MEMOIRS OF THE PRINCE OF THE PEACE.

MANUEL GODOY, or Don AT ANUEL DE Gonov, entered the Body Guards of the King of Spain in his eighteenth year. In the course of eight years he was made Duke DEL ALCUMA, and ap- pointed Prime Minister of Spain; an office lie held from 179'2 till 1798. During this period the country was engaged in a war with the French Terrorists, that terminated in a peace on the esta- blishment of the Directory ; from which event Gonov took his title of Prince of the Peace. Within the same space, he declared a war against England, that continued after his retirement from office, and of which the tnost distinguished event was the naval battle of St. Vincent's. After a seclusion of about three years, the Prince was appointed, in 1801, Generalissimo of the Spanish armies, and high Admiral in 1806. In 1808, when NAPOLEON was fo- menting the differences between CHARLES the Fourth and his heir- apparent, (subsequently FERDINAND "the Beloved,") who had both appealed to him as an umpire, a factious or a patriotic mob attacked the palace, insulted the Sovereign, and threw his Minister into a dungeon; whence the French released him. He shared the subsequent captivity of CHARLES the Fourth; and on the over- throw of NAPOLEON accompanied him in his exile, and was at- tached to him till his death.

Such are the naked facts of GODOY'S career, about which there can be no dispute. It has been generally said, and almost uni- versally believed, that he was indebted for his first advancement to the impression which his personal charms made upon the Queen of Spain, and owed his subsequent greatness both to her passion and to the stolid favour with which the kingly wittol re- garded him ; that his statesmanlike abilities and experience were small ; that his administration was injurious to the country though profitable to himself; and, as a crowning crime, that he sold his benefactors and his country to BONAPARTE. A few writers have charged upon him the guilt of urging on the violence of the French Revolution by his incapacity ; of paralyzing the efforts of the armies in their efforts against France, and making a disgraceful peace, of which he had the fully to boast, by " decking himself with a title recalling the public misfortunes ;" and of so conducting the war against England, that whilst France reaped all the benefit, Spain bore all the burden. His friends allow that lie was not proof against the allurements of a voluptuous court: some of his enemies admit that he was good-natured.

The ostensible object of these Memoirs is to defend their hero ; the real one is to make him out a paragon of perfection. Their appearance has been so long delayed—delayed till many who could best contradict or confirm his assertions are in the tomb—in consequence of a pledge the Prince of Peace made to his august master that he would publish nothing to justify him-

te'f or the Monarch long as FERDINAND lived. The work purports to be written by the Prince himself, and edited by a Colonel D'ESMENARD: supposing it authentic, it is probable that the Prince furnishes the matter, which the Colonel puts into form. The length of the Memoirs extends to four volumes ; two of which only are before us ; and these bring down the Life to the retirement of GODOY from the office of Prime Minister, and are occupied of course with the narrative of his early years, and the defence of himself during his first and less famous administration. Over his early adventures at court lie draws the veil of oblivion : of the cause of his sudden advance he furnishes a very lame ac- count,—the free access permitted to their Majesties, and the ter- rors of the Revolution, "enabled him to express his opinion on public occurrences ;" and these colloquies of GODOY created the Duke DEL ALCUDIA. Into the various charges brought against him he enters at great length ; and he is equally elaborate on the exposition of his own good government. To follow him through this, would be to write the history of Spain, or rather of Europe, for the period of which he treats. Suffice it to say, that he makes out a tolerable case for himself; though for some of it the only evidence is the assertion of the accused. In parts he seems inca- pable of drawing distinctions; as when he boasts of the small injury Spain sustained during the three years' war in comparison with the losses endured by other powers on the Rhine,—forget ting the differences in the numbers of the armies, the character of the contest, and the nature of the countries : and in other places, whatever may be thought of the result of his conduct, he certainly acted upon mistaken ideas; as in all his notions about the objects of England.

The authenticity of the work seems to be taken for granted. There is nothing in it, however, which might not easily have been fabricated. There are few traits of individuality; few marks of minute, exact, and as it were instinctive knowledge of the springs of affairs; very few references to secret circunistanceF, and then chiefly conversations, which only aim at exhibiting personal opi- nions when the actor had lost the power of action. The most strik- ing exceptions to these remarks are the accounts of the Councils at which Count D'An ANDA, Gonov's predecessor, was disgraced, and that in which it was determined to declare war against England. The main matter at the first of these was, however, a!r,tady known conjecturally ; them is nothing, strikingly trulitill in the filling up; and the manner is rhetorical and studied. On the whole, the character of the book is that of all historical essay, written with vivacity, and far from unaiusing; although the style is swelling and bombastic, with soniethini, of the stateliness of state papers, but without their dulness. Or it may be described as a mentoire justicatif, after the event ; in which advantage is taken of all the chances and changes that were never ihreseen„ and, by presenting only one side of the object, credit is claimed for preventing future transactions that were not then ripe for de- velopment. Looking back with the experience of forty years, the book would persuade us that what has since happened was then foreseen, and that Fate itself was kept in abeyance by the wisdom. of the Prince of the Peace.

