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VII.

1819.

52.

Queen

Isabella

fortunes of the King of Spain, and who was very near CHAP. her time, was suddenly seized with convulsions, and expired in twenty minutes. The infant was delivered after the mother's death by the Cæsarean operation, but Death of it expired, after being baptised, in a few minutes after Maria its mother. Being a female, it could not have succeeded of Spain. by the existing law, sanctioned by all the powers of Dec. 26. Europe at the treaty of Utrecht, to the crown of Spain; but this bereavement, by leaving the king to Ann. Hist. marry again, which, as will appear in the sequel, he actually did, was attended with consequences of the last moment to the Peninsula, and of general interest to the whole of Europe. This death was almost immediately followed by that of the old King, Charles IV., who had been forced to resign the crown at Bayonne in 1808, Ibid. ii. who expired at Naples on 20th January 1819, a few Moniteur, weeks after his Queen, Louisa Maria Theresa of Parma, 1819. had died on the road to that place.2

i. 310.

2

Jan. 29,

fate of the

dition to

Meanwhile the preparations for the grand expedition 53. to South America, which had been so long in prepara- Disastrous tion, went on without intermission; although the fate first expewhich befel the advanced guard of two frigates, with two Lima thousand men, despatched in the preceding year, was not such as to afford very encouraging hopes of its ultimate success. The soldiers and crew on board one of the frigates mutinied, threw the officers overboard, and sailed into Buenos Ayres, where they were received with open arms by the insurgents, whom they immediately joined. The other was captured off the coast of Peru by the insurgent squadron, and eight thousand muskets which it had on board were immediately appropriated to their use. Undeterred by these disasters, however, the Government continued their preparations for the grand expedition with the utmost activity; and by the middle of January fifteen thousand men were collected in the Isle of Leon, and six ships of the line, in a tolerable state of ii. 382, 383. equipment for the voyage.3

3

Ann. Reg. Ann. Hist.

1819, 179;

i. 310, 311,

CHAP.
VII.

1819.

54.

Fresh re

volt at Valencia, which is suppressed.

Jan. 21.

The disorganised state of all parts of Spain, however, still continued, and the repeated revolts which broke out, especially among the soldiery, might have warned the Government that a serious disaster was impending over the monarchy, and that the great armament in the Isle of Leon was not likely to sail without making its strength felt by the Government. On the 21st January a fresh conspiracy was discovered by General Elio in Valencia, the object of which was to assassinate him and his principal officers, and immediately proclaim the Constitution of 1812. At its head was Colonel Vidal, who made a vigorous defence against the soldiers sent to arrest him, and was only made prisoner after he had been run through the body. He himself was hanged, and his associates, to the number of twelve, shot from behind, the punishment reserved for traitors. This event had a melancholy effect upon the fate of the prisoners at Barcelona, who had been implicated in General Lacy's revolt in the preceding year. They were condemned to death to the number of seventeen, and executed without mercy. Disturbances at the same time broke out in New Castile, Estremadura, and Andalusia, the roads of which were infested by bands of old guerillas, who formed themselves into bands of robbers, amounting to three hundred men. But all these disorders were ere long 1 Ann. Hist. thrown into the shade by the great revolt which broke Ann. Reg. out among the troops in the Isle of Leon, which was 1819, 178, 179. attended with the most important consequences on both hemispheres. 1

ii. 384, 385;

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Such had been the penury of the exchequer, and the state of dilapidation into which the once magnificent arsenals aud dockyards of Cadiz had fallen, that the fitting-out of the expedition, after two years' incessant preparation, was still incomplete. Two ships of the line and a frigate were despatched on 11th May, to clear the coasts of America of the insurgent corsairs who infested them; but one of these-the Alexander-was obliged, a

VII.

1819.

few days after, to return to Cadiz to refit. During the CHAP. long delay occasioned by these difficulties, the troops collected for the expedition, which by the end of May amounted to twenty-two thousand men-a force perfectly capable of effecting the subjugation of South America, had it arrived in safety at its destination—were left concentrated and inactive in the island of Leon. During the leisure and monotony of a barrack life they had leisure to confer together, to compare the past and present condition of their country, and ruminate on the probable fate which awaited themselves if they engaged in the warfare of South America. A large number of veterans, who had served under Murillo in those disastrous campaigns, not a few of whom were in the public hospitals suffering under severe mutilations, gave the most dismal accounts of the dreadful nature of the warfare on which they were about to be sent, the ferocious enemies with which they had to contend-the English veterans trained under Wellington, who formed so large a part of the insurgent forces-the interminable deserts they had to cross, the pestilential gales, so fatal to European constitutions, with which the country was infested, and the frightful warfare, where quarter was neither asked nor given on either side, which awaited them on their arrival. A proclamation of the king, issued on 4th January, in which it was announced Jan. 4. that no quarter would be given to any soldiers of foreign nations found combating in the insurgent ranks, rather 1 Ann. Hist. increased than diminished these alarms, by proving the ii. 384, 385; reality of one of the many, and not the least formid- 1819, 179; able, of the dangers which were represented as awaiting i. 178, 179. them.1

Ann. Reg.

