XII. 1823. 77. the French columns, one commanded by General Bordesoult, the CHAP. other by General Bourmont, set out immediately in pursuit of the revolutionary forces, which, taking the king a prisoner along with them, were hastening by forced Advance of marches towards Seville. So rapid was their flight, that into Andathe French troops endeavoured in vain to come up with lusia. them. Bordesoult with eight thousand men followed the direct road from Madrid by Aranjuez to Seville; his advanced guard, under General Dino, attacked and routed a corps of fifteen hundred men near Santa Cruz ; June 9. another of equal size was dispersed near the mountains of Villiers the next day by the same general, and three June 10. hundred prisoners taken; but after this he never got sight of their retiring columns; and although a show of resistance was made to Bourmont, who with an equal force took the road to Badajoz, at Talavera de la Reyna, yet it was but a show. The enemy retreated as soon as the French troops, aided by the Spanish Royalists, appeared in sight. The bridge of Arzobisbo was seized, and the town of Truxillo occupied on the 11th June; and on the same day General Bordesoult arrived at Cordova, beyond the Sierra-Morena, where, the moment the revolutionary troops withdrew, a vehement demonstration, accompanied with the most enthusiastic ebullition of joy, 396, 398. took place in support of the Royalist cause.1 1 Moniteur, 1823; Ann. June 24, Hist. vi. tes, and de position of Meanwhile the Cortes, whose sole power consisted, as 78. often was the case in the days of feudal anarchy, in the Proceedings possession of the person of the sovereign, had established of the Corthemselves at Seville, where a show of respectability was erdinand still thrown over their proceedings by the presence of the VII. English ambassador, who followed the captive monarch in his forced peregrinations. This circumstance, joined to the presence of a considerable English squadron in the bay of Cadiz, led for some time to the belief that the English government, which had evinced so warm a sympathy for the cause of the revolution, would at length give it some more effectual support than by eloquent declamations in VOL. II. 2 x XII. 1823. June 10. CHAP. Parliament. But these hopes soon proved illusory. It was no part of the policy of the English Cabinet to go beyond the bounds of a strict neutrality; and even the Liberal ardour of Mr Canning had been sensibly cooled by the sight of the unresisted march of the French troops to Madrid, and the decisive demonstrations afforded that the cause of the revolution was hateful to nine-tenths of the Spanish people. Even if he had been otherwise declined, the violence of the Cortes themselves, which increased rather than diminished with the disasters which were accumulating round them, ere long rendered any further alliance impossible. On hearing of the approach of the French forces, they proposed to the king to move with them to Cadiz, so as to be beyond the reach of the French troops and the Royalist reaction. The king, however, who foresaw the approaching downfall of the revolutionary government, and had heard of the rapid approach of his deliverers, positively refused, after repeated summonses, to leave Seville.* Upon this the Cortes held an extraordinary meeting, in which, on the motion of M. Galliano, they declared the king deposed, appointed a provisional regency to act in his stead, and, now no longer attempting to disguise his captivity, forced him and the royal family into carriages, which set out attended by eight thousand men for Cadiz, where they arrived three vi. 410,411; days afterwards.1 + Only six members of the Cortes had courage enough to vote against the motion for deposing the king: Señor Arguelles, and all the influential mem June 11. June 12. 1 Ann. Hist. Lam. vii. 298, 299. * "La députation des Cortès a représenté de nouveau à sa Majesté, que sa conscience ne pouvait être compromise ou blessée en cette matière ; que s'il pouvait errer en qualité d'homme, il n'était comme roi constitutionnel sujet à aucune responsabilité; qu'il ne fallait que se ranger à l'avis de ses conseillers et des représentants du peuple, sur qui reposait le fardeau de la responsabilité pour le salut du pays. Le roi ayant signifié à la députation qu'il avait sa réponse, et la mission donnée à celle-ci étant remplie, il ne lui restait qu'à déclarer aux Cortès qu'il ne jugeait pas la translation convenable."-Procès Verbal des Cortès, 10th June 1823; Annuaire Historique, vi. 409, 410. +"Je prie les Cortès, qu'en conséquence du refus de sa Majesté de mettre sa personne royale et sa famille en sûreté à l'approche de l'invasion de l'ennemi, il soit déclaré que le cas est arrivé de regarder sa Majesté comme étant dans 1 XII. bers, were found in the majority. The English ambas- CHAP. sador, Sir W. A'Court, refused to accompany the deposed monarch, and remained at Seville, from whence he went to Gibraltar to await the orders of his Government. 