WALTON'S REVOLUTIONS OF SPAIN.
MR. WALTON is an avowed partisan of Don CARLOS ; and has written his book with the intention of influencing the public minsl in favour of that Prince, and of putting an end to foreign interference in the affairsof Spain. Hp opens his work with an Introduction, in which he endeavours to rrace the origin and establish the func- tions and powers of the Cortes, in order to prove that the Spaniards have a constitution well calculated to protect and encourage liberty in the abstract, and admirably adapted to their peculiar characteristics as a people; whence he concludes, that there is no necessity for any of the changes which the Liberal party in Spain have advocated or tried. In his narrative of the various revolu- tions that have taken place in the country, from the time that Goncric mingled matters, down to the intrigue or coup detcd by which FERDINAND was induced to promulgate the decree respecting the succession that CHARLES the Fourth had got the specially assembled Cortes to pass in 1789. Mr. WALTON endeavours to paint the Liberal party in the blackest colours, as the main cause of all the evils which have afflicted Spain since the French invasion, and the real obstacles to the esta- blishment of a regulated system of liberty : of course he maintains that Don CARLOS is the only man who can restore peace to his distracted country or heal its wounds. The obvious leanings, or rather prepossessions of the author, are so strong, that very little reliance is, we suspect, to be placed upon his facts, and none at all upon his judgments and conclu- sions. But even taking every thing as he tells it, his hopes as to the regeaeration of Spain through the exertions of CARLOS are palpably ridiculous. Like all other writers on the subject, whom we have met with, he leaves out of view the natural difficulties which must thwart any Reformer who was not in a position, like the Emperor CHARLES or NAPOLEON, to crush all opposition by an overwhelming foreign force. What we call Spain, be it re- membered, is not one kingdom united by natural circumstances, or bound together by time and mutual interests, but a federation of petty states, congregated indeed by marriage, conquest, or com- pact, under one head, but differing more than many rival nations in character, customs, and habits; and thought their language may not exhibit a radical difference, the provinces of the North and South cannot, we believe, understand each other. The in- dustrious prosperity on which her historians love to dwell, was not the prosperity of Spain, but of Granada and Andalusia, and other Moorish principalities. The freedom which Mr. WALTON talks of was not Spanish freedom, but the fueros of Leon and Ara- gon, of Catalonia and Castile. Scarcely was the crown placed upon a single head, before the liberties of each province of Spain Proper were crushed by CHARLES the Fifth, in consequence of the opportunity given him by imprudent insurrections. From that time the monarch was absolute; and though the political farce of calling the Cortes together was occasionally gone through, when the King had some point to carry, and wished to divide the odium or responsibility with others, liberty was extinct, or rather, in a national sense had never existed. To try, in the present day, to revive the old constitutions, would be analagous to a scheme for "restoring the heptarchy ;" and as for a general and uniform amalgamation—why this attempt is the cause of the civil war. Almost all the waiters we have seen, admit that the Carlists of the Basque provinces care very little for their leader, but are fighting for their own privileges. The Central Junta that convoked the Cortes, after the captivity of CHARLES and FERDINAND, were foolish enough in most respects, but they seem to have decided wisely in resolving-that "the ancient usages were more a matter of historical research than of practical importance." Thus far as to the historical question. Had Mr. WALTON pos- sessed the enlarged capacity and philosophic views which are requi- site to form an historian, he would have seen that the various events he narrates, are not, as be supposes, simple disorders, brought on by accident and heightened by GODOY and Liberalism, but a series of symptoms indicative of a constitution thoroughly vitiated in all its organs, without the strength requisite to bear its remedies or the vitality to enable them to operate. When a lusty body-guardsman, without natural or acquired merit, and without the luck which sometimes mixes a man with great actions though he does not contribute to them, could be rapidly raised to the highest offices in the state, and even be connected by marriage with royalty, it shows a court lost to all sense of decorum, and a nobility so deficient in the common spirit of their order, that the king and his creature might safely despise them. When " ninety-. one Spaniards of the highest distinction" signed the Bayonne Constitution, by which the crown was passed, by the dash of a pen, from the reigning dynasty, to the upstart race of BONA- PARTE, it proved, if the former circumstances were insufficient, that the higher class of Spaniards were utterly demoralized, and alike insensible to the national honour and to their own character as nobles and gentlemen. To charge the Junta, as Mr. WAL- TON does, with a sort of crime for assuming the powers of go- vernment, is absurd ; for with their King a prisoner, his Ministers traitors, and the whole functions of public life at an end, it would have been farcical to have restricted themselves to the old practices of the Cortes, which had no originative powers. That they acted childishly and mischievously— postponing necessary action to paper reforms and idle ques- tions of ceremony—is admitted. But the mere fact, that the foremost citizens of king-and-priest-ridden Spain should take upon themselves to abrogate all existing institutions, and promul- gate fresh ones bearing all the stamp of extreme Liberalism, is suf- ficient to show that, in the towns at least, new ideas had entered, and an under-current of thought been actively flowing on. The conspiracies, insurrections, and petty- invasions that disturbed the whole of Fee ntsrAND's reign, show at least considerable acti- vity and strength on the part of the Liberals; their retention of power for more than two years after the military insurrection of La Isla, in despite of the king's hostility, proves that the Abso- lutists were not so decidedly preponderant in Spain, otherwise FER- DINAND could have been freed without the French invasion; whilst the duration of the present civil war—its gross mismanagement by the Christinos, the seeming impossibility of the Carlists getting together a regular army in the plains, or quitting their fortresses at all except as flying marauders—appear to show that the powers of the Movement and of Obstructions are too equally ba- lanced in that country to allow of either party very quickly van- quishing the other. Or, should fortuitous circumstances enable one side to triumph, its adversaries would be too strong and too turbulent to permit the return of peace, much less of prosperity ; for the clearest point established by the history of the last twenty years is, that while either faction can spoil and massacre the other, neither has power to subdue its adversary. The only chance for Spain would be a despotism enlightened enough to plan such reforms as are suitable to her backward state, and sufficiently powerful to crush all opposition. Although this book cannot safely be relied on for its statements, and has small pretensions to the character of a history even in a purely literary sense, it is rather a stirring and r2adable affair. If the author has not much of the fire of genius, the fire of the partisan supplies its place in some sort, and carries him along untired : nor must the praise of fluency be denied to Mr. WAL- TON, if he cannot lay claim to that of eloquence. As a tolerably fair specimen of the writer, we will take his nar- rative of the downfal of the last Ministry and the establishment of the Constitution of 1812. The reader must of course make allowances for exaggerations ; it is unnecessary to point out the wilful blindness of the author to facts that tell against him. If the chief towns of all the Mediterranean provinces, from the fron- tiers of Portugal to those of France, are prepared to go such lengths in favour of the Constitution of 1812, Don CARLOS will yet have work to do whenever he reaches Madrid.