Martignac,

To these considerations, already sufficiently powerful, 56.

the Cadiz

were added the efforts of the merchants and revolutionists Efforts of of Cadiz, who spared neither their talents nor their riches liberals to to induce the assembled troops to abandon their duty promote it. and revolt against the Government. They painted to

VII.

1819.

CHAP. them in the most gloomy colours the disastrous state of the country, with its colonies lost, its trade ruined, its exchequer bankrupt, its noblest patriots in captivity or in chains, its bravest generals shot, its liberties destroyed, the Inquisition restored, the public education in the hands of the Jesuits, an inconsistent camarilla, fluctuating in everything except evil, ruling alike the monarch and the country. They professed the utmost respect for the king, and the firmest determination to protect his person and just authority: the only object was to displace a ministry, the worst enemy he had in his dominions, and restore the Cortes, the only security for their prosperity and just administration. To these considerations, in themselves sufficiently just and powerful, was added the gold of the Cadiz merchants, who hoped, by frustrating the expedition, to succeed in re-establishing peace with the colonies, and regaining the lucrative commerce they had so long enjoyed with them. The result was, that, before the time arrived when the expedition could i. 178, 179; by possibility set sail, the whole army was imbued with ii. 387, 388; revolutionary ideas, and only awaited the signal of a 1819, 179. leader to declare openly against the Government, and avert the much dreaded departure for South America. 1

1 Martignac,

Ann. Hist.

Ann. Reg.

57.

Insurrec-
tion at
Cadiz.
July 7.

The CONDE D'ABISBAL, formerly General O'Donnell, of Irish extraction, who had distinguished himself in Catalonia during the late war, was at the head of the expedition. He was a man of a bold and enterprising character, and possessed of such powers of dissimulation that those most entirely, as they thought, in his confidence, were not in the slightest degree aware of what he really intended. He had at first entered cordially into the designs of the conspirators, and their principal hopes of success were founded on his heading the enterprise. For a long time he adopted the views of the disaffected, and from the knowledge which they had of this, he gained unlimited influence over the minds of the soldiers. But when the decisive moment arrived, the deep dissimula

VII.

1819.

tion of the man became apparent. In the night of the CHAP. 7th July, when the conspiracy was on the point of breaking out, the Conde d'Abisbal assembled the garrison of Cadiz, six thousand strong, which was entirely at his devotion, and, without revealing to them what he intended to do, informed them that he was about to lead them on a short expedition, of which the success was certain, and which would entitle them to the highest rewards from their sovereign and country; but he required them to bind themselves by an oath to obey his orders, whatever they were. The soldiers, ignorant of his design, 1 Ann. Hist. but having confidence in his intention, at once took the ii. 388, 389; oath, and as soon as this was done he led them into the 1819, 179; camp "des Victoires," where seven thousand men, destined i. 180, 181. to be first embarked, were assembled.1

Ann. Reg.

Martignac,

These troops were ordered to assemble in parade order, 58.

d'Abisbal.

and no sooner was this done than d'Abisbal stationed his The conmen round them in such positions as to render escape at first arspiracy is impossible, and then, ordering the soldiers to load their rested by muskets and the artillerymen their pieces, he summoned July 8. the men to lay down their arms, and deliver up the officers contained in a list which he had prepared. Resistance was impossible, as the men who were surrounded had no ammunition, and they were compelled to submit. A hundred and twenty-three officers, comprising the chiefs of the army, were put under arrest, a part of the troops sent out of the camp, and dispersed through villages of Andalusia, and three thousand compelled to embark and set sail they knew not whither. In fact, their destination was the Havannah, where they arrived in safety six weeks afterwards. Having by these extraordinary means gained this great success, succeeded in arresting his comrades, and crushing a conspiracy of which he himMartignac, self had been the chief, d'Abisbal hastened to Madrid, i. 180; Ann. where he took credit to himself for having at once de- Ann. Reg. feated a dangerous conspiracy, and compelled a mutinous 180. body of soldiers to obey orders,2 and proceed on their

Hist. 389;

1819, 179,

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