The National Register.
London, England, 1814-05-29 00:00:00

FERDINAND AND 111 E SPANISH CORTES.

P. was our hope that Europe was on the eve of general
tranquillity and lasting repose. Spain so long drenched
with blood we expected to see at last respire from slaughter.
Tier independence established, and her King restored, we
were not prepared to expect that her territory would be
the theatre of a new tragedy. This unhappily we fear will
shortly take place, and the Spaniards after shedding their
blood for years in resisting a foreign enemy, seem now about
to destroy each other in a civil war.
Every man who has marked the progress of the war in the
Peninsula must acknowledge, if the Cortes have committed
some faults, many of their acts have been in the highest de-
gree beneficial to their country. They have framed a con-
stitution giving their fellow-countrymen many advantages of
which they could not boast under the old monarchy. It
was natural to hope that a Prince in the situation of Ferdi-
nand, grateful to the men who bad preserved his kingdom,
would not have availed himself of tt e first moment of free-
dom to refuse to assent to such an amelioration. of the con-
dition of his subjects. As the Cortes bad thought it expedient
to make, in older to convince the people that they were
interested in the issue of the struggle in which they were
engaged. This, however, he has done. Ile has published
a manifesto against the Cokes, in which. be refuses to ac-
cede to the constitution, and accuses them of the greatest
climes subjects could possibly commit. He even quarrels
with the manner in which thFy were called together. From
the asperity with which he expresses himself, it should seem
be is much but t at not having been enabled to carry his act of
abdication into effect. His people have perhaps still more rea-
son for sorrow on this account than him. •Of the Cortes he
says: " But these Cortes, assembled in a manner never used
in Spain, even in the most arduous cases, and In the most
turbulent times of the minorities of Kings, in which the As-
sembly of Procurators was wont to be more numerous than in
the common and ordinary Cortes, were not called the States
of the Nobility and Clergy, although the Central Junta had so
ordered, this Decree having been artfully concealed from the
Council of Regency, and also-the fact that the Junta has as-
signed to it the Presidency of the Cortes, a prerogative of
the Crown which the Regency would not have_ left to the
decision of the Congress, if it had been acquainted therewith.
Inconsequence of this, every thing remained at the disposal
_of. the Cortes ; who, on the day of their installation.
And by way of commencement to their acts, despoiled
jne of my sovereignty, which the same deputies had only
a little before acknowledged, ascribing it nominally to
the nation, in order to appropriate it to themselves, and,
then, upon such usurpation, to dictate to the nation
such laws as they pleased, imposing upon it the yoke by which
it should receive them compulsorily, in a new Constitution."
The yoke of which this enlightened monarch speaks, was that
constitution which abolished the Inquisition and established
the Freedon of the Press. After overwhelming the Cortes
with much more abuse, his intention as to the Constitution
. is thus mildly expressed," I declare, that my royal intention

MAY 29.

is, not only not to swear nor accede to the said constitution,
nor to any decree of the General and Extraordinary Corte;
and of the Ordinary at present sitting, those to wit which de-
rogate from the rights and prerogatives of my Sovereignty,
established by the constitution and the laws under which
the nation has lived in times past, hut to pronounce that con-
stitution and such decrees null and of no effect, now, or at
any other time, as if such acts had never. passed, and that
they are entirely abrogated, and without any obligation on
my people and subjects, of wha►ever class and condition, to
fulfil or observe them. And as he should attempt to support
them, and shall thus contradict my royal proclamation,
adopted with the above agreement and assent, will attack the
prerogatives of my sovereignty, and the happiness of the na-
tion, and will cause discontent and disturbance in my king-
doms, I declare, who shall dare to attempt the same will be
guilty of high treason, and as such subject to capital punish•
ment, whether he perform the same by deed, by writing, or
by words, moving and exciting, or in any other way exhorting.
and persuading that the said constitution and decrees
be
kept and observed."
Such is the conciliating: conduct which Ferdinand thinks it
becomes him to adopt on his return from exile. We trem-
ble for the consequences. If the Cortes possess that power
Which they have bitheito had, the calamities we fear may
yet be avoided, by their boldly proceeding against the traitors
to their country, who have given their King the advice on
which he now acts. If these were hanged, every thing may
yet go well.
A fearfully interesting and important question rises out of
this state of things, as to the part which this country ought
to take. We cannot repress a wish that we could with con-
sistency support the Cortes against one who appears to be
both a tyrant and a fool. • But we do not see how this is to
be done, wit '..out a total abandonment of the principles on
which we first engaged in the Spanish war, We undert(x)k
to assist them against a foreign enemy, and (we could almost
say in this instance wefiar) it will be our duty to leave them
to settle their domestic quarrels among themselves.