ment to his person, and explained the objects of the French troops, which had entered his dominions with the most friendly purposes, to assist in defending the country against the common enemy. The assembling of his guards, it was stated, was solely for the purpose of protecting his person and family, and not for accompanying him on a journey, which none but evil-minded persons could suppose to have been projected. The king closed this very extraordinary publication, with directing the people to conduct themselves as they had hitherto done towards the troops of his great and good ally.

On the following day, March 17th, when the Spanish guards were to leave Madrid, the inhabitants crowded round them, beseeching them not to abandon their native country, for the purpose of securing the flight of a prince who sacrificed his subjects to private considerations.

"Do you think," said they, "we have no more spirit than the people of Lisbon ?"

Some of the ministers themselves, who opposed the king's retreat, distributed circular notices in the neighbouring villages, informing the inhabitants of what was going forward, and of the danger to which the country would consequently be exposed.

On the 18th of March, the people poured along the road to Aranjuez. Relays for the king's car. riages had been provided on the way to Seville. The village of Aranjuez was crowded with troops; and the baggage of the court lay already packed up in the apart ments of the palace. The preceding night had been busily spent in

preparation. The residence of the prince of the peace was protected by his proper guards (for to such a point of dignity he had been exalted) with a peculiar countersign, while those of the palace had another. At four o'clock in the morning of the 19th, the people rushed in crowds to the favourite's hotel, but they were driven back by his guards, who in their turn were driven back by the king's body guards, that had ranged themselves on the side of the people. Godoy's doors were forced; the furniture was broken; the apartments were laid waste; the princess, his spouse, daughter of Don Antonio, and niece to the king of Spain, appeared on the stairs, and was conveyed by the people with all the respect due to her birth and rank, to the king's palace. The favourite himself had disappeared, and his brother Don Diego Godoy, commandant of the king's body guards, was arrested by his own troops.

Their majesties, who had not retired to rest during the night, were early in the morning visited by the French ambassador, and soon after appeared a proclamation, in which the unfortunate sovereign was made to say, that having resolved to take upon himself the command of his forces by land and sea, he had thought it proper to relieve Godoy of the duties of generalissimo, and permit him to retire to whatever place he might choose.

When this was known in Madrid, the people attacked the houses of Godoy, and of certain ministers of state attached to his party, and destroyed the furniture without opposition, on the part of either the magistrates, or the two Swiss regiments in the Spanish service, then quartered

quartered in the town. The prince of the peace was at last discovered in a garret, where he had been concealed for six and thirty hours, and committed to the closest custody in the common jail.

In the midst of these disorders the king, on the 19th of March, at Aranjuez, published a declaration, signed, as usual, by himself, stating, that on account of his constant infirmities, and of the necessity he felt of withdrawing himself from the burthen of public affairs to a private life, in a climate better adapted than that of Madrid to the state of his health; he had, after the most deliberate consideration, resolved to abdicate the crown in favour of his well beloved son and heir, the prince of Asturias. It was likewise directed, that this decree of his free and spontaneous abdication should be instantly and punctually obeyed by all his subjects. Cevallos labours to show that this abdication was, in truth, free and unconstrained. But this has very reasonably been made a question.

The first act of the new king Ferdinand VII was, to publish a manifesto, declaring his own innocence and that of his ministers, and stating the nature of the papers and cyphers found in his apartment at the Escurial, in the month of October last. Among his first acts also, was one confiscating all the property of every description, belonging to the prince of the peace.

At the same time he appointed the duke of Infantado, a wealthy and popular nobleman, of the first class, and particularly attached to the interest of the new sovereign, and of England, to the important station

of the president of the great council of Castile, the first tribunal of the kingdom. To him also he committed the command of the Spanish life guards. Many salaries and pensions, which had long remained unpaid, were instantly discharged out of the funds of the late favourite.

On the 25th of March, Ferdinand, already proclaimed king, made his public entry into Madrid, which was by this time under the power of the French.

