, and Alicante were declared free ports—a vain attempt to restore the commerce to which the loss of the colonies had brought total ruin. A manifesto was prepared, and submitted in the end of the year to the Congress of Aix la Chapelle, to be addressed to the revolted colonies, which promised them an amnesty for the past, reformAnn. Hist. ation of abuses, and a certain degree of freedom of comAnn. Reg. merce. It was approved of and published, but proved of no avail with men resolutely set upon asserting their independence.1

Sept. 14.

i. 306, 310;

1818, 129, 161.

An event occurred in the close of this year, which, in its final results, was attended with most important effects upon both kingdoms of the Peninsula. On 26th December, the young Queen Maria Isabella, who had arrived from Brazil in the autumn of 1817, to share the

« ForrigeFortsett »