Gentlemen Deputies-Retire, for the present, from your laudable labours, and reap, from the esteem of your fellow-citizens, the fruits which you so richly deserve. Endeavour to inculcate on their minds the necessity of their all uniting around my Constitutional Throne, and of discord and unfounded distrust disappearing from amongst us. Let the Constitution be our only motto, National Independence, freedom, and honour, our only wish, and unmoved constancy be ever opposed by us to misfortunes which we have not merited. My Government shall cease to exist, before it take any step contrary to the oaths by which it is connected with the Country, or to what is required by the honour of my People, and the dignity of my Crown; and, if circumstances shall require it, it will seek, in the Extraordinary Cortes, a safe harbour for the Vessel of the State. In such case, I shall again assemble them, always relying upon their zeal and patriotism, and we will travel jointly in the path of glory, until a Peace be obtained at once honourable and worthy of Spaniards and of myself.

FERDINAND.

SPEECH of the King of Spain, on the Opening of the Extraordinary Cortes.-Cadiz, 6th September, 1823.

SENORES DEPUTIES!

(Translation.)

ON the solemn day on which the Ordinary Cortes of the present Year closed their Session, I announced to you, that if circumstances should require it, I would seek in the Cortes Extraordinary the port of safety for the vessel of the State. A report which my Government will, by my order, present to you, will show that the vessel of the State is on the point of being wrecked, if the measures of the Congress do not contribute to save it. In pursuance, therefore, of what I then announced-of the critical nature of circumstances, and the arduous state of affairs-I have considered it necessary that the Cortes Extraordinary should assemble, in order that, taking into consideration the said report, they may resolve, with their accustomed zeal and patriotism, on the measures most advantageous for the publick cause. What my Government will make known to you, will also palpably demonstrate how fruitless have been the efforts made for obtaining an honourable peace; because the Enemy, persisting, contrary to ever right, in putting forward his proposition for interference in the affairs of the Kingdom, obstinately refuses to treat, except with me alone, and free, and wishes not so to consider me, unless I go and place myself amidst their bayonets. Inconceivable and ignominious liberty, whose only basis is to be the dishonourable act of delivering myself up at discretion into the hands of the Aggressors!

Provide, then, Senores Deputies, for the necessities of the Country, from which I ought not, and never wish, to separate my fate;

and, convinced as you must be, that the Enemy pays no regard to reason and justice, when unsupported by force, examine promptly the existing evils, and prescribe a remedy for them. FERDINAND.

CORRESPONDENCE respecting the Relations between Spain and Great Britain, and the Mediation of the latter between France and Spain.―June to August, 1823.

(1.)-Señor Pando to Sir William à Court. (Translation.) SIR, Cadiz, 16th June, 1823. THE approach of the French Troops to Seville, and the internal intrigues carried on by Agents of the Enemies of Spain, exposed to the greatest danger the liberty and independence of the Nation, the dignity of the Crown, and even the existence of His Catholick Majesty and of his August Family.

To save objects of such great importance, thus endangered, it was necessary to have recourse to an extraordinary, prompt, and vigorous measure: the National Representation did not hesitate to adopt it, in virtue of the faculties vested in it by the Fundamental Law of the Monarchy, and with the happy result which is known to every one.

His Catholick Majesty, placed with his free will in a position inaccessible to the attacks of Foreigners, and to the effects of their hidden plots, freely exercises the high Functions appertaining to his supreme dignity, and occupies himself with the means of freeing the Nation from the afflicting evils which oppress it.

The relations of friendship and of good understanding between Spain and the Power you so well represent, happily subsist unimpaired; and His Catholick Majesty is persuaded that you will continue to reside at his Royal Court as heretofore, certain of daily receiving new proofs of his Royal esteem.

I hope you will continue to address to me the Communications you may have to make to His Majesty's Government, and that you will be assured of the sentiments of high consideration, &c. His Britannick Majesty's Minister.

JOSE MARIA DE PANDO.

(2.)--Sir William à Court to Señor Pando.

Seville, July 11, 1823.

THE Undersigned, His Britannick Majesty's Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, has the honour to acknowledge the receipt of the Note of His Excellency M. Pando, His Catholick Majesty's Minister for Foreign Affairs, dated the 16th of June, which Note was not delivered to him until the 4th instant.

The Undersigned will lose no time in bringing this Note to the knowledge of his Government, and in requesting instructions how to act. Had M. Pando's Communication been received in due time after

its date, the Undersigned would probably have been already in possession of some precise Instructions for the case of His Catholick Majesty's resumption of his powers, and the invitation given him to repair to Cadiz. From the want of such instructions, he must now wait the return of another Courier.

In order, however, to avoid any sort of misconstruction of this delay, it is the intention of the Undersigned to quit Seville immediately, to repair to San Lucar, and embark from thence for Gibraltar, there to await the Orders of his Government. From that neutral spot his Communications with Cadiz will be infinitely more easy; and if, in the mean time, any circumstances should occur to induce the Spanish Government to wish for the intervention of the British Minister, for the conveyance of any Propositions, either to the French Government, or Army, the Undersigned begs to inform M. Pando that he may freely address himself to him, and be assured of always finding him ready to become the channel for conveying such Propositions, if his intervention should be desired and solicited by the Spanish Authorities. The Undersigned, &c.

His Excellency Señor Pando.

WILLIAM à COURT.

(3.)-Señor Pando to Sir William à Court.