Senor Isturiz was evidently going back to the system of the /rate milieu, and did not want for prompters in the French Embassy ; but he had miscalculated his own influence, and the power of the Movement party, whose alliance he had spurned, and to whose resentment he was now exposed. That active and on- scrupulous faction resolved at once to carry their favourite scheme into execu- tion; and they were at no loss for means.
The secret societies resumed their activity ; emissaries were despatched to stir up the turbulent population of the great towns; the jealousy of the British Cabinet was artfully excittd by exaggerated representations of French influence ; and no device was left untried to intimidate the Queen. These intrigues soon produced the effect which their contrivers desired. Isturiz met with obstacles at every-step : between the fears of some, and the disinclination of others he found it difficult to complete his Ministry. The Procuradores displayed a hostile spirit, and the penury of the exchequer completed his embarrassment. The mine being charged, the signal was given to explode it. Disturbances broke out at Malaga and Carthageua, and in the latter place ten Carlists were killed. Tumults followed at Zaragoza ; but they were checked by San Miguel. On the 11th of June, a riot broke out at Figueras ; the troops of the line were unable to quell it : several persons perished ; and the Governor Brigadier Tens, was assassinated, and his corpse dragged in triumph through the streets.
On the 25th of July, commotions occurred at Madrid, and were suppressed by Quesada's activity ; but, on the same day, Malaga was sullied by a most odious and sanguinary deed. As he was attempting to quell the tumult, the Military Governor, St. Juste, was seized, and after suffering every kind of out- rage from an infuriated mob, was barbarously murdered. The Civil Governor, Count Donadio, himself a vehement Liberal, and married to the daughter Of the Count de las Navas, the greatest demagogue in all Spain, repaired bacon- vent where eight hundred troops were quartered, hoping with their aid to rescue his colleague; but they refused to march with him, and joined the rioters. Attempting to escape in disguise, he was himself seized, and shot amidst cries of" Viva Is Constitucion !" Next day the code of I812—the blood- stained idol of the Liberals—was proclaimed by the successful rioters; a Junta ITU formed under the presidency of Escalante ( afterwards defeated by Gomez); and the same spirit extended to Cadiz, Seville, Granada, Valencia, Cordova, Zaragoza, Badajoz, and other towns. This demonstration of public feeling produced its effect in the capital ; and on the 12th of August, through a military mutiny similar to that of 1820, ex eepting that it began with the sergeants instead of the officers, the Queen, while sojourning at La Granja, was compelled to accept and proclaim the Con- stitution. Quesada, nevertherless, continued to oppose resistance at Madrid ; but, being stripped of his command on the 15th, he was compelled to seek for safety in flight. Accompanied only by an officer named Lavalette, be stole cut of the city in disguise ; but, being recognized at Boneless was shot by one of tiae Urban Guards. His brains were beaten out, and his body first gashed with sabres, and then cut into pieces, which were carried to Madrid, and there borne in procession through the streets. His companion shared the same fate; and in drunken orgies the Madrid patriots celebrated the assassination of a man be- fore whom they had been accustomed to tremble. The Liberals were now supreme; the days of 1820 were revived ; and Cala- trava was appointed Ptimt Minister, with Mendizabal as his coadjutor. The Corks were convened in the manner prescribed by the Legislators of 1812; and from them the Queen Dowager received, not the confirmation of the powers to administer the Regency, as granted by her late husband, but an sp. pointment to that effect conferred by themselves. Her daughter also reigns, not under the authority of the Particle law, or any other statute either of an- cient or modern date, but by virtue of a code framed by a knot of desperate projectors and reckless experimentalists, assembled in the impregnable fortress of Cadiz to carry on the farce of legislation, while their countrymen in every other part of Spain were exposing their lives for the national independence.
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