The Press.
London, England, 1856-07-26 00:00:00

ESPARTERO AND O'DONNELL.

A COMPARISON between two such men as O'Donnell
and Espartero can hardly be made. Whatever be
his merits or his shortcomings as a political man,
Espartero is still the honest citizen, the pacificator
and liberator of his country. Regent and Dictator
of Spain, he descended from his high place, quitted
power, and went into exile, rather than violate a
single article of the constitution to which he had
sworn. His exile was spent in England, where he
learned the practice, as he had before admired the
theory, of representative government ; and his
greatest ambition was to endow his country with it.
Espartero long occupied the highest posts to which
a subject could aspire ; yet he is a poor man, and he
has not only refused all recompense which a grateful
nation dasired to confer upon him, but be has never
touched a real of his salary as President of the
Council.

The personal courage of O'Donnell is unquestion-
able, but it is not so much to that ordintry quality
that he owes his brilliant career as to the favour
and protection of Espartero, who in 1838 appointed
him Chief of his Staff. In 1840 O'Donnell embraced
the cause of Maria Christina against the people and
the army, and, abandoning his command, he emi-
grated with her to France. In 1841 he demanded
permission to return to Spain as a friend to the
established Government, and made the most solemn
declarations of harbouring no design against the
public tranquillity. Espartero, then Regent, would
not believe that his old protege and favourite was
again false ; and, ignorant of the plot formed for
his own overthrow between him, Maria Christina,
and Louis Philippe, who was already projecting the
Spanish marriages, freely allowed him to return.
The price promised him for taking part in the in-
insurrection of 1843 against Espartero's Govern
ment was the Governor Generalship of Cuba. That
promise was fulfilled, and the world has learnt from
blue-books and debates in Parliament the manner in
which this grasping satrap exercised his command,
and the immense fortune he and his wrung from the
blood of the miserable race, the traffic in which his
Government had been long bound by treaty to put
an end to.

On his return to Madrid O'Donnell, in right of his
rank in the army, became a member of the Senate.
Narvaez, whom he hated, and who hated bim, was
then in power. To his rule none, except a few Pro-
gresistas, dared to make the slightest opposition.
O'Donnell announced that he was about to reinforce
that Opposition, but he was silenced by the lucrative
appointment of Director-General of Infantry. It
was the placo best suited for his future plans, as he
could organise the army according to his pleasure.
Narvaez soon saw the error he had committed, and
he dismissed O'Donnell. Once more he rushed into
the Opposition organised by Generals Concha,
Serrano, Sze., who accepted him as their leader.
Maria Christina, as being the most vulnerable, was
the great object of attack. Narvaez left the finis
try, and was once more exiled by Maria Christina, and
neither O'Donnell nor the Conchas were called by her
to power. The Bravo Murillo and Lersundi Minis-
tries passed away, not without leaving traces of their
baleful despotism. Sartorius (known as the Count
San Luis) was named Minister, and the struggle
became more desperate than ever. The scandals of
La Grania are not yrt forgotten, and the Spanish
people have still fresh in their memory the debate
on the railway concessions, in which General Concha
denounced Maria Christina and her accomplices in
a tone far surpassing the Commission of Inquiry
after the death of Ferdinand ; and in that denuncia-
tion the whole of the Senate, composed as it was of
generals, grandees, ex-Ministers, leading financiers,
&c., joined, and voted against the Administration of
the detested Sartorius. It will he well to remember
that the Senate was no democratic or revolutionary
body ; it was essentially the reflex of the M oderado
party ; it was the issue of the constitution accorded
by Narvaez and Maria Christina ; and its members
were exclusively named by the Crown.
We remember the persecution O'Donnell suffered
from the Sartorius Government; his concealment in
Madrid ; his military insurrection ; the combat of
Vicalvaro ; his defeat and retreat in Andalusia;
his utter failure and impotence; and the famous

711

Liheralmanifesto which dread of approaching destruc-
tion extorted from him, and in which he made an
appeal to the people to rise in defence of their liber-
ties. He offered them his sword, and flung himself
into the ranks of the Liberal party. O'Donnell was
defeated and flying when that appeal was made ;
it was responded to by Espartero. Then, indeed, all
was changed : city atter city, village after village,
from south to north, from east to west, rose against
the miserable crew who had oppressed, plundered,
and degraded them. Espartero found the Queen
besieged in her Palace in Madrid, and he saved her
from public indignation by the prestige of his name,
his honesty, and his popularity.
Espartero carried his generosity and his confiding
spirit to a point which deserves censure. Never
meaning bad futh himself, he did not suspect it in
others. He had saved O'Donnell from ruin ; he
now offered him the Portfolio of War. How many
times in the course of two years has not Espartero
covered his unpopular colleague with the buckler of
his own honesty and his own influence! The pm-
sence of Espartero produced a restraint on the scan-
dals of the Court; and it was by him and his, whom
Maria Christina and her companions call the "enemies
of the throne," that throne has for the last two
years been saved again and again.--Times Paris
Correspondent.