VII. 1814. the captains-general of those provinces were enjoined to CHAP. take the most effectual measures for their suppression; but they had no adequate armed force at their disposal to effect that object. A proclamation by the governor of Aug. 7. Andalusia revealed the existence of more serious disturbances, having a decided political tendency, and threatened every person who should be found either speaking or acting against Ferdinand VII. with death, within three days, by the sentence of a court-martial. A great number of arrests took place soon after in Madrid-ninety persons were apprehended in a single night; and so numerous did the prisoners soon become that the ordinary places of finement would not contain them, and the spacious vent of San Francisco was converted into a vast prison, to embrace the increasing multitude.1 1814, 74, Ann. Reg. con- 75; Memo con rias del Espoz y Mina, ii. state 166, 169. Mina in Sept. 26. These proceedings excited the greatest consterna- 36. tion among the Liberals, and numbers of persons who Revolt of deemed themselves compromised fled across the Pyrenees Navarre. into France. Among the rest, the famous ESPOZ Y MINA, who had gained such great celebrity as a partisan chief in Navarre in the war with Napoleon, fell under the suspicion of the Government, who sent him an order, on 16th September, to fix his residence at Pampeluna, and place the troops he had formerly commanded under the orders of the Captain-general of Aragon. Regarding this injunction, as it certainly was, as a decided measure of hostility, this daring chief, at the head of the 1st Regiment of Volunteers, approached that fortress in the night of the 26th. They were provided with scalingladders, and acted in concert with the 4th Regiment, then in garrison in the city, by whom Mina was admitted into the fortress, and with the officers of which he spent a part of the night on the ramparts, expecting a movement in his favour. Although the greater part of the officers, however, had been engaged in the conspiracy, the private soldiers nearly all remained faithful; and in Mina's own regiment of volunteers they sent information to the gover 1814. 1 Memorias del Espoz y ii. Mina, 168, 169; CHAP. nor of Aragon of what was in agitation, and warned him VII. to be on his guard. The consequence was, that the attempt proved abortive; Mina himself with difficulty made his escape, his troops nearly all deserted him, and he deemed himself fortunate in being able to retire to France by Puente la Reyna-thus seeking refuge among 1814; Ann. the enemies whom he had so strenuously combated, from the king he had so powerfully aided in putting on the throne.1 Moniteur, Oct. 9, Reg. 1814, 75, 77. 37. Fresh ar bitrary decree of Ferdinand, Sept. 15. This abortive insurrection, as is ever the case in such circumstances, strengthened the hands and increased the rigour of the monarch. It soon appeared that the restoration of the absolute government, and the chief privileges of the nobles, had been resolved on by the camarilla which ruled the State. Already, on 15th September, a decree had been issued restoring the feudal and seignorial privileges of the nobles, which had been abolished by a decree of the Cortes on 6th August 1811; and this was soon followed up by the still more decisive step of reinvesting the council of the Mesta with its old and ruinous right of permitting its flocks to pasture at will over the downs in Leon, Estremadura, and the two Castiles, thus rendering the enclosure of the land or the improvement of the soil impracticable. On 14th October, on occasion of the king's going to the theatre of Madrid, an amnesty for state offenders was published, which professed to be general, but contained so many exceptions that it in reality was little more that nominal; and the resolution of the Government to extinguish anything like free discussion in the kingdom was evinced by the king in person arresting and committing to prison M. de Macanay, the Minister of Justice and of the Interior. Soon after, the state Moniteur, prisoners at Madrid were sentenced, some to ten, some to six, and some to two years of the galleys, or of imprisonAnn. Reg. ment in strong castles; and they included the editors of, or contributors to, the Redacta General, and principal Liberal journals published at Madrid.2 2 Nov. 7. Dec. 17. Nov. 14 and Dec. 25, 1814; 1814, 77, 79. VII. 38. violent pro the King, lier's revolt. Open war was now proclaimed by the Spanish govern- CHAP. ment against the Liberals of all grades, and, unhappily, the violence of the Government kept pace with the in- 1815. creasing desire of the inhabitants of the great towns for Farther constitutional privileges. As it had now become a mat- ceedings of ter of imminent danger to hazard such opinions in public, the Liberal leaders had recourse to the usual resource of a zealous and determined party under such circumstances. Secret societies were formed under the direction of the chiefs of their party, and the ancient and venerable order of free-masons was laid hold of as a cover for designs. against the Government. The Inquisition, in consequence, issued a proclamation denouncing these societies; and March 5. ere long it appeared that there was too much foundation for their apprehensions. On 18th September, General Porlier, who had greatly signalised himself in the Peninsula, assembled the troops stationed at St Lucia without the gates of Corunna at night, and suddenly entering the city, the sentinels of which had been gained, put the Captain-general of Galicia, the governor of the town, and a few other persons, under arrest. No sooner was this done than he issued a proclamation, in which he proposed the reassembling of the Cortes, and dismissal of the Ministers; and another, purporting to be from the Moniteur, Provincial Junta of Galicia, under the "presidency of 1815; Ann. General Porlier, General-commandant of the Interior of 117. the Kingdom." 