1820. 64. attempted Jan. 1, 1820. CHAP. those changes were to commence which have changed the VII. dynasty on the throne, altered the constitution of the country, and finally severed her American colonies from Revolution Spain. The malcontents in the army, so far from being by Riego. deterred by the manner in which the former conspiracy had been baffled by the double and treacherous dealing of the Conde d'Abisbal, continued their designs, and, distrusting now the chiefs of the army, chose their leaders among the subordinate officers. Everything was speedily arranged, and with the concurrence of nearly the whole officers of the army. The day of rising was repeatedly adjourned, and at length definitively fixed for the 1st January 1820. At its head was RIEGO, whose great achievements and melancholy fate have rendered his name imperishable in history. On that day he assembled a battalion in the village of Las Cabezas where it was quartered, harangued it, proclaimed amidst loud shouts the Constitution of 1812, and marching on Arcos, where the headquarters were established, disarmed and made prisoners General Calderon and his whole staff; and then, moving upon San Fernando, effected a junction with Quiroga, Martignac, who was at the head of another battalion also in revolt. Hist. iii. The two chiefs, emboldened by their success, and having Ann. Reg. hitherto experienced no resistance, advanced to the gates of Cadiz, within the walls of which they had numerous partisans, upon whom they reckoned for co-operation i. 183; Ann. 386, 390; 1820, 223. 222, * "Raphael y Nunez del Riego was born in 1785, at Tuna, a village of Asturias. His father, a Hidalgo without fortune, placed him in the Gardes-du-Corps, which, ever since the scandalous elevation of the Prince of Peace, by the favour of the Queen, from its ranks, had been considered as the surest road to fortune in Spain. He was in that corps on occasion of the French invasion of that country in 1808; and when it was disbanded by the seizure of the royal family, he entered a guerilla band, and was afterwards promoted to the rank of an officer in the regiment of Asturias. He was ere long made prisoner, and employed the years of his captivity in France in completing his education, which he did chiefly by reading the works of a liberal tendency in that country. the peace of 1814 he was liberated, returned to Madrid, and received the appointment of Lieut.-Colonel in the 2d battalion of the Regiment of Asturias. That regiment formed part of the army under the Conde d'Abisbal, destined to act against South America; and it was thus that Riego was brought to destruction and ruin.”—Biographie Universelle, lxxix. 114, 115 (RIEGO). On VII. 1820. and admission within it. But here they experienced a CHAP. check. The gates remained closed against them-the governor of the fortress denounced them as rebels-the expected co-operation from within did not make its appearance, and the two chiefs were obliged to remain encamped outside, surrounded with all the precautions of a hostile enemy. 65. measures insurgents. The intelligence of this revolt excited the greatest alarm at Madrid, and the Government at first deemed their Vigorous cause hopeless. The next day, however, brought more adopted consoling accounts-that Cadiz remained faithful, and against the a majority of the troops might still be relied on to act against the insurgents. Recovering from their panic, the Government took the most vigorous measures to crush the insurrection. General Freyre was despatched from Madrid at the head of thirteen thousand men hastily collected from all quarters, upon whom it was thought reliance could be placed, and he rapidly reached the Isle of Leon, where the insurgent troops, to the number of ten thousand, lay intrenched. A part of them, however, joined the insurgents, the force of whom was thus raised to ten thousand men. By the approach of the royalist army, however, they found themselves in a very critical situation, placed between the fortress of Cadiz on the one side and the troops from Madrid on the other, and in a manner besieged themselves in the lines of the besiegers. They published proclamations and addresses in profusion,* but without obtaining any material accession of strength Ann. Reg. 1820, 222, beyond what had at first joined them;1 and the defection 223. and disquietude began to creep over them which invari "Notre Espagne touchait à sa destruction, et votre ruine aurait entraîné celle de la Patrie: vous étiez destinés à la mort, plutôt pour délivrer le Gouvernement de l'effroi que votre courage lui impose, que pour faire la conquête des colonies, devenue impossible. En attendant vos familles restaient dans l'esclavage le plus honteux, sous un Gouvernement arbitraire et tyrannique, qui dispose à son gré des propriétés, de l'existence, et de la liberté des malheureux Espagnols. Ce Gouvernement devait détruire la nation, et finir par se détruire lui-même ; il n'est pas possible de la souffrir plus longtemps.-Violent et faible à la fois, il ne peut inspirer que l'indignation ou le mépris ; et pour que la 1 Martignac, i. 184, 185; Ann. Hist. iii. 392, 393; CHAP. ably pervade an insurgent array when decisive success does not at once crown their efforts. VII. 1820. 