Mr. VILLIERS formally presented his credentials to the Queen Regent
at Madrid on the 6th instant. Until then, Lord WILLIAM nARVEY had figured as the official representative of our Govern- ment, under the title of Charge d'Affaires. At Madrid, and throughout the Southern provinces of the kingdom, the Queen's authority is undisturbed. The partisans of the Pretender are treated with some harshness; a considerable number of military officers, and civil employes in different branches of the Govern- ment, suspected of a leaning towards Carlism, have been sud- denly dismissed. On the other hand, the Courier, a Liberal newspaper, which, encouraged by some demonstrations lately made by the Government in favour of the liberty of the press, bad indulged in a few clumsy jests at the expense of ZEA BER-
[LATEST EDITION.]
MUDEZ, was totally suppressed, and the property of the editor confiscated, without any form of process whatever. This circum- stance indicates the amount of liberty with which the Spanish Minister thinks it prudent to indulge the Queen's Constitutional subjects.
In the Northern provinces, Carlism seems to prosper : the in- surgents have driven the Queen's troops from Irun ; and have thus closed another line of communication to Madrid. General SAARSFIELD, of whose march upon Vittoria and expected de- molition of the rebels so many reports have been current, was still at Burgos, when the last accounts left Bayonne, seven days ago. Preparations are making to supply St. Sebastian with pro- visions; ; and a number of Constitutionalists have arrived there, to augment the garrison, which is weak and not well provided. There has been a rising in Valencia; the principal town in the province, San Philipe, having proclaimed Don CARLOS : but it appears to have been speedily suppressed. Another apocryphal proclamation has been issued in the name of the Pretender : it is dated as far back as the 6th of October, at Valencia de Alcantara ; where it is highly probable, however, that the alleged author of the document has not dared to show his face. The Times correspondent gives the following summary of its contents.
" The Cortes are to be appealed to once more; but for the purpose of recal- • ling the Salk; law, and swearing allegiance to the male successors of the throne. Religion is to be protected against the encroachments of 'heretic philosophy ;' which, in plainer words, means that the Inquisition shall once more serve as an instrument for monarchical and monkish despotism. The national debt is to be revised by a commission appointed by the Crown, who is to report whether the State shall continue to be burdened with it, or shake it off,—that is, whether or not the Government of Don Carlos shall declare itself in a state of bankruptcy. Pending this investigation, the interest on the public/ debt to be withheld: Economy is to be introduced and rigidly enforced in all the branches of the Go- vernment: therefore the King appropriates for the civil list the very moderate sum of 32,000,000 teals per annum. His two sons are to be the commanders- in- chief of the Army and Navy (the eldest of them, Don Carlos, is in his six- teenth year); and with their aid the former Qolonies of Spain in South America are to be reconquered."
General QUESADA, who commands the Queen's troops at Vella- has issued his proclamation to the inhabitants of Old Cas- tile. "It breathes," says the Courier, "a fierce, uncompromising war against the denounced monks and their supporters. Such • sentiments must make every man apprehensive, that war in Spain, instead of being a mere contest for a throne, can be nothing less than a war of extermination, for the most important principles that ever divided the inhabitants of the same Country." It does not appear what means this grandiloquent General possesses for putting his threats into execution. We have heard as yet of none of his exploits in the field; and, until he can make his appearance at the head of a force sufficient to repress the rebellion, his procla- mations may be regarded as "mere sound and fury, signifying nothing."
