King Amadeo opened the Cortes on Wednesday, in a speech
in which he stated that "he would never impose himself upon the Spanish people, but neither would he allow himself to be accused of deserting the post which he occupied by that people's will." The party which "denies the legitimacy of modern right" had taken up arms in some provinces, but the Government would crush the insurrection, and, "taught by experience the futility of clemency, would be inexorable in its punishment." The Premier, Sagasta, who, it appears, has a compact majority of 240 to a divided minority of 140, has said the same thing to his supporters, and every symptom points to another period of savage repression in Spain. There are rumours, moreover, that the Army, though faithful to the Monarchy, thinks the Monarch should be a Spaniard, and favours Queen Isabella's E3D11, and it is probably to this con- tingency that the King's words point.
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