Ferdinand had returned from captivity with the belief in which he had been trained up, that by right of birth, and by the laws and customs of his country, he was an absolute King; and in this the great majority of the nation entirely agreed with him. But he had been accustomed to yield to circumstances which he could not control, feeling in himself neither the wish nor the strength to struggle against them; and had the general opinion been in favour of the new constitution, he would have submitted to it, as he had to his detention at Valençay, if with no better will, with the same apparent contentment, and the same convenient insensibility. Certain it is that he had no intention of overthrowing it when he arrived at Zaragoza:... “there are many parts of it,” said he, “which I do not approve; but if any opposition on my part were likely to cause the shedding of one drop of Spanish blood, I would swear to it immediately.” He soon found that this was not the national wish; that the people cared for the constitution as little as they understood it, that they execrated the Liberales, and hated the Cortes for their ♦Impolitic measures of the Cortes.♦ sake. That assembly, indeed, had acted toward all classes with such strange impolicy as to offend or injure all. The nobles, though the constitution gave them not that weight in the political scale, without which there can be no well-balanced monarchy, might nevertheless have submitted to it without repugnance, because they possessed no authority as an order under the old government: but their property had been attacked; and a sweeping decree had abolished those feudal rights and customs from which a large portion of their hereditary revenues was derived. The clergy might have acquiesced in the suppression of the Inquisition, if they had not been required to proclaim the triumph of the Liberales, ... a triumph whereby nothing was gained for toleration, death being still the punishment for any one who should dare dissent from the Roman Catholic faith. The monasteries might have been quietly reduced, as Pombal had begun to reduce them, without wrong to the existing communities, and without offence to the feelings or prejudices of the nation, simply by forbidding the admittance of new members: by suppressing them the Cortes not only made the monks and friars their enemies, but the people also, among whom the revenues of the former were expended, and over whom the latter exercised far greater influence than either the gospel or the laws. This measure, indeed, would have been impolitic, even if the whole expected profit to the treasury had accrued from it; but as a measure of finance it was worse than a failure. Purchasers could not be found for church property thus confiscated, in a country where the people revolted at this species of sacrilege; the estates, therefore, were administered for the government; and what with the excuses and opportunities which were afforded for mal-administration and peculation, it was generally found that the costs of management consumed the whole proceeds; whereas a regular impost might always have been levied upon the former possessors. The necessity of raising money to support the war was the plea for this suppression; yet the pay of the armies was always greatly in arrear; and it has been seen how much they suffered for want of proper clothing and of sufficient food: such evils are always imputed to the government under which they exist; and as the Cortes had, in fact, assumed the government, the Cortes were as unpopular with the soldiers as with the great body of the people. Nothing but the army could support them if the King should refuse to take upon himself the yoke which they had prepared for him; yet such was the infatuation of the Liberales, that one of their most influential members said the liberties of the country could never be safe if there were even four paid soldiers and a corporal in it; and another described the army as composed of privileged mercenaries and hired assassins.

Yet this party courted popularity; and while they declaimed in the hall of the Cortes fancied that they enjoyed it. The galleries were filled with their admirers; and they had active partizans who could at any time raise tumult enough out of doors to carry violent measures by intimidation. The Serviles, as they contemptuously called those who disapproved the new constitution, either wholly or in any of its parts, were kept silent, some by prudence, others by this system of terror. ♦Feb. 3.♦ One deputy ventured to say that Ferdinand, as soon as he arrived, ought to be acknowledged as being born to all the rights and privileges of an absolute King, and that the constitution ought therefore to be annulled. The indignation of the Liberales burst forth at this, and of the galleries also, for the persons who attended there had always a potential voice; the president thought it prudent to close the doors, lest the liberal mob should be brought in to take summary vengeance upon the indiscreet member: a vote for expelling him was passed, and orders given for commencing a process against him, upon a law passed in the preceding ♦Aug. 18, 1813.♦ summer, by which any person who should affirm, either by word of mouth or by writing, that the constitution ought not to be observed, was to be punished with perpetual banishment, and the deprivation of all offices, pay, and honours. Another law had been passed, on the same day, declaring, that whoever should conspire to establish any other religion in Spain than the Catholic-Apostolic-Roman religion, or to make the Spanish nation cease to profess it, should be prosecuted as a traitor, and suffer death, the established law concerning offences against the faith remaining in full force. It was only by thus consenting to the persecution of religious opinions that the Liberales could make the Serviles concur in a law which gave them authority to persecute for political ones!

“Happy,” said a journalist who spoke the sentiments of the ruling party, “happy will be the day when Ferdinand, having been restored to his faithful subjects, may be thus addressed: Here is your throne, preserved by the loyalty of your subjects; here is your crown, repurchased for you by the blood of Spaniards; here is your sceptre, which Spanish constancy replaces in your hands; here is your royal robe, purpled with the blood of thousands who have fallen that you might wear it! Peruse our history; inform yourself of all that the Spaniards have done for you, and never forget that to the Spanish people you owe everything. Never forget that you are come to be the chief of a nation, the monarch of subjects who have abolished the vestiges of despotism! It is the law which orders; ... the King is the executive magistrate.... But, that such a day of jubilee may arrive, King Ferdinand must return absolutely free, neither influenced by the tyrant of France, nor by Spaniards who are ignorant of the state of Spain, or who regard our institutions with dislike.” This was written before the overthrow of Buonaparte, and before Ferdinand’s enlargement, and perhaps before the Liberales themselves apprehended the consequence in which their own rashness must inevitably involve them. Indifferent spectators saw clearly that either the constitution must be modified, or that the King would make himself absolute again: and even now, if the Liberales had not been possessed with an overweening opinion of their own strength, such a modification might have been effected as would have given the Spaniards all the liberty which they were willing to receive, and, indeed, all the political freedom which those who had the sincerest wish for their improvement and their prosperity could have desired for them. But when the last communication from Valençay was read in the Cortes, conciliatory as it was intended to be, and satisfactory as it ought to have been deemed, one member took a sudden exception to the word subjects: “We are not subjects!” he exclaimed. And another member, expressing his assent to the absurd exception, said, that the Spanish people were subjects of the law alone; but that the use of a word which he erroneously represented as being peculiar to the ancient despotism was accounted for by Ferdinand’s long imprisonment, and his consequent ignorance of the new political phraseology of Spain! Meantime the most preposterous projects were started by those who saw that such language and such opinions were likely to occasion a struggle, and who saw no farther. Some were for assembling an army to defend the Cortes against the King; others were for setting him aside, and appointing his brother, the Infante Don Carlos, to reign in his stead: and it is said that there was a party in the Cortes who dreamed of offering the crown to Lord Wellington!