66. the arsenal, tion of the inte rior. Jan. 12. Unable to endure this protracted state of suspense, and Capture of fearful of its effect on the minds of the soldiers, Riego and expedi directed an attack on the arsenal of the Caraccas, an imRiego into portant station on an island in the bay of Cadiz, which was taken by a detachment under the command of Quiroga. By this success, a large quantity of arms and ammunition fell into their hands, as well as a seventy-four gun-ship laden with powder; and they rescued from the dungeons of that place a number of Liberals in confinement. Several attacks were afterwards made on the dykes which led from the opposite sides of the bay to Cadiz, but they all failed before the formidable fortifications by which they were defended; and though several émeutes were attempted in the fortress, they all failed of success. Meanwhile Freyre's troops were drawn round them on the outside, and effectually cut them off from all communication with the mainland of Andalusia; and the troops became discouraged from a perception of their isolated position, and the long inactivity to which they had been exposed. To relieve it, and endeavour to rouse the population in their rear, Quiroga, who had been invested with the supreme command, detached Riego with a movable column of fifteen hundred men into the interior of the province. They set out on 27th January, and without difficulty passed the straits near Chictana, and reached Algesiraz in safety, where they proclaimed the constitution amidst the loud acclamations of a prodigious concourse of inhabitants. After remaining five days, however, in that Patrie soit heureuse, le Gouvernement doit inspirer la confiance, l'amour, et le respect. Soldats! nous allons employer pour notre bien, et pour celui de nos frères, les armes qui ont assuré l'indépendance de la nation contre le pouvoir de Buonaparte: l'entreprise est facile, et glorieuse! Existe-t-il un soldat Espagnol qui puisse s'y opposer? Non! Dans les rangs même de ceux que le Gouvernement s'efforce de rassembler, vous trouverez des frères qui s'uniront à vous; et si quelques-uns assez vils osaient tourner leurs armes contre vous, qu'ils périssent comme des satellites de la tyrannie, indignes du nom d'Espagnols."ANTONIO QUIROGA, Général-en-chef de l'Armée Nationale, 5 Jan. 1820. Annuaire Historique, iii. 390, 391. Jan. 27. Jan. 29. VII. 1820. 1 Relation town, he found that shouts and huzzas were all that the CHAP. inhabitants were disposed to afford; and leaving their inhospitable streets, he directed his march to Malaga, which he reached, after several combats, and entered on the 18th February, and immediately proclaimed the con- de l'Expestitution. But although his little corps had been received in de with acclamations wherever he went, it had met with no 26; Biog. real assistance; the people cheered, but did not join 118, 119; them; and, to use the words of Riego's aide-de-camp, iii. 396,397. "All applauded: none followed them."1 dition Riego, 19, Univ.lxxix. Ann. Hist. and failure. Meanwhile his associate Quiroga was the victim of the 67. most cruel anxieties. Weakened by the detachment of Its defeat the force under Riego, and besieged in his intrenched camp before Cadiz, he daily found his situation more critical, and his soldiers evinced unequivocal symptoms of discouragement from the inactivity in which they had been retained since their revolt, and the want of any succour from the troops with which they were surrounded. He sent, in consequence, orders to Riego to return to the lines in the island of Leon, but it had become no longer possible for him to do so. He was closely followed by a light column under the orders of O'Donnell; and finding that the population of the country were not inclined to join him, and that his corps was daily diminishing by desertion, he evacuated Malaga, and bent his steps towards the Cordilleras, with a view to throwing himself March 11. into the Sierra Morena. He crossed the Guadalquiver de l'Expeby the bridge of Cordova, and directing his steps towards dition de the hills, at length reached Bien-Venida on the 11th 60; Biog. March with only three hundred followers, destitute of everything, and in the last stage of exhaustion and dis- 399, 400. couragement.2 2 Relation Riego, 45, Univ.lxxix. 119; An. Hist. iii. 68. position of The intelligence of the disasters of Riego, which reached the Isle of Leon in spite of all the precautions which the Perilous generals of the revolutionary army there could take to Quiroga in intercept it, completed the discouragement of the troops Leon. of the revolutionary army there assembled. Mutually the Isle of VII. 1820. CHAP. fearful of defection, Quiroga and General Freyre had long ceased to combat each other, but by proclamations and invitations to the soldiers on either side to abandon their colours and range themselves under the banners of their opponents. But in this wordy warfare the royalists had the advantage; the words of honour and loyalty did not resound in vain in Spanish ears, and although defection was experienced on both sides, it was soon apparent that the balance was decidedly against the Liberal host. Their numbers were at last reduced to four thousand men ; 1 Ann. Hist: while their opponents, under Freyre, independent of the Biog. Univ. garrison of Cadiz, were three times that number; and this little band was so discouraged as to be incapable of attempting any of those bold steps which alone, in a protracted war of rebellion, can reinstate a falling cause.1 iii. 401,402; lxxix. 119, 120; Mar tignac, i. 187, 188. 69. Insurrec tion at Co But while the cause of the revolution seemed to be thus sinking, and to have become well-nigh hopeless in runna, and the south, the flame burst forth simultaneously in several in Navarre, other quarters, and at length involved the whole Penin Feb 21. sula in conflagration. The blow struck at Cadiz resounded through the whole of Spain. Everywhere the movement was confined to the officers of the army and a few citizens in the seaport towns; but in them it took place so simultaneously as to reveal the existence of a vast conspiracy, directed by a central authority which embraced the whole Peninsula. On the 21st February, the day after Vanegaz, the new Captain-general of Galicia, had arrived at Corunna, an insurrection broke out among the officers of that fortress, who surprised Vanegaz, when disarmed and incapable of making any resistance; and on his refusal to place himself at the head of the movement, made him a prisoner, and conducted him with all his staff to the Fort of St Antonio, where they were placed in confinement. The Constitution of 1812 was immediately proclaimed, the gates closed, the drawbridges raised, and the revolution effected in an hour, without any resistance. A provisional junta was established; the prisons were broken open, |