The circumstances that induced Buonaparté to order Murat, who commanded the French forces in Spain to advance from the line of the Ebro to the capital, have already been stated in our abridged account of the Exposition of Cevallos; as well as the means by which the grand project of getting possession of the royal family of Spain was effected.

The grand duke of Berg had, March 23rd, entered Madrid, at the head of his army. The cavalry and a division of infantry were quartered within the town, whilst other divisions were encamped on the rising grounds in the neighbourhood. A corps under general Dupont was stationed at Segovia and the Escurial. This army, which amounted to 54,000 men according to the French newspapers of that day, was received by all ranks of people with the greatest joy. "Above all things, the Spaniards admired the fine condition the French troops were in, and particularly the beauty of the regiment of cuirassiers. The grand duke descended from his carriage at the Admiralty. The governor of Madrid, the grandees of Spain, and the troops in garrison at Madrid, presented themselves before him to

pay

pay their respects. The duke received them with much affability. Tranquillity is completely re-esta

blished at Madrid."

While the governor and garrison of Madrid, and the grandees of Spain, submitted to this act of selfdegradation; the mass of the people felt with pain the state of humiliation into which their country had fallen. They could not rest, but moved about in groups from place to place, in dejection and anxious consternation, insomuch that the new government deemed it necessary, for preventing tumults, and preserving the tranquillity of the city, to issue orders, April 3rd, to the patroles, that had been established on the 20th of March, to continue their rounds. All keepers of public houses were ordered to shut them up before eight o'clock at night. Manufacturers and commercial people, were ordered to continue their people in their usual employment, to keep them constantly at work, and to send the names of all absentees from their usual offices to the police magistrates. Masters of families were earnestly enjoined by their advice, and above all, by their example, to restrain their children and domestics from mixing with crowds, and join ing in any uproar.

A second decree assured the public, that the recent resolution was calculated to cement and strengthen the alliance with France, and enjoining all persons to treat the French troops with the greatest respect. Another edict expressed the utmost satisfaction at the friendly

manner in which the French troops had been received by the Spaniards, but the greatest regret and sorrow,

at the conduct of certain individuals, which had a tendency to interrupt the good understanding that happily subsisted between the nations, and to excite an unjust and ridiculous distrust of the designs of the French troops in Spain. Such sentiments either expressed by words or deeds were to be severely punished.

It has been uniformly the policy of Buonaparté, to reconcile the public mind of individual nations, and of Europe, to the execution of his projects, by preparing it to expect them, and to consider things as matters of course, and not to be avoided. The Moniteur and other French newspapers represented the Spaniards not only as over-joyed at the presence of French troops, but in letters pretended to have been received from inhabitants of Madrid, state it as the opinion of the most sensible Spaniards, that in the present situation of affairs it was the interference of the French emperor alone (whose speedy approach had been publicly announced by the grand duke of Berg, in general orders to his army) that could save them.

At the desire of Buonaparté, intimated to the first secretary of state, Don Pedro Cevallos, the sword that Francis 1st king of France, surrendered in the famous battle of Pavia, in the reign of the emperor Charles 5th of Spain, which had been kept in the royal armoury since 1525, was by order

of

of Ferdinand, on the 5th of April, remitted to his imperial and royal majesty Napoleon, at Bayonne. "In consequence of the royal order (it was stated in the Madrid gazette) which was given to his excellency the marquis of Astorga, groom-major to his majesty, the conveyance of the sword to the lodgings of his imperial highness the grand duke of Berg, was ar ranged with great pomp and ceremony."

This surrender of the sword, formed a presage, and was indeed a kind of emblem of that of the crown. All the civilities, compliances, and submissionsofthe Spanish court did not long secure a suitable return of civility and complaisance, on the part of their French allies, guests, and invaders,

The altercation and sparring, and even some encounters that terminated in death, which, notwithstanding all the anxious precautions of the Spanish government, took place between many individuals of the different nations, might have been accounted for from the natural levity and arrogance of the French character, and the pride of the Spaniards, awakened by jealousy and suspicion.