Some of the Guerrilla chiefs are said at this time to have tendered their services to the Cortes; and this is rendered probable by their subsequent conduct. The Cortes is supposed to have reckoned, also, upon Lacy’s attachment to the constitution; but the enthusiasm with which Ferdinand was received by the troops might have shown them how little they could expect from any declarations of the military in their favour. When it was expected that he would proceed from Barcelona to Valencia, Elio, with the double purpose of rendering most honour to the King and affording most gratification to the soldiers, proposed a truce to General Robert, in order that the troops employed in the blockade of Tortosa might join ♦April.♦ their comrades, who were assembled at Amposta, to receive him on his way. When Ferdinand apprized them that he had changed his route, he assigned as a reason his desire of viewing the ruins of Zaragoza, and showing a mark of respect to that faithful city. But the season of festivity at Valencia was rather prolonged than retarded by this deviation; for the Infante Don Antonio proceeded immediately thither, and his arrival kept the inhabitants in a jubilant state till the King himself arrived. Ferdinand may have intended to gain time by this delay for making himself acquainted with the real state of public opinion; but the visit was probably suggested by Palafox, without any such view: he knew that it would be creditable to the King’s feelings, and honourable to the Zaragozans; and what could be so gratifying to himself as to return under such circumstances to Zaragoza, where, with a devoted heroism which had never been surpassed, he had performed his duty to the uttermost, and won for himself a glorious name not to be stained by calumny, and not to be obscured by lapse of ages, while any remembrance of these times shall endure.

After tarrying some twelve days at Zaragoza, Ferdinand set out for Valencia. On the way he was met by his uncle, Cardinal Bourbon, whom, as President of the Regency, the Cortes had sent to meet the King, but with a strict injunction that he was not to kiss the King’s hand, because they deemed any such mark of homage inconsistent with their dignity. Ferdinand had been apprized of this; and, as a first and easy trial of his strength, when the Cardinal accosted him, he presented his hand, and commanded him to kiss it. The old prelate, who had weakly promised to obey the orders of the Cortes, which in his heart he disapproved, obeyed the King with better will than grace, after he had shown a wish to avoid the ceremony; but Ferdinand, having thus humbled him, turned his back upon him in displeasure, and presently deprived him of his archbishopric.

The objection to the word subjects might have been imputed to the folly of the individuals who started and supported it; ... but this refusal of a ceremony which was as old as the monarchy itself, was the act of the Cortes as a body, and might well be considered as one more proof that they, who had so preposterously assumed the title of Majesty for themselves, were resolved to leave the sovereign little but his bare title. But Ferdinand had seen the disposition of the people at Zaragoza; he had seen that all classes heartily united in reprobating the measures of the Cortes, and that the re-establishment of the Inquisition was one of the blessings which they expected from his return The disposition of the ♦Elio meets the King. April 15.♦ army was distinctly declared by Elio, who met him at Jaquesa, on the frontiers of Aragon and Valencia, and addressed him in the name of the second army, that army, he said, which had shed most blood, and made most sacrifices for the deliverance of their country and their King. “Your Majesty,” said he, “arrived in a happy hour to occupy the throne of your fathers; and the God of Hosts, who by such strange and wonderful ways has brought your Majesty hither to restore the monarchy of the Spains, which Nature has given you, may He give you all the strength of mind and body that are required for governing it worthily: then, Sire, you will not forget the armies which have deserved so well, those armies who, having moistened with their blood the land which they have delivered, find themselves at this day in want, neglected, and what is worse, outraged; but they trust that you, Sire, will do them justice!” Elio then offered to resign his General’s staff; and upon Ferdinand’s declining to receive it, and saying it was well placed in his hand, the General, with ready adulation, said, “Take it, Sire, ... let your Majesty grasp it but for a moment, and in that moment it will acquire new worth, new strength!” The King took the staff accordingly, and instantly returned it. Elio then requested permission to kiss his royal hand, and in a short but studied speech, which concluded this ominous scene, he pledged himself that 40,000 strong right arms should be as they had been in the worst of times, the support of his throne.

Ferdinand entered Valencia on the following evening, drawn into the city as he had been into every place upon the road by the joyous people who yoked themselves to his carriage, and who testified by every possible expression of word and deed their desire of taking the old yoke upon themselves and upon their children. An English traveller, who had the good fortune to be present on this memorable day, describes their enthusiasm as bordering upon madness; he had seen before the King’s deliverance the extreme unpopularity of the Cortes throughout Spain, but the feeling which was now manifested surprised him by its intensity and its eagerness, and by the sudden conversion of those who but a few days before professed fidelity to the new constitution; those very persons were now ready to shed their blood in Ferdinand’s cause, that he might be restored, they said, to the full enjoyment of all the rights which his fathers had possessed. “Long live the Absolute King!” was the cry, “and down with the Constitution!”

