a daughter of Joseph; that king so despicable in the eyes of Spaniards? What Spaniard, in fine, would be so short-sighted as on knowing that you came trained to be the mere tool of Napoleon's will, would not mistrust you, and would not again grow indignant at those who had before precipitated you on measures so degrading to your dignity, and so inimical to the independence for which we had been making every sacrifice? Without pourtraying the Spanish character in the blackest colors, can it be imagined, that all these truths being timely displayed, the sovereign rule of the laws would have sunk, and with it so many meritorious victims ?

You are made to say, Sire, "Forasmuch as I have heard what respectable persons from their zeal and information have told me, and what, respecting that which is herein contained, has been shown to me in representations addressed to me from various parts of the kingdom, in which are expressed the repugnance and disgust with which they regard in the provinces, as well the constitution formed in the general and extraordinary Cortes, as the other political institutions lately introduced; the injuries and evils which have arisen from them, and would be still increased, if I were to authorise with my consent, and should swear adherence to that constitution: yielding myself to such decided and general demonstrations of the wishes of my people, in themselves just and well founded; I do declare that my royal will is not only not to swear and adhere to the said constitution, nor to any decree of the Cortes general and extraordinary, or ordinary now sitting, to wit, such as may be derogatory to the rights and prerogatives of my sovereignty, established by the constitution and the laws under which the nation has long subsisted; but to pronounce that constitution and such decrees null and of no value nor effect, now, nor at any other time, as if such acts had never been passed, and should have been obliterated from the records of time, and without any obligation in my people and subjects of any class or condition to fulfil them or maintain them. And as any one who should support them, and should oppose this my royal declaration made with reflection and free will, would make an attack on the prerogatives of my sovereignty and on the happiness of the nation, and would create disturbance and disquiet in my kingdoms, I hereby declare guilty of lèse-majesté, whosoever shall attempt or compass the same, and as such he shall incur capital punishment; whether he shall effect it by deed, or by writing, or by words moving or inciting, or in any other way supporting or persuading to the preservation and observance of the said constitution and decrecs."

Sire, I should think to offend you, and to offend those who may read this representation of mine, did I deem it necessary to make a philosophical analysis of the passage just quoted, for the purpose

of inspiring that horror which its contents are fitted to excite. The authors of it surely have dared to publish it only under confidence that you would never read it, or they were impressed with the most degrading conception of your mental capacity. I will only pause to touch upon its prominent contradictions, and will abstain altogether from considering its doctrine. They have thought to justify your measures by the imposture that you had adopted them to conform to the general wish of the people, and in consequence of representations from them; but such is the empti ness of the cheat, or rather its refined malice to overwhelm you, that its very conduct and exposition are the most damning evidence against it. How make it agree, Sire, that you destroyed the constitution because it was the wish of the people, expressed by decided and general demonstrations, when you had already completely trampled on it before entering into Spain? By the answer of the regency of the kingdom to your first letter, addressed to them for their ratification of the treaty of Valency, you knew that the Spanish monarch, by the constitution was not authorised to make nor ratify similar treaties, unless previously approved of by the Cortes; and notwithstanding after this, in spite of such incapacity, you ratified that treaty with our most mortal foe, although it was most ignominious to the nation. To what purpose then the paltry subterfuge of making you say, that you destroyed the constitution because the people willed it? Though this desire were certain, was not the motive notoriously false? If the people, as is said in another part of your decree, delighted themselves with all that was democratical, and if the constitution of the Cortes of Cadiz savored too much of that, being derogatory to the rights and prerogatives of your sovereignty; how can it be manifest that the provinces had given you decided and general demonstrations of their wish that you should destroy it, and set up again the most despotic government? The very punishment of death with confis cation of goods, with the other additions annexed to the crime of lese-majesté, imposed on those who shall act, speak, or write in favor of laws, the noxious results of which exist only in the mouths of your counsellors, without even their daring to designate them particularly, and the undeniable consequences of which have been to save the country and liberate her captive king; does not this of itself give the lie to what you are made to say? or does it not prove perhaps, qualities still more detestable in your heart? Violent measures always imply incapacity or depravity in him who directs them; or that the circumstances in which there has been a necessity for them have been desperate. Doubtless, Sire, the situation of a king may on many occasions be unfortunate; and even perhaps circumstances may be such, as that he may find

himself compelled to be unjust, without there being any thing very extraordinary; but there must of necessity be great perversity and design in your ministers to have made you appear so ridiculous, and with so little decency, that your own words should be the clearest evidence of the falsehood of your assertions and promises.

Another deception, which is still more shocking, put into the mouth of a prince, whose high dignity cannot tolerate defects of this nature is, when they make you say, Sire, "And from the day when this my decree shall be communicated to the president for the time being of the Cortes which is now sitting, their meeting shall close."

