its favour, and a violent tumult arose, which was continued during a great part of the night. The government, determining hereupon to take the most vigorous measures, withdrew from Riego the offer of the command in Galicia, and sent him into an honourable exile at Oviedo. Riego now addressed a long memorial to the Cortes, in which he represented the services rendered by the army of the Isla to the cause of liberty, and urged that its support was still necessary against the numerous enemies of the constitutional system. "I beseech," said he, "the National Congress to take into consideration these short reflections, to examine the opinion of Andalusia, that of the army, that of fore-sighted and judicious men, and then to consider whether the time has arrived for deciding that circumstances have changed, that the laws are in their vigour, and that the constitution is triumphant in all its parts.

"The disgust of an army is contagious. The distrust of one province passes to another. The public mind is agitated; and, when concord is the most necessary, the most fatal disunion has been introduced. It was my duty to make these explanations to the government, and likewise to the Cortes, who ought always to watch over every thing that influences in so visible a manner the well-being of our country. I have fulfilled these two sacred obligations. I have done all that was in the power of a lover of the laws, to avoid disorders and misfortunes. Those calamities which may perhaps arise from general distrust will not be my work. Would to Heaven that my suspicions were only those of an extravagant mind, and that we may never have occasion to seek in vain for that physical and moral force which is our support-a force, the importance of which is either unknown, or too much depreciated. For my part, having been the mark of unjust preju

dices, of perverse suspicions, of black and horrible imputations, after voluntarily declining of a post incompatible perhaps with my honour in existing circumstances, I return to the simple condition of a citizen. If my country should require my services a second time, I shall fly to her aid, and shall be ready to repeat my services. At present I am satisfied with the pleasure of having deserved your lively gratitude, and with that delight which the testimony of a pure conscience communicates to an honourable mind."

These representations had no inffuence on the Cortes, which adhered to the resolution of ministers; and Riego had no alternative but to depart for Oviedo. His associates, San Miguel and Velasco, were at the same time sent to Zamora and Valladolid. The dissolution of the army was then effected; but the Cortes agreed, that liberal allowances, both in land and money, should be given to the disbanded troops, in proportion to their length of service. Although these measures were effected by government, yet the clamour of the clubs against the Minister at War was so violent, that he was induced to give in his demission.

These tumults induced the ministry to bring in a proposition to the Cortes for repressing the licence of the clubs; and notwithstanding the strenuous opposition of the liberals, it was carried on the 14th October, by a majority of 100 to 45. The meetings of these societies were only to be held upon notice given, and permission received, from the local authorities, and under their superintendance. The individuals thus assembled were in no case permitted to form corporations, or to speak in the name of the people; nor were they to hold correspondence with any similar body.

Towards the close of the session, which, in consideration of important business under consideration, was con

tinued a month beyond the prescribed period, a general agitation was felt throughout Spain. The execution of the law relative to convents was in some places tumultuously seconded, in others violently opposed. Assemblages hostile to the constitutional system, assuming the form of guerillas, rose in dif. ferent parts of the kingdom, and when put down in one place reappeared in another. Alarm was also felt at Madrid, when the King, immediately after a reluctant sanction given to the law for the suppression of monastic orders, set out for his palace of the Escurial. Here he was surrounded by the Duke de l'Infantado, his confessor, and other persons supposed to be eminently hostile to the new system. In appointing General Vigodet Captain-General of New Castile, he issued a commission entirely in his own hand-writing, without the signature of the minister, as required by the constitution; and on the omis

aion being pointed out by the perma nent deputation of the Cortes, shewed little disposition to correct it. Meantime tumults ran high at Madrid; the municipality of that city sent addresses more and more energetic, urging the King's return to the capital. At length the danger appearing serious, he deemed it expedient to yield. On the 21st November he entered Madrid, guarded by two lines of soldiers, and, amid the report of a hundred pieces of artillery. A vast multitude raised cries of "the constitution! the constitutional King !" but without any disturbance. The liberals now completely regained the ascendancy. The Duke de l'Infantado, with his adherents, were sent into retirement; while Riego was named Captain-General of Arragon, Velasco of Estramadura, and Espinosa of Old Castile. Thus closed for Spain the memorable year of 1820.

PORTUGAL had groaned still more heavily than Spain under the extinction of her ancient glory, and the oppressive yoke of absolute power. The period when her navies rode triumphant over distant oceans, and subjected the empires of the east and of the west, had been succeeded by an era of degradation, in which she with difficulty maintained her place among the secondary powers of Europe. The diffusion of knowledge and thought, and the great revolutions of which she felt the influence, went far to rouse the nation from its lethargy. In bestirring themselves against the invasion of France, the Portuguese were animated by the desire, not only of national independence, but of recovering the ancient freedom of their constitution. In this respect they had not, we fear, much cause to congratulate themselves in the treat ment which they experienced from Britain. The national junta, formed upon the liberation of the country from French dominion, was put down by the British military force, and its place supplied by a regency acting under the sole authority of the King. Britain, whose military force formed the sole prop of the power of that mo

VOL. XIII. PART 1.

narch, could certainly, as she did in Sicily, have insisted upon his granting to his subjects a form of a free constitution. She never, on this head, however, offered any thing beyond barren advice. Other discontents rankled in the minds of the Portuguese. Since the King appeared to have fixed his permanent residence in Brazil, the European part of the monarchy saw itself reduced to the condition of a mere province, under what it was accustomed to view as a humble and tributary appendage. The general command of the army, still retained by Marshal Beresford, and the numbers of English officers holding commissions in it, seemed to fix upon them a stamp of foreign subjection. The patriotism, moreover, of the Portuguese troops was mightily inflamed by the almost total cessation of their pay, and by the privations of every kind which they endured in consequence of the financial embarrassments of the regency.