On the morrow the King went on foot to the cathedral, to be present at a thanksgiving service for his restoration. The streets were lined with soldiers; the colours of the crown regiment were lowered as he passed, so as to be spread before him, that he might see they were stained with blood; and Elio, who had prepared this scene, said, “I have detained you for a sight worthy of you! The stains which you see upon this flag are of the blood of the officer who now holds it, and who, when covered with wounds, saved it from the enemy at Castalla. The crown which this blood has dyed seems to say that the blood which the loyal Spanish army has shed is that which has recovered for you your crown; and the blood which remains in all the Spanish armies they are ready to shed for securing you upon the throne in the plenitude of those rights which Nature has made your portion!” Ferdinand could not have performed his part better at that moment if he had studied it; he stooped and kissed the flag, and announced to the standard-bearer, who had before received no promotion for his services, that he was now promoted. In the afternoon, after the officers had been presented and had kissed hands, Elio, in their name and presence, renewed for the army under his command the oath which the whole loyal Spanish nation had taken in the year 1808, when Ferdinand was acknowledged King: the constitution was not mentioned in his address, nor the Cortes; “this oath,” said he, “they renew by me as their organ upon your royal hand (and he knelt and kissed the hand at this part of his speech), and they promise your Majesty that at the price of their blood they will preserve the throne for you with all those rights to which the heroic Spanish ♦The officers swear fidelity to him.♦ nation at that time swore.” Turning then to the officers, he asked whether these were the sentiments which animated them? He was answered by a general acclamation of assent: many of them burst into tears in the strength of their emotion, and some cries were heard of death to those who did not hold such sentiments, and would not maintain them! The time came when General Elio paid with his own life’s blood for this and other services to the absolute cause.

He was indeed an evil counsellor now, acting honestly and bravely, but upon an erring judgment. Unhappily there never was a time in which wise counsel was more needed; for if the blind, unreflecting, generous loyalty of the nation had been rightly estimated, so as to call forth a generous but thoughtful feeling in return, it would be rash and presumptuous to say that things might have been settled upon a sure foundation, but certainly much evil might have been averted, much wickedness might have been prevented, and blood, and tears, and misery, might have been spared. General Whittingham, who commanded the cavalry and artillery in Aragon when the King arrived at Zaragoza, and who accompanied him by his express orders to Valencia, was ♦General Whittingham’s advice.♦ asked in that city his opinion whether the King should swear to the constitution or not? He replied, that the constitution was too democratic to be in accord either with the habits and opinions of the Spanish people, or with the laws and customs of the Spanish monarchy; it must be modified therefore in many parts, or there could be no hope of its duration. Yet one of its articles forbade the slightest alteration during the space of eight years; and thus the King, if he swore to it, must either deprive himself of all possibility of amending it during that time, or be guilty of predetermined perjury. He delivered it therefore as his opinion, that the King under these circumstances could not swear to the constitution as it then existed; but, he added, that the Cortes had deserved well both of the King and of the country; that the King, unaccompanied by a single soldier, should in person dissolve the Cortes, should thank them for the service they had rendered the state, and say that it would gratify him to see them re-elected by their constituents as members of the Cortes which he was about to summon.

The British ambassador, Sir Henry Wellesley, had gone to Valencia to meet the King, and the advice which he gave was to the same effect, that he should modify the constitution, but not annul it. This indeed was the opinion which any Englishman who regarded the situation of Spain with a sincere wish for the peace and prosperity and improvement of a great and noble nation would then have formed; for this was the straightforward course which at that golden opportunity it behoved the King to take. But there were few Spaniards who saw this, few who were in a state of sufficient equanimity to see it: inflamed by strong passions, or settled in strong prepossessions which no force of reason, no lessons of experience could shake, a small minority were bent upon violent change, a much more powerful and now more active party were resolved to resist all alteration, even such as was most needed; while the great majority of the people, looking back upon the tranquillity they had enjoyed before the war as to a golden age, desired nothing but to return to their old habits and their old pursuits, and relapse into their former state of happy indifference to all political affairs. The care of the nation they were for leaving to the government, the care of religion to the Holy Office, and the care of their individual consciences to the priest, as implicitly as they relied on Providence for the due return of the seasons; and it was with these, who were the great body of his subjects, that Ferdinand, who would have been just such a subject himself, was in perfect sympathy. It is often seen that circumstances awaken dormant genius, and bring latent qualities into strong action: but no circumstances can raise an ordinary man to the level of extraordinary times, no circumstances can give strength to a weak mind; nor can anything but the special grace of God call forth in the heart a virtue which is not innate in it.

The Cortes at this time repeated their solicitations that the King would proceed to Madrid, and establish the happiness of Spain; but they made a show of military preparations to support their own authority; and they took upon themselves, with singular indiscretion, to regulate the establishment of his household. But every day ♦Memorial of the Serviles.♦ now diminished their numbers as well as their strength; and more than seventy of the members sent a deputation to Valencia to present a memorial, in which they protested against the measures of the Cortes as having been carried by force and intimidation, and professed for themselves, and for the provinces which they represented, fidelity to their ancient laws and institutions. Beyond all doubt they spoke the sense of ♦Stone of the Constitution removed.♦ the provinces. In most of the large towns, the Plaza Mayor, or Great Square, had been new named Plaza de la Constitucion, and a stone with these words engraven on it erected there; at Valencia this was removed one night, and in the morning what is absurdly called a provisional stone of wood, was set up in its place, with the words Real Plaza de Fernando VII.: this was publicly done; and the provisional stone was first borne under Ferdinand’s window with military honours, in a long procession formed by the populace, with officers intermixed, carrying drawn swords, and bearing the royal flag. A stanza, composed10 and printed for the occasion, was soon affixed to it, denouncing, in a ferocious spirit, vengeance upon any one who should profane it, and upon the liberal party.