The remarks on England are a proof of this. Like most • foreigners, the Prince has or affects to have, the highest opinion of the profound, unscrupulous, anal " pitiless" nature of the foreign policy of England, fearful to all nations, and even to Gonov, had his name been liable to fear. According to him, this

country embarked generally the Rnvalutianary war without any regard to the Justice of the case, to the Royal Family of France, or to the common interests of Europe. Her sole object was disturbance; her only purpose profit,—to acquire which in a small way, her armies always carried more goods than munitions of war, to smuggle into the countries they professed to assist ; but the grand end and aim was to destroy the navies and annihilate the manufactures of Europe, in order to monopolize the business upon her own terms. Against France and Spain, however, she had a peculiar grudge ; for the desire of vengeance was added to the awl suers Rimes.

Never has England pardoned either France or Spain for the share they took in the revolt of her colonies.

Whether she was our friend or our ally, the old animosity rankled in her breast. Her interest and her ambition counselled her to avenge it. To pro- voke emancipation, to appropriate to herself our wealth in those distant coun- tries, to establish a commercial tooting in them, to foment divisions, to render herself necessary there as a friend, es a protector of the parties conquering or conquered, to seize upon the sources of the pfecious metals,—such was the plan of England ; sometimes pushed into activity, sometimes deferred front accidental circumstances, never abandoned, constantly iu the order of the day. The occasion only was wanting: it presented itself. France and Europe were violently agitated : the longer the storm lasted, the greater the chances for England to succeed in her object. If France and Spain hail engaged in a war of destruction against each other, the vigilance of Spain beyond the seas was necessarily weakened, and the time was come for causing the loss of her colonies. This was proved to me to demonstration by the conduct of the English Minister towards us in the three years' quarrel we had with the Republic. I do not speak here from hearsay or vain assump- tions: the Council of State, as already mentioned, saw the thing as clearly as myself when the question arose of an alliance with France. My ministerial papers abound with documents, advices, official reports, sent from all the Vice- roys: secret and perfidious intrigues disturbed those distant dominions; alarming intelligence, projects, plaus of insurrection, of separation, were artfully spread : the fear was excited of a possible and proximate catastrophe in Spain ; assistance as well as support, in case of commotion, brought about by circumstances; better means of improvement; more institutions, liberal, more appropriate to the moral state of the country, every thing was offered. Insi- dious programmes, insidiously distributed and propagated, recommended these subversive ideas. The danger was daily becoming more serious. The fidelity of the colonies still held out ; butt it was absolutely essential that Spain should be at rest on the side of France, without which all was lost. Engaged in a war with so formidable a neighbour, how would it have been possible to defend at once Spain and America') Hence the eagerness of England to prevent Spain from making peace with the Directory, or afterwards to break it, and involve her in a war with France—

Hence all those promises of subsidies, of auxiliary armies, which they bad taken care not to put at our disposal when we were fighting alone, and reduced to our own strength. At present we were offered mountains and wonders to se- duce us, as other states more credulous than we were were seduced, and paid dearly their fatal complaisance. The counsels and specious promises of England made no more impression than her insults and her threats. The wisdom of the Cabinet disconcerted her perfidy, and disdained to answer her bravadoes. By the treaty of alliance the crown of Castile was strengthened, and our two Americas preserved from all danger. These are the facts which apply to the first epoch of my administra- tion ; history will consecrate them.

But, alas for the destiny of that kingdom in whose dominions "the sun never set 2" the Prince of the Peace was overpowered by his enemies; Spain was deprived of his wisdom ; and England was at liberty to accomplish her long-cherished project.