In obedience to the orders of your Majesty, the zealous if not compassionate executors of this your decree, after midnight, an hour at which the Cortes does not assemble, taking, one by one, from their beds, the representatives of the Spanish people, lead them in the midst of bayonets, as if they were assassins, to dungeons; without remembering to serve the pretended notice conveyed in the very order which they said they were executing. That treachery in this imaginary notice, which was neither served nor ever intended to be served! Is this the promise and guarantee which in the very moment of ascending the throne, you offer in order to make known to all, not a despot nor a tyrant; but a king, and a father of his vassals, as you call us, without reflecting how ill accordant are the terms of father and vassals? Their object, no doubt, was to deceive the nation and Europe, making them believe that you had resolved, in a legal way, or at least without violence, and with consent of the people, on the destruction of the legislative body. But, Sire, if such an act were superfluous, why was it commanded by yourself in a cause of so much importance? and if it were essential, why was it omitted? Does not its very omission show more glaringly the injustice with which they were acting, and the falsehood of all that was declared? Does not this of itself show that all was the work of a faction, rather than the regular operations of a prince in consonance with the wishes of his people? Did not so studied an omission at least give ground to enquire why have they not complied with the notification prescribed by the royal decree? Such artifice, besides degrading your authority, openly betrays the repugnance of the people. Such a violation in a monarch, in the first act of his reign, cannot fail to annihilate all confidence in his word. What accordance do we see in it with those representations of the people, of corporate bodies, and of illustrious persons made to obtain the overthrow of the Cortes, and the re-establishment in its place of the inquisition, and of the former system of calamities? If your ministers were to say now that the execution of General Lacey had

been clandestinely carried into effect, because the people were desirous that capital punishment should be inflicted on him, they would be entirely accordant in this assertion with that of supposing that the notification to the Cortes had not been made because the people desired its destruction. But from the very circumstance of those two assertions being perfectly accordant, they are both equally false and ridiculous. Although your counsellors would not labor to make you great, could they not remit their endeavours to make you appear so degraded?

To pursue minutely the analysis of this original document, that for so many reasons must form an epoch in the history of my beloved ill-fated country, would be a task endless as the absurdities, nullities, and defects of every kind with which it abounds. The sketch which I have just given, though slight, should be sufficient to warn you against concealed foes that encircle your throne, and to teach some of the many unwary Spaniards to read it. It cannot be attachment to your person, that has induced your counsellors, apostates by calculation from the liberty of their country and from every party, to urge you to the adoption of measures as extravagant as unjust. Unfettered by scruples, and habituated to make shipwreck of their honor for the advancement of their fortunes, they have insinuated themselves into every party with a zeal that began in hypocrisy and terminated in treason. Led by the same principles to the fabrication of this motley production, they have not deserted the object of their former and constant aim. Enemies alike of the liberty of their country and of your dynasty, they doubtless reasoned thus with themselves: "We shall never be able to retain the public opinion in our favor, so long as this new system of liberty shall subsist. It is necessary to destroy it, and to destroy the authors of it. If we attain this by making the king believe that these men are enemies of the throne and of the altar, and that they aim at establishing a government of the most democratical form, at least our dominion over the king will be sure and permament; since no one will then have the boldness to undeceive him. If we fail in our undertaking we shall lose nothing; for under the new order of things, from our previous conduct, we cannot flatter ourselves with the attainment of any thing which might be acceptable to us." Or perhaps they have said, "If the king have common sense, it is certain that sooner or later he will come to know that he ought not to have placed confidence in us, who have committed treason against his cause to defend that of his enemy. It will avail us nothing to seduce him to-day, if to-morrow he is to be undeceived. We have no other course left but to rid ourselves of him and of his dynasty, and to introduce some other that will be our work, and that may recompense our services. To this end nothing will

be fitter than to make the king the instrument of his own destruction, by persuading him to the adoption of measures that shall at once make him odious and ridiculous in the eyes of the nation, and of the world at large. Let us compel him to belie in his acts all his promises and declarations; let us oblige him to acknowledge some of the principal rights of the people, to deny others deducible from them, and at the same moment to trample on them all. This being accomplished, the hatred and indignation of the subjects will promptly decide his ruin; for on touching at this extremity, the people seek to redress their grievances, and when they themselves redress their own wrongs, they are never satisfied until they have avenged them. Civil war will be certain, and then if we do not succeed in placing on the throne a king of our own faction, at least we shall have one who will not view us with such contempt as the present one, whose interests we have abandoned and opposed." If I do not in this way explain the enigma that invests this singular document, of which the many apparent oversights could only be the effect of design; at least I do not hesitate to prognosticate, that the result will not be otherwise, and that the day will quickly come, when you, Sire, will bewail your errors, when it is too late to remedy them.

To recapitulate the chief points of this first part, it appears, Sire, that the discontent of the people cannot fail to be the effect of their bad government. That kings are made for the people, and not these for them. That the only greatness of a prince consists in his promoting by every possible means the prosperity of the nation. That positive and written laws ought to define and regulate the conduct of monarchs equally with that of their subjects; and that to object to this is the same as for them to pretend that kings have no duties to fulfil, or having them they ought not to be known, that they may not be practised nor called for. That your Majesty could not lawfully exercise other prerogative than such as the nation in Cortes assembled had granted to you, or such as in future it might grant, calculated to promote the public good, and conceded only for that express object. That according to our law of the Partidas, " The king who prevents his people from being rich, from becoming enlightened, and from assembling to treat of the interests of the community, transforms himself into a tyrant, and the people ought to rise in resistance to him." That the Spaniards, victims of the ambition, of the resentment, and of the envy of a contemptible and criminal party, hostile to the liberty of their country, and to the progress of human reason, are heroes, persecuted on account of their heroism, whose virtues will nevertheless be extolled by posterity; more independent and even more happy in the gloom of dungeons, than your Majesty seated on a throne, which none approach but slaves, who never