The news of Buonaparte’s deposition, and the consequent termination of hostilities, reached Ferdinand during his tarriance at Valencia. Any perplexity which he might have felt (if he could be supposed to have felt any) concerning the treaty of Valençay was thus removed, and there was nothing to withdraw his attention from the immediate object of resuming his absolute authority, and suppressing what he now regarded as a mere revolutionary faction. He was delayed a week by indisposition, which confined him to his apartment. The first thing he did, when he was sufficiently recovered to leave the house, was to visit all the nunneries, that the nuns might not be disappointed in their ardent desire of seeing him; and in these visits part of two days was employed much to the increase of his popularity, this being at the same time an evidence, it was thought, of good-nature, and of devout respect to the superstition of the country. When ♦Breve Relacion de los sucesos en Valencia.♦ these visits were concluded, he attended an evening Te Deum in the cathedral, performed by the light of 20,000 tapers; after which he and the Infantes adored a chalice of legendary reputation which is venerated there. Hitherto there had been no avowal of the course which he intended to pursue; but on this day a declaration appeared, signed ♦Ferdinand’s declaration. May 4.♦ by the King and by Macanaz, as Secretary of State, with special powers for this peculiar occasion. In this memorable paper, Ferdinand, speaking in his own person, began by briefly touching upon his accession to the throne, and his imprisonment, at the commencement of which he had issued, he said, as well as he could, while surrounded by force, a decree addressed to the Council of Castille, or, in defect of it, to any other chancellery or audience that might be at liberty, requiring them to convoke a Cortes which should employ itself solely on the immediate business of taking measures and raising supplies for the defence of the kingdom, and remain permanent for other emergencies. This decree had arrived too late; and when the Cortes of 1810 was assembled, the states of the nobility and clergy were not summoned to it, although the Central Junta had so directed; and the members, after taking the oaths, “whereby,” said he, “they bound themselves to preserve to me, as their sovereign, all my dominions, on the very day of their installation, and for a commencement of their proceedings, despoiled me of the sovereignty which they had just before acknowledged, attributing it nominally to the nation, for the purpose of appropriating it to themselves, and then dictating what laws they pleased. Thus, without authority from province, place, or junta, and without the knowledge of those which were said to be represented by substitute members, they imposed upon the nation the yoke of a new constitution, wherein almost the whole form of the old constitution of the monarchy was changed; and, copying the revolutionary and democratical principles of the French constitution of 1791, they sanctioned ... not the fundamental laws of a moderate monarchy, ... but those of a popular government, with a chief or magistrate, their mere delegated executor, and not a King, although they gave him that name to deceive and seduce the unwary. They carried these laws by means of the threats and violence of those persons with whom the galleries of the Cortes were filled; giving thus the colour of the general will to what was in fact only the work of a faction. With the same want of liberty, the constitution was signed and sworn to; and it was notorious to all what had been the treatment of the respectable Bishop of Orense, and the punishment with which others had been threatened who refused to sign and swear to it.”

He proceeded then to say in what manner revolutionary principles had been diffused in journals, some of which were edited by members of the Cortes; that king, and tyrant, and despot had been used as synonymous terms; that the army and navy and other establishments which used to be called royal, had been re-named national, in order to flatter the people, who, nevertheless, in spite of these arts, retained by their native loyalty the good feelings which always formed their character. “Of all this,” he continued, “since I happily re-entered the kingdom, I have been acquiring faithful information, partly by my own observation, and partly from the public papers, in which, up to this day, representations of my coming and of my character are circulated, so false and infamous in themselves, that even with regard to any other individual they would be heavy offences, worthy of severe exposure and punishment. Such unexpected circumstances have filled my heart with bitterness, which has only been tempered by demonstrations of affection from all those who hoped for my arrival, that my presence might put an end to these evils, and to the oppression in which those were held who preserved the remembrance of my person, and desired the true happiness of their country. True and loyal Spaniards, I promise and vow to you that you shall not be deceived in your noble hopes! Your sovereign wishes to be so for your sake; and in this he places his glory, ... in being the sovereign of an heroic nation, who by immortal deeds have gained the admiration of all, and preserved their liberty and their honour. I abhor and detest despotism: the intelligence and cultivation of the nations of Europe do not suffer it now; neither in Spain have its Kings ever been despots, nor have its good laws and constitution authorized it, though by misfortune there may have been from time to time there, as every where, and in every thing human, abuses which no possible constitution can entirely preclude; and these were not the faults of the constitution, but of individuals, and the effects of melancholy but very rare circumstances which gave occasion to them. Yet to prevent them as far as may be by human foresight, preserving the honour of the royal dignity and its rights (for rights it has) and those which belong to the people, which are equally inviolable, I will consult with the procuradores of Spain and of the Indies, and in a Cortes, legitimately assembled, composed of both, as soon as they can be brought together, (order having been restored, and the good usages in which the nation has lived, and which with its accord the Kings, my august predecessors, have established,) every thing that can conduce to the good of my kingdom shall be firmly and legitimately established, that my subjects may live prosperously and happily under a religion and a government closely united in an indissoluble tie, wherein and wherein alone consists the temporal happiness of a King and a kingdom bearing for excellence the title of Catholic. Immediate preparations shall be made for assembling these Cortes. Liberty and security, individual and royal, shall be firmly secured by means of laws, which, guaranteeing public tranquillity and order, shall leave to all that wholesome liberty, the undisturbed enjoyment of which distinguishes a moderate government from an arbitrary and despotic one. This just liberty all, likewise, shall enjoy to communicate their ideas and thoughts through the press, that is, within those limits which sound reason prescribes to all, that it degenerate not into licentiousness; for the respect which is due to religion and to government, and that which men ought mutually to observe towards each other, can under no civilized government be reasonably permitted to be violated with impunity. All suspicion, also, of any waste of the public revenues shall cease; those which shall be assigned for the expenses required for the honour of my royal person and family, and that of the nation which I have the glory to govern being separated from the revenues, which, with consent of the kingdom, may be assigned for the maintenance of the state in all the branches of its administration. And the laws which shall hereafter serve as a rule of action for my subjects shall be established in concert with the Cortes; so that these bases may serve as an authentic declaration of my royal intentions in the government with which I am about to be charged, and will represent to all, not a despot or a tyrant, but a King and a father of his subjects.”