1823. action at over all This violent act completed the ruin of the Cortes and 79. the cause of the revolution in Europe, and immediately Violent resubverted it in Spain. No sooner had the last of the Seville, and revolutionary troops taken their departure on the evening of the 12th for Cadiz, than a violent reaction took June 13. place in Seville, which soon extended to all the towns in Spain that still adhered to the cause of the revolution. Vast crowds assembled in the streets, shouting "Viva el Rey Assoluto! Viva Ferdinand! Viva el Inquisition ! " Disorders speedily ensued. Several of the Liberal clubs were broken open and pillaged, and the pillars of the Constitution were broken amidst frantic demonstrations of joy. Two days after, a corps of the revolutionists under LopezBaños entered the city, engaged in a frightful contest in the streets with the Royalists, in the course of which two hundred of the latter perished; and having gained June 18. temporary possession of its principal quarters, he proceeded to plunder the churches of their plate, with which he set out for Cadiz; but finding the road in that direction occupied by General Bordesoult, he made for the confines of Portugal with his booty, where he joined a corps of revolutionists under Villa Campa. Two days after, General Bourmont entered Seville, where he permanently re-established the royal authority; and the forces of the Cortes, abandoning Andalusia on all sides, took refuge within the walls of Cadiz, where twenty thousand men, the last stay of the revolution, were now assembled. Everywhere else the cause of the revolution crumbled into dust. General Murillo, who commanded at Valencia, un état d'empêchement moral prévu par l'article 187 de la constitution, et qu'il soit nommé une régence provisoire qui sera investie seulement pour le cas de, ou pendant la translation de la plénitude du pouvoir exécutif.”—Proposi tion de M. GALLIANO, 11th June 1823; Annuaire Historique, vi. 410. XII. 1823. 1 Memorias CHAP. passed over with half his forces to the Royalists; Ballasteros, after sustaining a severe defeat at Carabil, was obliged to capitulate, with seven thousand men, to the del General French. Carthagena, Tarragona, and all the other forEspoz-yMina, ii. tresses, with the exception of Barcelona, Corunna, and 170, 176; Ferrol, soon after opened their gates, and ere long there 228, 229; remained only to the Liberal leaders the forces shut up vi. 413,415; within the walls of Cadiz and Barcelona, and a few Cap. vii. guerillas, who, under Mina, still prolonged the war in the mountains of Catalonia.1 Lam. vii. Ann. Hist. 202, 203. 80. State of affairs in Cadiz. Still the position of the revolutionists in Cadiz was strong, for the fortress itself had been proved in the late war to be impregnable; the inhabitants were zealous in their support; and the principal leaders and officers of the garrison of twenty thousand men were so deeply implicated in the cause, that they had no chance of safety but in the most determined resistance. Above all, the command of the person of the king and the royal family, for whose lives the most serious apprehensions were entertained, gave them the means of negotiating with advantage, and in a manner imposing their own terms on the conquerors. Ferdinand, though nominally restored to his functions, in order to give a colour to their proceedings, was in reality detained a close prisoner in the palace, or rather prison, in which he was lodged, and not allowed to walk out even on the terrace of his abode, except under a strong guard, and within very narrow precincts. Meanwhile Riego issued from the Isle of Leon, as he had done during the revolt in 1820, to endeavour to rouse the inhabitants of the mountains in the rear of the French armies; and every preparation was made within the walls for the most vigorous defence. But all felt that the cause was hopeless. The more moderate members of the Cortes had withdrawn and taken refuge in Gibraltar; and even the violent party of Exaltados, who still inculcated vi. 435, 437, the necessity of prolonging the contest,2 did so rather from the hope of securing favourable terms of capitulation for Lam. vii. 229, 230; Ann. Hist. themselves, than from any real belief that it could much CHAP. longer be maintained. Encouraged by the favourable reports which he received XII. 1823. 81. the Duke d'Angoulême into Andalusia, with Andalusia of Andujar. on all sides of the defeat or dispersion of the Revolutionists, Advance of and the general submission to the royal authority, the Duke d'Angoulême resolved to proceed in person the great bulk of his forces to Andalusia, in order to bring and decree the war at once to a close by the reduction of Cadiz. He set out, accordingly, on the 18th July, from Madrid, July 18. taking with him the guards and reserve, and leaving only four thousand men to garrison the capital. The Regency had issued a decree annulling all the acts of the revolu- June 18. tionary government since the Constitution had been forced upon the king on 7th March 1820, contracted a considerable loan, and made some progress in the formation of a Royalist corps, to be the foundation of a guard; but the extreme penury of the exchequer, the inevitable result of the political convulsions of the last three years, rendered its equipment very tardy. Meanwhile, disorders of the most serious kind were accumulating in the provinces ; the Royalist reaction threatened to be as serious as the revolutionary action had been. In Saragossa fifteen hundred persons had been arrested and thrown into prison by the Royalists, and great part of their houses pillaged; and similar disorders, in many instances attended with bloodshed, had taken place in Valencia, Alicante, Carthagena, and other places which had declared for the royal cause. Struck with the accounts of these atrocities, which went to defeat the whole objects of the French intervention, and threatened to rouse a national war in Spain, the Duke d'Angoulême published at Andujar, on the 8th August, the memorable proclamation bearing the name of that place, one of the most glorious acts of the Restoration, and a model for all future times in those 231; Ann. unhappy wars which originate in difference of political or 437, 438. religious opinion.1 By this ordonnance it was declared "that the Spanish Aug. 8, 1 Cap. vii. 202, 203; Lam. vii. Hist. vi. |