The Express.
London, England, 1868-10-08 00:00:00

GENERAL PRIM.

TnE reception given by the Madrilenes to Gene-
ral SERRANO, enthusiastic as it was, appears to
have been but a faint foretaste of the ecstatic and
almost frenzied welcome which met General Pant
on the day following. The " dumb-founded
fipaniard," to use Mr. Royercx's cour-
teous phrase, has at last found a tongue.
The fervid temperament of the southern
race, not cooled by admixture with hot
Moorish blood, has broken through the restraints
of that dignified gravity which Spaniards especially
affect. The tumult of feeling which surged round
General SERRA-No on Saturday became a tempest,
and even a hurricane, on the Wednesday following
when Pang entered Madrid. The whole city
turned out to meet him; the procession which
passed through the streets was five hours
in making its way; traffic was completely
stepped. There is, however, a bitter drop in the
cup of delight. Among the multitudes who rejoice
there are families who mourn. In the throng that
pressed and swayed before General Panes hotel,
and in what was the Puerta del Sol, several men
and women were crushed to death, sacrifices,
as old superstition would have held, by which a
people besides itself with joy and hope appeased
gods jealous of a too perfect human happiness.
It is impossible not to sympathise with the out-
burst of Spanish feeling. The dull oppression of
the weight thrown off is measured by the jubila-
tions which follow its removal. The intensity and
intoxication of joy are proportioned to the depth of
gloom which went before. In the acclamations which
have greeted SERRA-NO and Pats, the people of
Madrid are congratulating each other and them-
selves. The victorious Generals, the organiser of
the revolution and the successful instrument of
it, have earned the popular gratitude; but they
rather present points to which the eddying cur-
rent of emotions may flow, and on which the
tumult of feeling may spend itself, than the objects
of • just and sober esteem. If Palm were a
Spanish GARIBALDI, he could not have been
greeted with a more passionate fervour of affec-
tion.

Making every allowance for the effervescence
and effusiveness of a southern people, it may be
doubted whether the welcome given to General
PRIM is of good augury for the in-
stitution of a free and stable govern-
ment in Spain. It is out of nab ele-
ments as those which fermented on Wednesday
in the streets of Madrid that military dictatorships
are formed. PRIM has been a lees conspicuous
actor in the present revolution, in such part of it
at least as has passed in the open day, than
SERRANO ; yet ho has outrun the conqueror of
NOVA LIMES in the race for popularity. Is
be to be the restorer of Spain to free-
dom, internal tranquillity, and prosperity,
and to the forfeited respect of foreign powers I'
One may doubt it. General PRIM has hitherto
been a disturber, and not a constructor. Be is a
man of restless activity, not insensible to generous
feelings and just sentiments, but without fixed
and clear principlim, or steady and consistent
purposes. finch a character, indeed, as is
needed for the salvation of Spain could be
scarcely formed in milieu which the society
and politics of that country have for a generation
presented. A Catalan, by birth and descent,
General PRIM bail the keen and flashing genius
and the unstable tempsr of the people of Southern

Prance, to whom rather than to the pure Coatillan
Spaniards the Catalans are in race allied. His
earliest training was in civil war. At the seces-
sion of Issiteims 11., then an infant of three
years of age, Paim was a lad of 19, and drew his
sword on behalf of the child Queen against the
Carlists. Maturity of judgment in so young a
man is not to be looked for, and, perhaps, it
was not unnatural that personal loyalty
to his Sovereign should have converted him
into a partizan of the QUERN-MOTURR, in spite of
the measure.; in restriction of municipal liberties
which marked the close of her rule. During
the constitutional regency of EspAirrsao, which
followed the successful insurrection against
CHRISTINA'S Government, PRISE was a constant
conspirator and fomenter of disturbances against
the Duke of VicfroaY, and was a party to
the alliance between the Christine and the Fro-
greseistas, which ended in the return of the
Quires-Maras to power. Under her adminis-
tration, PRIN, raised to the rank of general,
was appointed governor of Madrid. Sent
to suppress a liberal rising in Barcelona, he is
accused of having connived at it, and fanned the
disturbance* which for a year made Ostalonia the
seat of civil war. The work which he was affecting
to do made him bated by the popular party ;
his failure to do it disgraced him at Court. He
was deprived of his command, put on his trial for a
conspiracy against the Government, and sentenced
to six years imprisonment, from which, after six
months, ho was released, at his mother's prayers.
For nine years he lived in retirement. In 1833,
the outbreak of war with Russia afforded a vent
for his active spirit. He was appointed
to a command on the Danube, and the
first successes of the Turks at Oltonitsa
and Silislria are attributed to his skill and daring.
The insurrection of 16M summoned him to Spain.
Ho associated himself with the progreesist
party, under his old rival Bsrsteratto. Though
elected to the Congress of Doputies for
Barcelona next year. and raised to the
Senate in 1838, Punt's military career was
more illustrious than the part he played in poli-
tics. His brilliant services in the war with
Morocco in 1839 and 1860 made him fora time
the national hero. His separation as the loader of
the Spanish force from partnership with the policy
of France in Mexico, and his protests in favour of
the independence of that Republic, earned him a
truer title to esteem. Interpreted by the light of
his conduct on this occasion, it is possible to believe
that an impulse of patriotism and of resentment at
the oppression and degradation of his country
urged him to the insurrectionary movement which
he set on foot in 1866, renewed in 1867, and after
those unsuccessful attempts, has carried to a
successful iilSllo, in 1869. So far as the Spanish
Revolution is the work of one man, Palm may
claim to be its author. Tho youthful
solder of ISABELLA, and the partisan
of CHRISTINA, has been in his maturity the instru-
ment for expelling the last of the Bouttaoss from
Spain. It remains to be seen whether years and
experience have converted the adventurer into a
statesman, and have strengthened generous
impulses into a steady patriotic purpose.