He went on to say, that having heard complaints from all parts against the constitution, and against the measures of the Cortes, ... considering also the mischiefs which had sprung therefrom, and would increase if he should sanction that constitution with his consent, ... acting, moreover, in conformity to the decided and general demonstration of the wishes of his people, wishes which were just in themselves and well founded, he declared that he would not swear to the Cortes, but that he annulled it, and abrogated all such of its acts as derogated from the rights and prerogatives of his sovereignty established by that constitution and those laws under which the nation had so long lived. And he declared all persons guilty of high treason who should attempt to support them, and to excite discontent and disturbance in his dominions, whether by writing, word, or deed. The administration was to go on under the present system till the old one could be restored; and the political and administrative branches till the future Cortes should have determined upon the permanent order of this part of the government. But from the day on which this his decree should be published and communicated to the President of the Cortes, the sittings of that Cortes should cease; all their papers should be delivered to the officers charged with the execution of this decree, and deposited in the house of the Ayuntamiento of Madrid, and the room in which they were deposited be locked and sealed up; and whoever should obstruct the execution of the decree, should be deemed guilty of high treason, and punished with death. All proceedings pending for any infraction of the constitution were to cease; and all persons imprisoned for such infraction to be set at liberty forthwith. “Such,” the King concluded, “is my will, because the welfare and happiness of the nation require it.”

By another decree of the same date, Ferdinand conferred upon the capital, in testimony of his esteem and gratitude, and in earnest of some more signal favour, the privilege of adding to its appellation of the “right noble, loyal, and imperial town of Madrid,” that of “heroic” also; and upon its Ayuntamiento the title of “excellency.” In this decree, also, he ordered a hundred doubloons to be distributed in each of the parishes of Madrid, on the day when he should make his entrance; and he regretted that circumstances did not allow him to give greater proofs of his natural bounty. ♦Ferdinand sets out for Madrid. May 5.♦ On the following day he departed for Madrid. Such were the multitudes who came from far and near to obtain a sight of their King, that one continued concourse of people lined the whole way from Valencia. Every village devised some means of displaying its loyalty; some by erecting triumphal arches, such as their abilities could afford; others by strewing the road with branches and flowers for miles together. The Cortes, as he approached, could no longer dream of resistance; the decree which abrogated their constitution and put an end to their authority was posted in the streets of Madrid, countersigned by General Eguia, as Captain-General of New Castille, and Political and Military Governor of the Province, now by the King appointed; and deputations from its Audience and its Ayuntamiento went to meet him at Aranjuez, where he halted two days, and where the rejoicing of the inhabitants, and the illuminations which they exhibited, and the confluence of visitors, contrasted strangely with the devastation that the French had committed there; for they had stripped the gardens of every thing which could be carried away, and had destroyed or mutilated the statues and the fountains.

Such members of the Cortes as were marked for the King’s displeasure were arrested on the night before his arrival by General Eguia. On the 13th Eguia went out with the grandees in procession, habited in the ancient costume, to meet him. The Majorcan division lined the Prado, from the Puerta de Atocha, at which he entered, and the Calle de Alcala to the Puerta del Sol, ... not to overawe the people (for a corporal and four soldiers might have repressed any discontent that appeared that day), but to increase the pomp and splendour of the festival. In the highest part of the Calle de Alcala, ... and no scene could be better suited to such a pageant, ... a triumphal arch had been erected, as imposing in appearance as if it had been of durable materials. The balconies were hung with silk of various colours, fringed with gold and silver; and Ferdinand made his entrance amid the salute of cannon, and the sound of bells from all the churches, and the shouts and acclamations of an innumerable multitude rising above all. Their invaders had been totally defeated and expelled; their strong places were recovered; their national independence had been gloriously vindicated and established; the tyrant who had deceived, and outraged, and insulted them, had been beaten from his throne; the Intruder whom he had set over them had been hunted out of their land; their King, ... their legitimate, their popular, their beloved King was restored! Greater joy could not have been expressed, greater happiness could not have been felt, if that King had been in all respects deserving of the generous enthusiasm which was that day manifested for his sake.