Under the combined influence of all these causes, the spark which fell from the Spanish revolution could not be long of bursting into a flame. Oporto, the centre of Portuguese commerce, had naturally imbibed the greatest por

2 T

tion of the new ideas, and was the most ripe for a change. The plan of raising the standard of liberty had been secretly formed by a number of the principal officers of the army stationed there, at the head of whom was Sepulveda, a young man of birth and talents, whose father had taken a distinguished part against the French in the late revolution. On the night of the 23d August, a meeting was held, and the immediate execution of their design was resolved upon. The officers going through their respective quarters, called together the troops, and represented to them the degraded and enslaved state of the nation, as well as their own wants and privations. These evils could be remedied only by the formation of a constitutional order, such as they had seen so happily established in a sister kingdom. The soldiery, with loud cries, assented, and swore fidelity to the King, the Cortes, and the constitution. At day-break the event was first announced to the people by a general discharge of artillery; and the whole had rather the appearance of a public festival, than of a great political and military revolution.

This great event, being reported in the north of Portugal, and the fortresses along the Minho, was followed by a general declaration in favour of the new system. In the course of a short time the junta found themselves at the head of upwards of 20,000 men. Of the troops ordered by the regency to march upon Oporto, under the command of the Conde de Amarante and General Vittoria, the greater part joined the revolutionists; the rest dispersed, and sought safety within the Spanish frontier. The army of the junta, therefore, found no difficulty in advancing upon Coimbra, where it halted, hoping to attain its object, rather by the voluntary concurrence of its brethren in arms, than by the painful alternative of a civil war.

The regency now found themselves reduced to an extremity, in which only the most ample concessions could afford a hope of maintaining their ground. They issued a decree for the convocation of the Cortes, though under the ancient form of the commons, nobles, and clergy, sitting in separate houses; they undertook to solicit the King to send into Portugal a Prince_of his house; they suspended the English officers; they announced immediate steps to be taken for discharging the arrears of pay due to the troops. But these measures were taken too late, and were too evidently prompted by the impending peril, and likely to pass away along with it, to have any effect in arresting the progress of revolution. If the institutions now called for were too democratic, the old feudal Cortes was founded upon forms of political society that had wholly passed away, and could in no degree satisfy the na tional wish. Notwithstanding, there fore, all the promises and proclamations of the regency, and their attempts to under-rate the actual strength of the hostile party, the ferment in Lisbon was continually increasing, and a crisis evidently could not be far dis tant.

A peculiar circumstance was likely. to hasten the dreaded convulsion. The 15th September, as the era of the expulsion of the French from Portugal, had been ever since celebrated by a general field-day of the troops. So serious, however, did the regency consider the disposition now prevalent in the army, that they ordered this custom to be discontinued, and the soldiers to remain in their barracks. The determination, however, was already ta ken to celebrate this day by another species of deliverance. At four in the afternoon, a regiment quitted their quarters, and hastened to the great square, where they immediately began to call aloud, the "Constitution, the

King." This signal heard, all the different regiments, including the militia, were successively seen arriving on the same spot, raising similar cries, which were soon echoed by the whole population of Lisbon. Field-Marshal the Marquis de Rezende, and other high officers, were carried away by the torrent. The multitude, in their enthusiasm, called for an old popular magistrate, named "the Judge of the people," whose functions had long ceased, but whose name was still dear to them. Under his superintendance a junta was formed, and notice was given to the troops from Oporto, that their brethren in Lisbon were ready in every respect to co-operate with them. Some difference, however, arose between the two juntas, each claiming the su periority: that of Lisbon, as being formed in the capital; while that of Oporto boasted of themselves as first formed, as the authors of Spanish liberty, and as generally recognized throughout the provinces. After some discussion, the affair was adjusted by the two juntas being incorporated into one, and being appointed to proceed jointly to arrange the mode of convening the Cortes.

In this state of affairs a crisis occur red, which was the subject of some temporary alarm. Marshal Beresford, foreseeing, and hoping to avert the present storm, had some time ago sail ed for Brazil, to represent to the King the necessity of taking measures to satisfy the soldiers and people. It was now announced, that he was returned, and in the river, bringing money for the pay of the troops, and ample power to introduce such reforms into the government as might still the national discontent. He was invested particularly with the unlimited military command, under the title of Marquis of Campo Mayor. His vessel, the Vengeur, commanded by Captain Maitland, anchored opposite to the palace

of La Junqueria. The junta, alarmed by this intelligence, which already produced some symptoms of counter-revolution, sent immediate notice to Lord Beresford, that such a change had now taken place, as rendered his assumption of the powers thus delegated entirely out of the question, and that he had no alternative but to proceed directly to England. The Marshal employed successively threats and conci liation; he at length solicited merely permission to land for the adjustment of his private affairs. Every overture being rejected, he finally urged, that as Captain Maitland was under orders to proceed to the Mediterranean, he was left without any means of conveyance to England. The junta replied, that if the packet-boat, which was about to sail, could not answer this purpose, they were ready to provide him with another vessel. Marshal Beresford at length determined to sail in the packet-boat, and he even paid into the hands of the junta, the sum of 106,952 piastres, which he had brought for the pay of the troops. On this transaction being brought under the view of the British government, they very prudently declined giving any opinion, and referred it entirely to the determination of the King of Portugal.

This external danger was succeeded by one arising within the bosom of the assembly itself. The difficulty was about the mode of forming the elections. The Oporto members wished them to take place on the popular model adopted in Spain; while the Lisbon part of the junta preferred the mode used in chusing the ancient Cortes.

The former opinion, being supported by the troops and people, prevailed; and decrees were issued to conduct the elections on the Spanish model, at the rate of one deputy to 30,000 inhabitants. The electoral assemblies were to be held on the 26th Novem