DIPLOMATIC IMPERTINENCE.
ACCUSTOMED as people are to the forwardness of the Corps Diplo- matique, the modest assurance of its members at present assembled in Madrid must have occasioned some surprise. When NARVAEZ first made signs of besieging the capital, and MENDIZABAL spoke valiantly of making an obstinate defence, these gentlemen sent a kind of round-robin to the Minister, requesting that the Queen should be placed in their keeping till the fight was over. In other words, they addressed the Government de jure and de facto— the Government to which they were accredited—to this effect : "An insurrectionary army is resolved to force you to abandon the reins of power ; you are resolved to fight in defence of them ; let us hold the stakes, which we will honestly give up to the con-
queror." The British Minister very properly objected to the original draft of this proposal, as prepared by Mr. WASHINGTON IRVING under the direction of the French Minister, that it was levelled against the defence of Madrid, whereas the true source of the Queen's danger was the attack. But Mr. ASTON, by his joining in the application as it was ultimately modified, appears to have failed to perceive that any application to the existing Government to intrust the keeping of the person of the constitutional head of the nation to foreigners, until arms had decided whether they were strong enough to keep their places, was tantamount to a re- quest that they would recognize the insurgents as their equals— acknowledge the legitimacy of insurrection.
The insurrection, it would seem, has triumphed ; the late insur- gents appear to be now de facto the Government. But if there is one Spaniard among them, he must feel that the application of the foreign diplomatists to MENOIZABAL was an insult to his own party quite as much as to their rivals. It was a declaration on the part of the foreigners, that they were resolved to act as umpires between the rival factions—to act as "viceroys over" whatever party might rule in Spain for the time. Such a proposal could only be hazarded in a country which has no nation, and consequently can have no national government. So long as Spain consists not of Spaniards, but of Biscayans, Castilians, Estremadurans, and so forth, will similar insulting proposals continue to be made at each successive factious effort to overturn the government for the time being. Their more or less frequent recurrence may serve the inhabitants of Spain as a political barometer, to indicate whether the period of political storms is likely to pass away.
In so far as Spain herself is concerned, it would be a waste of time to notice this affair. Her inhabitants are, and seem resolved to continue, not Spaniards, but a discordant mass of alien provincials. This country, however, and every nation of Europe, will have reason to lament if the state of affairs which admits of such intermeddling by foreign diplomatists shall become a chronic disease. It will be equivalent to the establishment of a new Pera nearer the centre of Europe. The disorganized Ottoman empire has been for more than half a century governed by the European diplomacy accredited to the Divan ; and every country in Europe has suffered from wars arising out of the rivalry of the courts of Europe to gain or preserve the ascendancy at Constantinople. Not a nation but has had its blood and treasure wasted in alien quarrels engendered in that focus of political intrigue. If Spain is to become another Ottoman empire—a nation " sequestrated," and placed under the manage- ment of the European diplomacy as trustees—the mischief will be more than doubled, inasmuch as the scene of action is much nearer the centre of European activity.
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