If Ferdinand had now performed the promises which were distinctly made in his declaration, he might have averted much, if not all, of the subsequent danger which he incurred, and the just reproaches which will be attached to his name in history. It ought not to be said that in making those promises he had no intention of fulfilling them; for though he scrupled at no dissimulation when under duresse, they were voluntary in this case, and the temper of the nation, then unequivocally declared, was such, that no purpose was to be gained by it. Ferdinand was a person of narrow mind, and his heart seems to have been incapable of generous feeling; but he was not a wicked man, nor would he have been a bad King if he had met with wise ministers, and had ruled over an enlightened people. On the two important subjects of civil and religious freedom he and the great body of the nation were in perfect sympathy, ... both, upon both subjects, imbued with error to the core; and the popular feeling in both cases outran his. The word Liberty (Libertad) appeared in large bronze letters over the entrance of the Hall of the Cortes in Madrid. The people of their own impulse hurried thither to remove it; they set up ladders, forced out letter by letter from the stone, and as each was thrown into the street the spectators renewed their shouts of exultation. They collected as many of the journals of the Cortes, and of the papers and pamphlets of the Liberales, as could be got together; formed a procession in which the religious fraternities, and the clergy regular and secular, took the lead; piled up these papers in one of the public squares, and sacrificed them there as a political auto-da-fé, after which high mass was performed and Te Deum sung, as a thanksgiving for their triumph. The Stone of the Constitution, as it was called, was everywhere removed, and replaced as it had been at Valencia. The people at Seville deposed all the existing authorities, elected others in their stead to all the offices which had existed under the old system, and then required those authorities to re-establish the Inquisition. In re-establishing that accursed tribunal by a formal act of government, in suppressing the freedom of the press, which had been abused to its own destruction, and in continuing to govern not merely as an absolute monarch, but as a despotic one, Ferdinand undoubtedly complied with the wishes of the Spanish nation. He did these things conformably to his own misguided conscience and weak judgment, as well as to his inclinations; and for so doing he was, by the voice of the people, a patriotic and popular King. In all this he cannot justly be charged with anything worse than error of judgment; fearfully injurious indeed in its consequences, but in the individual to be pitied as well as pardoned. But, in his treatment of the more conspicuous persons among the Liberales, whom he condemned to strict and long imprisonment, many of them for life, he brought upon himself an indelible reproach, and incurred the guilt of individual sin. Quintana, who, more than any other person, contributed by his eloquent writings to excite and sustain the national spirit, and awaken the sympathy of other nations, was one of the victims thus sentenced, and his life is said to have been not the only one which was shortened by severe confinement.

But the peninsular war concludes with the return of Ferdinand to Madrid; and its history may best be concluded with the return to his own country of the General by whom it was brought to this triumphant termination. A dukedom was conferred upon Lord Wellington, £300,000 were voted by Parliament for the purchase of an estate suitable to the dignity, and such an additional grant of income as made up the annual amount of his parliamentary allowances to £17,000. ♦He takes his seat in the House of Lords. June 28.♦ He had not been in England since he was raised to the peerage; and thus it happened, that when he was introduced into the House of Lords to take his seat, his patents of creation as Baron, Earl, Marquis, and Duke were all to be read on the same day. No ceremony of honour was omitted on this occasion: the Duchess his wife, and his mother, the Countess of Mornington, were present to behold it, being seated below the throne. After the oaths had been administered, and he had taken his seat, the Lord Chancellor ♦The Lord Chancellor’s speech.♦ Eldon addressed him for the purpose of conveying the thanks of the House, which had been voted to him on the preceding evening, for the twelfth time. In performing this duty, Lord Eldon said, he could not refrain from calling the attention of his Grace, and of the noble Lords present, to a circumstance singular in the history of that House, ... that upon his introduction he had gone through every dignity of the peerage in this country which it was in the power of the crown to bestow. These dignities had been conferred upon him for eminent and distinguished services; and he would not have the presumption to attempt to state the nature of those services, nor to recapitulate those brilliant acts which had given immortality to the name of Wellington, and placed this empire on a height of military renown of which there was no example in its history. He could not better discharge the duty which had devolved upon him than by recurring to the terms in which that House had so often expressed their sense of the energy, the unremitting exertions, the ardour, and the ability with which the noble Duke had conducted the arduous campaigns of the Peninsula, ... exertions and ability which finally enabled him to place the allied armies in the heart of France, fighting their way there through the blaze of victory. The glorious result of his victories had been to achieve the peace and security of his country; while, by his example, he had animated the rest of Europe, and enabled her governments to restore their ancient order. The Lord Chancellor then expressed his own satisfaction in being the instrument of informing the Duke that the House unanimously voted their thanks for his eminent and unremitted services, and their congratulations upon his return to his country.

The House of Commons in voting their thanks had voted also that a committee of the House should wait upon his Grace to communicate the same, and to offer him their congratulations on his return. The Duke in reply signified that he was desirous of expressing to the House his answer in person. He was admitted in consequence the following day; a chair was set for him toward the middle of the House: he came in making his obeisances, ♦July 1.He returns thanks to the House.♦ the whole House rising upon his entrance. The Speaker having informed him that there was a chair in which he might repose himself, the Duke sat down, covered for some time, the serjeant standing on his right hand with the mace grounded, and the House resumed their seats. The Duke then rose and uncovered, and addressed the Speaker thus: “I was anxious to be permitted to attend this House in order to return my thanks in person for the honour they have done me in deputing a committee of members to congratulate me on my return to this country; and this after the House had animated my exertions by their applause upon every occasion which appeared to merit their approbation; and after they had filled up the measure of their favours by conferring upon me, at the recommendation of the Prince Regent, the noblest gift that any subject had ever received.

“I hope it will not be deemed presumptuous in me to take this opportunity of expressing my admiration of the great efforts made by this House and by the country, at a moment of unexampled pressure and difficulty, in order to support the great scale of operation by which the contest was brought to so fortunate a termination.