But, about the middle of March, an occurrence took place at Barcelona, which, if the hostile designs of the French government could possibly have appeared unequivocal before, rendered them as plain as noon day. General Duhesme, commander in chief of the French army of observation, of the Eastern Pyrennees, had been for some time busily employed in throwing great quantities of ammunition and provisions into the forts of Barcelona and Monjuich. The count of VOL. L.

Espellata, captain general of Catalonia, in a letter, dated at Barcelona, 18th of March, remonstrated with the general on this suspicious and alarming movement. "The troops," said he, "that occupied the citadel, and the fortress of Monjuich, might have considered all the houses of Barcelona as so many magazines, and the provisions they contained as their own. There was no enemy to excite apprehension; nor any thing to be expected in which the inhabitants of the town were not as much interested as the troops in garrison. Your excellency occupied the fortresses in the name of the emperor and king as an ally; and it was only on the faith of this that the Spanish government consented to its occupancy. It was under the same impression, that the town opened to you and your people its treasures, and resources of every kind, which you have received in the bosom of our families. The city gave you an honourable reception, and shared with you the provisions destined for their own use. Military law prescribes the mode of provisioning garrisons when engaged in actual hostilities, or besieged, or when the country is threatened with famine. In such cases the general is under a necessity of taking measures of precaution for the subsistence of his troops, by the formation of magazines. But, where circumstances of this kind do not exist, such measures are calculated only to excite suspicion andmistrust. Neither my conduct, nor the constant moderation of my troops, nor the favourable reception accorded to the French army, is calculated to give any ground of alarm.

"The town is provided with ne[1] cessaries

cessaries of every sort, as you will see by the official statements signed by the intendant; and, even if we should fall short of some articles, your excellency has given me the strongest assurance that preparations are at this moment going on in the ports of France, for supplying this place with provisions free from all duties. When his majesty the emperor and king, whose great name inspires us with confidence, at the same time that our fortresses are occupied by his troops, shall be informed of our pliability and honourable principles, it will not be with pleasure that he will be told, that this city, in return for its deference and conduct, has been alarmed by terrible menaces and preparations. Your excellency will be pleased to learn from his imperial majesty, what he thinks of your design before you carry it into execution, accompanying your request with this explanation of my sentiments on the subject; as I also, on my part, shall lay the whole of this matter before the king my master, without whose orders I cannot accord to your excellency what the forts occupied by the Spanish troops have not themselves.

"If, before receiving orders from the emperor, your excellency should see any reason for living with precaution, and under the influence of fear in fortresses to be considered, at present, as forming part of the city, then indeed it may be proper to have recourse to the measures you propose. But as, at present, there was no necessity for any such measure, I wish to impress your mind with a conviction, that to

establish magazines, and form considerable depôts of provisions in the forts cannot serve any good purpose; that such an intention is remarkable, calculated to rouse attention, and offensive; and that it may not perhaps be in your excellency's power, nor mine, to remedy the consequences which such a fermentation must excite among the inhabitants."

This letter of count Espellata, copies of which were handed about in Madrid, and over all Spain, met with general sympathy and applause, and contributed very much to raise and heighten the national sentiment of resentment ahd indignation against the French and the French party.

It is one among the numerous instances of a striking contrast between the spirit and energy of the Spanish people, and the listlessness, and blind imbecility of government, and too many of the higher orders, which have hitherto been apparent in the course of the Spanish revolution.

This is the letter to which Buonaparté particularly alludes, in his letter of the 16th of April, to the prince of Asturias, in which he has the effrontery to say:-" I see with pain that some persons at Madrid have disseminated certain letters of the captain general of Catalonia, and done every thing to excite disturbances among the people."*

The state of affairs at Barcelona, must have been known to the Spanish court a considerable time before the departure of Ferdinand from his capital to meet Buonaparté!

The