The revolution of Aranjuez, for which England was well prepared, dethroned Charles the Fourth, and delivered over his son to the mercy of the French. That war of extermination which the Cabinet of Et. James's was impa- tiently expecting, and provoking by a thousand means, that unnatural war broke out in 1808. Spain was involved in a conflagration. England imme- diately appeared as a saving angel. She offered aid to an orphan people : this people threw themselves into her arms. What were the consequences? The Cabinet of St. James's, constant in its plans, sought at once to ruin both nations. Assistance was furnished with a Machiavelian parsimony,—just enough to prolong the contest: they calculated its duration and inevitable effects: they counted, as it were, the pulse of the invalid. But to balance the first charges, smuggling boldly entered the Peninsula along with the foreign auxiliaries. Our manufactures were annihilated; and what was not at first strangled by this sudden pressure, soon perished from accidents, either natural or dexterously superinduced during the contest. The navy of Spaindisappeared; part was carried off; the rest rotted is the

abandoned dockyards and arsenals, which were delivered over to pillage. Our valiant sailors, distinguished alike for skill and bravery, the legacy of former wars, were torn from their special destination, dispersed, lost amidst the mili- tary ( the English had so advised); and when there remained no more than the name of the ancient Spanish navy, then was the glorious crown of the two worlds miserably mutilated : by dint of intrigues, seductions, and secret or open artifices, they succeeded in detaching America from the mother country. These are facts which also belong to history.

This is a specimen of the historical style and manner of rea- soning. It is unnecessary to say that the opinions are wide of

the truth, and are perverse and laughable enough. But, with the premises that an unphilosophical foreigner was likely to collect, the conclusions can scarcely be called absurd, whilst they are the bitterest satire ever penned on the Tory manage- ment of their " gigantic contest." Strangers to our internal affairs saw war declared and maintained against revolutionary France without any tangible object, and conducted without apparent purpose. . Expeditions were planned that could lead to no grand result ; they were badly officered, or insufficiently supported ; they first, of necessity, took effi:ct at some sea-port, which inflicted injury upon the enemy's naval resources; the ravages of an army were not likely to benefit manufactures or agriculture; and when the plan failed, England seemed to get on' with the loss of some troops, whilst both her enemies and her friends were subjected to more fatal misfortunes ; and yet, when- -ever our navy came into action, a great and decided blow was struck. In the mean time, although trade was destroyed and cultivation suspended in those Continental countries which were the seat of war, the manufactures of England were advancing with rapid strides, the ships of England were spreading over every sea, and in the whole of the United Kingdoms agriculture (according to the agriculturists themselves) had never been so flourishing. Leaving out of view the pecuniary sacrifices at the time, and the burden of the enormous debt entailed upon the country,--incapable of imagining the extent of Tory folly and corruption, and unac- quainted with the selfish motives of an aristocratical oligarchy, which was consulting its fear and gratifying its cupidity,—it is not extraordinary for a foreigner to attribute to a devilish policy that which was the combined result of indefinite objects and incapacity for military affairs.

The foregoing specimens of dislike to England are not solitary ; the spirit pervades the volumes. Here is another sample. It is needless to remark that no modern English Minister ever deserved the insinuation at the close. It is possible, however, that by destroy- ing the trade with this country, and stopping it with most others, the great Russian landowners, deprived of their incomes, might be stimulated to conspire against the Monarch, who was as good as taking their lives when taking the means by which they lived. if this be so, the Autocrat's tenure of existence seems in a measure in the power of that nation which is master of the sea. A rigid blockade, with active crusing, might as effec- tually remove a barbarian of the North, as the Venetian policy, which the Spaniard conceives we resort to when wishing to rid ourselves of an enemy whom we can neither terrify, seduce, nor cajole. So little essential variety is there in any thing. In dis- putes between rulers and subjects, the only object is to coerce the executive. In England, we accomplish this by stopping the King's Supplies; in a less civilized community they stop his breath.

" The Empress Catherine did not dare detach a part of her troops, for fear of being disturbed by the Ottoman Porte, with which power France had succeeded in reestablishing her former union. Three years afterwards, Paul the First was tempted to adopt the projects of the English Minister. The gross and extravagant manifesto of this Monarch, the whimsical originality of which was spread abroad by England, proved to what extent English influence had impressed him against us. The disasters of his army in Switzerland and Holland prevented his attempting any further adventures in our direction. Naples alone was condemned to undergo the presence of the Russians and Turks, not to mention her other calamities: After these events, the Autocrat was seen suddenly' to change his views, to abandon the coalition, reject Eng- land, and show himself favourable to France. He wished to place himself at the head of a maritime confederacy against English tyranny . . . . and died by assassination."

Three portraits are attached to these volumes,—G000st in his youth, looking effeminately lusty and good-natured; the King, whose features are harsh and ill-favoured, and whose character is that of an idiot ; and the Queen, who, with.no greater share of beauty than her husband, has a sinister ferocity of expression. No wonder, if he saw these engravings, that the hero should indignantly disclaim the titles of " minion and favourite."