“By the wise policy of Parliament the government was enabled to give the necessary support to the operations which were carried on under my direction; and I was encouraged by the confidence reposed in me by his Majesty’s ministers and by the Commander-in-chief, by the gracious favour of his Royal Highness the Prince Regent, and by the reliance which I had on the support of my gallant friends the general officers of the army, and on the bravery of the officers and troops, to carry on the operations in such a manner as to acquire for me those marks of the approbation of this House, for which I have now the honour to make my humble acknowledgments. Sir, it is impossible for me to express the gratitude which I feel; I can only assure the House that I shall always be ready to serve his Majesty in any capacity in which my services can be deemed useful, with the same zeal for my country which has already acquired for me the approbation of this House.”

Mr. Abbot, the Speaker, who had sat covered during this speech, then stood up uncovered, and replied to his Grace in these words: “My Lord, since last I had the honour of addressing you from this place, a series of eventful years has elapsed, but none without some mark and note of your rising glory.

“The military triumphs which your valour has achieved upon the banks of the Douro and the Tagus, of the Ebro and the Garonne, have called forth the spontaneous shouts of admiring nations. Those triumphs it is needless at this day to recount. Their names have been written by your conquering sword in the annals of Europe, and we shall hand them down with exultation to our children’s children.

“It is not, however, the grandeur of military success which has alone fixed our admiration, or commanded our applause; it has been that generous and lofty spirit which inspired your troops with unbounded confidence, and taught them to know that the day of battle was always a day of victory; that moral courage and enduring fortitude which, in perilous times, when gloom and doubt had beset ordinary minds, stood nevertheless unshaken; and that ascendency of character which, uniting the energies of jealous and rival nations, enabled you to wield at will the fates and fortunes of mighty empires.

“For the repeated thanks and grants bestowed upon you by this House, in gratitude for your many and eminent services, you have thought fit this day to offer us your acknowledgments: but this nation well knows that it is still largely your debtor; it owes to you the proud satisfaction, that amidst the constellation of great and illustrious warriors who have recently visited our country, we could present to them a leader of our own, to whom all, by common acclamation, conceded the pre-eminence. And when the will of Heaven, and the common destinies of our nature, shall have swept away the present generation, you will have left your great name and example as an imperishable monument, exciting others to like deeds of glory, and serving at once to adorn, defend, and perpetuate the existence of this country amongst the ruling nations of the earth.”

With these honours was the Duke of Wellington received, and such honours were never more fully deserved. Since the peace of Utrecht, in which the interests of Europe were sacrificed by that party-spirit which is the reproach of England, our military reputation had declined. The American war contributed to lower us in the estimation of our neighbours; for though the courage of our men was never found wanting in the day of trial, the circumstances of that contest were such that, after the first season for vigorous measures was gone by, success became morally impossible. This was not taken into the account. The war ended to our loss; and the disgrace which should exclusively have attached to our councils affected our arms also. When the Duke of York was made commander-in-chief, our military establishments were in a wretched state; boys held commissions literally before they were out of leading-strings; there was not a single institution in Great Britain wherein tactics were taught; and it was in France that young Arthur Wellesley learned the elements of war! The Duke of York soon began a silent and efficient reform; abuse after abuse was removed, defect after defect supplied; but these improvements were known only to persons connected with the army; and its military character suffered materially in the revolutionary war from causes which are neither imputable to the commander, nor to the soldiers under him: for then also, as in the American war, they were placed in circumstances which rendered success impossible. The evil, however, was done. The enemy insulted us; the continental nations were persuaded that we were not a military people; and we, contenting ourselves with our acknowledged maritime supremacy, were but too ready to assent to an opinion which in its consequences must have operated as a death-sentence upon national honour, national power, and national independence. It is not too much to say that our army would have sunk into contempt, if the expedition to Egypt had not thrown some splendour over the close of a most ill-fated and ill-conducted war. But the effect which that expedition produced upon public feeling soon passed away; and the French convinced themselves that our success had been owing to the incapacity of their commander, the disputes among their generals, and the universal desire of their troops to escape from Egypt, ... any cause rather than the true one. A second war broke out; and while the enemy obtained the most signal victories, we had only the solitary battle of Maida to boast, which was upon so small a scale, and so nugatory in its consequences, that the continent never heard of it, though our disgrace at Buenos Ayres was known everywhere.