(Translation.) Cadiz, July 20, 1823. THE Undersigned, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of His Catholick Majesty, has received the Note which Sir Wm. à Court, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to His Britannick Majesty, has done him the honour to direct to him from Seville, under date of the 11th instant; and he thinks it his duty, in reply, to inform him, that the involuntary delay experienced in the delivery of the Official Communication which the Undersigned hastened to make to His Excellency on the 16th of June last, has been so much the more regretted by His Majesty's Government, as it has given occasion to the continuance of Sir W. à Court's stay in that City, during the whole of that time. He also thinks it necessary to state, that His Majesty's Government is no less alive to the unexpected determination adopted by Sir W. à Court to transfer his residence to Gibraltar, there to await fresh instructions from his Court; seeing, that under the present circumstances there exists, to all appearance, no reasonable cause, or obstacle, to prevent His Excellency from resuming his important Functions near the Person of His Catholick Majesty, and thus destroying the misrepresentations of calumny, whatever they might be.

The Undersigned also thinks it necessary to state, that, under this view of the subject, it is not easy to doubt that the commands which His Excellency may receive from his Government on the subject, will be altogether conformable to the just desires of that of His Catholick

Majesty, and with the sincere friendship subsisting between the two august Monarchs; and that in the mean time, until the Undersigned is assured of this fact, he will have the greatest satisfaction in pursuing his Official Communications with Sir Wm. à Court. The Undersigned has also the honour to assure Sir Wm. à Court, that His Majesty's Government duly appreciates the friendly intentions and interest towards Spain which have doubtless dictated the offer with which His Excellency has thought fit to conclude his before-mentioned Note; but, at the same time, the Undersigned must be permitted to observe, that His Excellency is too enlightened not to be aware that a Government, the victim of the most wilful and immoral aggression that has ever been known, the real motive of which, and the object at which it aims, has never been communicated to it, is absolutely incapable of addressing to its iniquitous Oppressor, propositions of any nature whatever, without evidently compromising the national honour, the most sacred principles, and the dearest interests. The only observation, therefore, which the Undersigned can make on the present occasion, and on so important a subject, is simply this: that if Great Britain truly desires that tranquillity should be restored to Europe, and that Spain should be delivered from those evils which so unjustly afflict her, its Government ought not to hesitate to employ the necessary measures to induce the French Cabinet at once clearly to explain its intentions, in order that, with this precise knowledge, His Majesty's Government may take into consideration, whether or not it be possible, through the mediation of His Britannick Majesty, to establish the basis of a Peace, solid, useful, and, above all, one which may be perfectly honourable to Spain.

The Undersigned takes the present occasion to repeat, &c. Sir W. à Court.

JOSE MARIA DE PANDO.

(4.)-Señor Yandiola to Sir William à Court.

(Translation.) Cadiz, August 23, 1823. THE Undersigned, Secretary of State, ad interim, of His Catholick Majesty, has the honour to transmit to Sir William à Court, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of His Britannick Majesty, a Copy of the Note which his Department addressed to his Excellency on the 20th July last, the original of which has probably been mislaid, as its receipt has not yet been acknowledged, notwithstanding the urgency of the business of which it treats.

The Undersigned being also desirous again to express the satisfaction with which His Catholick Majesty's Government has received the friendly offers contained in Sir William à Court's last Letter of the 11th of July, hastens to transmit to his Excellency the annexed Copies of the autograph Letter addressed to His Catholick Majesty by His Royal Highness the Duke d'Angouleme, dated Port St. Mary, the 17th instant,

together with the autograph Answer which the King was pleased to return to that extraordinary Communication.*

The Undersigned is fully persuaded that Sir W. à Court, in rendering to His Britannick Majesty an account of these important Documents, will not fail earnestly to call His Majesty's attention to the contrast presented on this occasion, between the dignified conduct of His Catholick Majesty and the ill-advised, not to say insulting, intimation which the Duke d'Angouleme presumed to make to him in the name of his August Uncle the King of France.

If any doubt could hitherto have existed, as to the real intentions of the French Government with respect to Spain, that doubt must vanish on the perusal of the Duke d'Angouleme's Letter, which expresses a wish, not for the prudent reform of our Political Institutions, in order to impart the necessary force to the Royal Authority, and to obviate all danger or cause of jealousy to other Powers, but to gain possession of the King and His Royal Family, in order to make them the instruments of the French Government, and, without leaving the Spaniards in possession of any moderate Constitution, to overwhelm the Spanish Nation with disgrace, and to deprive it of all independence, liberty, and security. It supposes the King not to be free, and proceeds to maintain this evident and absurd falsehood, in spite of the many solemn declarations of His Majesty to the contrary; in spite of his many unequivocal acts, which set aside all idea of coercion; in spite of the uninterrupted tranquillity and good order which are well known to prevail in Cadiz ; and notwithstanding the respect paid to the August Person of the King, and the character and principles of his Ministers. The French alone drove the King from his Palace of Madrid; they alone drove him from Seville; and in what way do they now pretend to be willing to restore to him the liberty of which they alone have deprived him?-by requiring that he should surrender himself absolutely to their disposal and their influence. This is the only explicit proposition contained in the Duke d'Angouleme's Letter; it is the preliminary sine quâ non; and they who pretend that the Monarch is not free in the midst of his faithful Subjects, wish to place him in the power of the Foreign Troops who have invaded his Kingdom, of the traitors and rebels who are assisting the Enemy in desolating his Dominions.

Let Ferdinand VII. be free, said the King of France, to give to his Subjects Institutions, which they can receive from him alone, and instantly the War shall cease. The civilized World has beheld, with amazement, an aggression founded on such a pretence, and is scandalized to hear a maxim which is calculated to subvert the most sacred Rights of Nations. But, in fact, His Most Christian Majesty did not say, that he would only consider His Catholick Majesty free when he should be in the midst of the French Army; and as little did he an* See page 994.