1 Sept. 29, Reg. 1815, 39. death. In taking these bold steps, which at once committed him with the Government, the principal reliance of Porlier Its failure, was on a body of grenadiers and light infantry stationed and his at St Iago, which he had reason to believe would join him. Being informed, however, that they hesitated, and that his presence might probably determine them, he set out in haste from Corunna at the head of eight hundred men and four guns, and arrived at a village within four leagues of St Iago, where he halted to rest his men, who were much fatigued by their march. While there, some VII. 1815. Oct. 3. CHAP. emissaries from the convent of St Iago introduced themselves in disguise among his men, and urged them to arrest their general by the promises of ample rewards in case of success. These promises proved successful: Porlier and his officers were suddenly surrounded and seized by their own men, while reposing in a cabaret in the heat of the day after their march; and the general, being taken back to Corunna, was condemned by a court-martial to be hanged, which sentence was immediately carried into execution. He wrote, on the eve of his death, a pathetic letter to his wife, with a handkerchief steeped in his tears, in which he exhorted her not to afflict herself on account of the species of death to which he was sentenced, since it was dishonourable only to the wicked, but glorious to the virtuous. He met his fate with dignity and resolution. Then began the days of tragedy in Spain, which ere long led to such frightful reprisals on both sides, and for many long years deluged the Peninsula with blood: 1 Moniteur, the unhappy bequest of the insane Liberals, who estab1815; Ann. lished a constitution utterly repugnant to the vast majo117. rity of the people, but eminently attractive to the ardent and generous among the educated classes.1 Oct. 10, Reg. 1815, 40. France, and retreat of In the end of August, one Spanish army, under CasInvasion of taños, crossed the frontier near Perpignan; and another, under the Conde d'Abisbal, the Bidassoa, with the proiards. Fresh fessed design of aiding Louis XVIII. in his contest with tyrannical the partisans of Napoleon. As that contest had been King. of the Sept. 4. 2 Ante, c. iii. § 29. already decided by the battle of Waterloo and the presence of a million of the allied troops in France, it may readily be imagined that the presence of the Spanish auxiliaries was anything but desirable, and accordingly the Duke d'Angoulême, as already mentioned, hastened to the Spanish headquarters, where he had an interview with Castaños, whom he prevailed on to retire; and his retreat on the eastern was soon after followed by that of the Conde d'Abisbal on the western frontier.2 The people both in Pampeluna and Corunna had taken no part in VII. 1815. the attempts of Mina and Porlier; the latter had been CHAP. publicly thanked by the king for their conduct on the occasion. It was hoped, therefore, that no measures of severity would follow the suppression of these insurrections; and the dismissal, soon after the death of Porlier, of several of the ministers most inclined to arbitrary measures, led to a general hope that a more moderate system was about to be adopted, and that possibly a Cortes convoked according to the ancient customs might be assembled. But these hopes were soon blasted; and before the end of the year the determination of the king to act upon the most arbitrary principles was evinced in the most unequivocal manner. The trial of the Liberals who had been arrested in Madrid, among whom were included several of the ministers of state, and most distinguished members of the late Cortes, began in November; but after long proceedings, and a transference of the cases from one tribunal to another, which it was thought might be more subservient to the royal will, the judges of the last reported that the evidence against the accused was not such as to bring them within the laws against traitors or persons exciting tumults and disturbances, which alone authorised severe punishments. Upon receiving this report, the king ordered the proceedings to be brought to him, and pronounced sentences of the severest kind, and entirely illegal, on thirty-two of the leading Liberals in Spain, which he signed with his own hand. Among these was one of ten years' service, as a common soldier, in a regiment stationed at Ceuta, on the celebrated Señor Arguelles, whose eloquence had so often resounded through the halls of the Cortes; and one of eight years of service in chains, in a regiment stationed at Gomera, on Señor Garcia Herreros, formerly Minister of Grace 119.' and Justice!1 Notwithstanding these severities, the situation of the king was very hazardous at Madrid, and secret information soon after reached him, which convinced him 1 Ann. Reg. 1815, 118, |