Meantime the French had persuaded Europe as well as themselves that Buonaparte was the greatest military genius of ancient or of modern times; that his generals were all consummate masters in the art of war; and that his troops were, in every respect, the best in the world. This opinion was more than ever prevalent when Sir Arthur Wellesley took the command in Portugal in 1809, and began a career which, when all circumstances are considered, may truly be said to be unparalleled in military history. He entered upon that career at a time when the military reputation and the military power of France were at their greatest height; when a belief that it was impossible to resist the commanding genius and inexhaustible resources of Buonaparte had been inculcated in this country with pestilent activity, and had deeply tainted the public mind. Daily and weekly, monthly and quarterly, this poison was administered with the most mischievous perseverance in newspapers, magazines, and reviews. Never was there an opinion more injurious, more fatal to the honour, interest, safety, independence, and existence of the country; yet was it propagated by writers who were then held in the highest estimation, and they enforced it with a zeal which arrayed their passions, and seemed to array their wishes, as well as their intellect, on the enemy’s side; and with a confidence which boldly affirmed that nothing but folly or madness could presume to doubt their predictions. Suicidal as the belief was, it was the creed of that party in the state to which these writers had attached themselves; and no effort was omitted on their part for deadening the hopes, thwarting the exertions, disgusting the allies, and encouraging the enemies of their country. Our government was not influenced by such advisers; but it was long before its exertions were commensurate with the occasion; and during four years Lord Wellington was crippled by the inadequacy of his means. Yet, even when thus crippled, he contended successfully against the undivided power of France. Every operation of the British army under his command tended to give the troops and the nation fresh confidence in their general, and to impress upon the enemy a proper sense of the British character. Wherever he met the French he defeated them; whenever he found it necessary to retire for want of numbers, or of food, or of co-operation in the Spaniards, it was in such order, and so leisurely, as neither to raise the hopes of the enemy, nor abate those of his army, or of his allies. After the battle of Talavera, and the series of provoking misconduct by which the effects of that victory were frustrated, he distinctly perceived the course which the enemy would pursue, and, anticipating all their temporary advantages (which yet he omitted no occasion of opposing and impeding), he saw and determined how and where the vital struggle must be made. The foresight of a general was never more admirably displayed; and if there be one place in the Peninsula more appropriate than another for a monument to that leader whose trophies are found throughout the whole, it is in the lines of Torres Vedras that a monument to Lord Wellington should be erected. When he took his stand there, Lisbon was not the only stake of that awful contest: the fate of Europe was in suspense; and they who, like Homer, could see the balance in the hand of Jupiter, might then have perceived that the fortunes of France were found wanting in the scale. There the spell which bound the nations was broken; the plans of the tyrant were baffled, his utmost exertions when he had no other foe and no other object were defied; his armies were beaten; and Europe, taking heart when she beheld the deliverance of Portugal, began to make a movement for her own, ... for that spirit by which alone her deliverance could be effected was excited. Foresight and enterprise, meantime, with our commander went hand in hand; he never advanced, but so as to be sure of his retreat; and never retreated, but in such an attitude as to impose upon a superior enemy. He never gave an opportunity, and never lost one. His movements were so rapid as to deceive and astonish the French, who prided themselves upon their own celerity. He foiled general after general, defeated army after army, captured fortress after fortress; and, raising the military character of Great Britain to its old standard in the days of Marlborough, made the superiority of the British soldier over the Frenchman as incontestable as that of the British seaman.

The spirit of the country rose with its successes. England once more felt her strength, and remembered the part which she had borne, and the rank which she had asserted in the days of her Edwards and her Henrys. Buonaparte had bestowed upon France the name of the Sacred Territory, boasting, as one of the benefits conferred upon her by his government, that France alone remained inviolable when every other part of the continent was visited by the calamities of war. That boast was no longer to hold good! Our victories in the Peninsula prepared the deliverance of Europe, and Lord Wellington led the way into France. A large portion of his army consisted of Portugueze and Spaniards, who had every imaginable reason to hate the people among whom they went as conquerors; they had seen the most infernal cruelties perpetrated in their own country by the French soldiers; and it might have been supposed, prone as their national character was to revenge, that they would eagerly seize the opportunity for vengeance. But such was Lord Wellington’s influence over the men whom he conducted to victory, that not an outrage, not an excess, not an insult was committed; and the French, who had made war like savages in every country which they had invaded, experienced all the courtesies and humanities of generous warfare when they were invaded themselves. In Gascony, as well as in Portugal and Spain, the Duke of Wellington’s name was blessed by the people. Seldom indeed has it fallen to any conqueror to look back upon his career with such feelings! The marshal’s staff, the dukedom, the honours and rewards which his Prince and his country so munificently and properly bestowed, were neither the only nor the most valuable recompense of his labours. There was something more precious than these, more to be desired than the high and enduring fame which he had secured by his military achievements, ... the satisfaction of thinking to what end those achievements had been directed; ... that they were for the deliverance of two most injured and grievously oppressed nations; ... for the safety, honour, and welfare of his own country; ... and for the general interests of Europe and of the civilized world. His campaigns were sanctified by the cause; ... they were sullied by no cruelties, no crimes; the chariot-wheels of his triumphs have been followed by no curses; ... his laurels are entwined with the amaranths of righteousness, and upon his death-bed he might remember his victories among his good works.

This is the great and inappreciable glory of England in this portion of its history, that its war in the Peninsula was in as strict conformity with the highest principles of justice as with sound state policy. No views of aggrandizement were entertained either at its commencement or during its course, or at its termination; conquests were not looked for, commercial privileges were not required. It was a defensive, a necessary, a retributive war; engaged in as the best means of obtaining security for ourselves, but having also for its immediate object “to loose the bands of wickedness,” and to break the yoke of oppression, and “to let the oppressed go free.” And this great deliverance was brought about by England, with God’s blessing on a righteous cause. If France has not since that happy event continued to rest under a mild and constitutional monarchy, ... if Spain has relapsed into the abuses of an absolute one, ... if the Portugueze have not supported that character which they recovered during the contest, ... it has been because in all these instances there were national errors which retained their old possession, and national sins which were not repented of. But the fruits of this war will not be lost upon posterity: for in its course it has been seen that the most formidable military power which ever existed in the civilized world was overthrown by resolute perseverance in a just cause; it has been seen also that national independence depends upon national spirit, but that even that spirit in its highest and heroic degree may fail ... if wisdom to direct it be wanting. It has been seen what guilt and infamy men, who might otherwise have left an honourable name, entailed upon themselves, because, hoping to effect a just end by iniquitous means, they consented to a wicked usurpation, and upheld it by a system of merciless tyranny, sinning against their country and their own souls: this was seen in the Spanish ministers of the Intruder; and the Spanish reformers, more lamentably for Spain, but more excusably for themselves, have shown the danger of attempting to carry crude theories of government into practice; and hurrying on precipitate changes, from the consequences of which men too surely look to despotism for protection or for deliverance. These lessons have never been more memorably exemplified than in the Peninsular War; and for her own peculiar lesson, England, it may be hoped, has learnt to have ever from thenceforth a just reliance, under Providence, upon her resources and her strength; ... under Providence, I say, for if that support be disregarded, all other will be found to fail.