The Sun.
London, England, 1837-08-14 00:00:00

SPAIN.

MADRID. AUG. s.—Events are rapidly rogressiog here.
Whilst all eyes were turned towards the cast, in expceta-
tint) of a speedy termination of affairs there, a nes enemy
has appeared on another side, and already reached within •
eighteen or twenty leagues of the capital. Letters from
Burgos and Valladolid represent Old Castile, the present
theatre of this new invasion, as almost abandoned to the
mercy of these expeditionary Vandal'. We have only to
look over the route which they have taken. without obstruc-
tion, to perceive the abandonment of that province, and the
devastations which they must have committed in their pro-
gress. On the 27th of July. they passed (after uniting
their forces, to the amount of 6,000 infantry and .2.00
cavalry) from Belorado to Cobarrubias and Rttuarta.
On the 26th, they halted in the neighbourhoed of
these towns, for the purpose of plundering the peo-
ple of everything they possessed. On the 29th, they
spent the night in Pinilla de Trasmoate, and exacted
rations and other supplies from the inhabitants along
the Donro as far as Penoranda. The morning of
the 30th they divided, one portion of them occupy-
ing the defiles of Oquilla, the other marching in a
different direction to call off the attention of the Cap-
tain:General of 01:1 Castile, who was proceeding from
Lerma with the division of Alcala, whom the Captain-
General has succeeded in command. That night the fac-
tious, no action having taken place, halted in the towns of
Aguilera, Gumiel de Mercado, and La Orra. Tire Cap-
tain-General, Mendez Vigo, an able and active
.nfficer, re-
turned to Lerma with Alcala's division. At nine in the
morning of the 31st the fictions moved in mass on Ron,
where they are represented to have committed the most
unheard of excesses ; and at four in the afternoon they
again started in two columns, one on each bank of the
Douro, towards Penafiel. One of these columns stopped
for the night in Pcsquera, the other in sight of the Castle of
Penafiel, in which some Nationals shut themselves up, un-
able to offer any resistance. Bath columns uniting in the
evening, they commenced their march, passing by Kahane,
and halting during the night of the Ist instant in Filen-
tiduera, Calabazas, and Sacramenia, in the province of
Segovia. Here our intelligence of their movements
terminates. It is supposed that from the towns men-
tioned they have proceeded: to Cantalcjo, Fuente
Pelayo, • and other small towns in the vicinity
of Segovia. It is not at present known whe-
ther it be their intention to attack Segovia, or,

taking Supalveda and Riaza in their route, to march to-
wards Guadalajara. To provide the more effectually for
the desolation of the province, they have organised a -rebel
junta in San Leonarda-, whose duty of course it will be to
impose and levy whatever .taxes o‘.. exactions these mis-
creants think proper on the people. Two battalions, for
the protection of this living exchequer, have been left in the
Sierra of BtirgOs and of Soria. If enabled to establish them-
s'elves in this position it is apprehended that it may not be
an. easy task to dispossess them. General Mendez Vigo
has marched for Valladolid, by Palencia, from Lerma,
supposing it probable that they might attack the first of
these places. Their present course, however, inclines ra-
ther. towards Guadalajara than to Valladolid ; but the
Course which an army of plunderers of this kind may
take, is not a subject of calculation. Aleala, whose
duty it should have been to oppose these factions, has
been superseded in command, as I have stated, by
General Mendez Vigo ; and, if the report be correct,
has also been placed on the long list of indicted
but unpunished officers who have behaved as he has
done in similar circumstances. On Thursday night last a
detachment of the garrison troops of Madrid were ordered
to march towards Segovia ; this morning another force of
600 men of the Queen's Regiment has proceeded in the
same direction. Aspiroz, an able officer, I understand, is to
command these forces. No suspicion whatever is enter-
tained of its being the intention of this despicable but mis-
chievous faction to turn towards the capital. Their sole
objects aro to distract, if possible, the attention of some of
the troops now in pursuit of the Pretender in. Arragon and
Valencia, and to plunder the inhabitants of the country
through which they are permitted to pass. In fact, they
have left their fortresses in Navarre to rob the peaiantry of
the fruits of their labour for the last nine mouths, which
are now, of course, collected, and in a portable form, after
the harvest. All they cannot consume or take with them
will, according 'the savage code of warfare by which
theso miscreants are governed, be destroyed. In the dis-
tricts Cley have just passed through in Old Castile they
have acted on this barbarous principle with fearful fidelity.
Report speaks of their rapine as indescribable.
prom the armies- on the eastern side of the Peninsula

there is little to be added to what I have stated in tof.a.t.
letters. The Government announce, in a single short pa.
ragraph in the Gazette, that the army of the centre made
a movement on the 31st, from Mosnue:ue:.l towards Villa-
franca, to which the Pretend,.er tool mart:huff ; anti thot
similar movement was also made at the salt- (tow .mai
wards the same point by the Conde t!,.. Loollana from
Fortanete. As the great mass of the h g r-fit
must he concentrated in this (putter, t! e nxie'v :+.4-
drid for the next arrivals of intelligi•oee is at ats
height. Not a few place much ent6.letic.• in iLe cAerity
of the factious movements, and are of opinion th.t they
will escape ; others, looking to the reporttniurtlers give;)
to the detached bodies of their forces it, cations parts L.F
the country to hasten to Valencia, think that it m :y be
their intention to risk a battle with the Chei=tino tott:es.
.
This, in the present state of our informat• .s itot a pro-
bable contingency. The calling in of the St free-
booters, and the direction of others toward:. Cie rastcrn
part of the Ebro, world rather ind;cite a provis:en.f.w a
safe escort to his " Majestj" to the lia,offe profmees.
Accounts from Barcelona to the -.9th give rather a favour-
able view of the struggles passing there between tine local
factions and the Christino troops. Ripoll. which was then
besieged, Was making a desperate resistance to the wsail-
ants. The Baron de Meer was to have m to its re-
lief on the 26th from Vicb, and from thence to Olot. Ur-
bistondo, commander of sonic of the Catalonian factions,
was threatening Berge. The accounts ef tlw spir;t of the
people in the vicinity of Tarragona were ustremely satis-
factory. Other accounts state that most of the factious
forces of the principality had received ortivrs to march to
Aragon, their business there—the protection of the forlorn
Pretender—being a necessary inferencefroo: :hese accounts.
Barcelona was then in a state of perfect tranquillity. Pri-
vate letters. from Santander state that a part of the pri-
son of Bilboa surprised and took the who'e t)th battalion of
the factious; who were stationed in Sondup,-;
These letters have not been officially confirmed.
From La Mancha and the I•Tighbouring districts, cofn-
plaints are still received of the oppressions of the hordes of
robbers who frequent those quarters. The provin'Cial de-
putation of Truxillo have ordered one thousand of the Na-
tional Guards to be mobitzed, or put into disposable order
to protect the people from the incursions of these n•nrte
than savages.

In the Cortes there has been nothing doing (luring the
last four days. The question which chiefly uicupied their
attention has been the reform of tiro clergy, of which I
have already gi,'en you an account. A Senor Mort, one of
the deputies, has moved to interpellate the covernu►^ut oa
tL c granting of the recent concessions to his Excellency
jr. Villiers for the establishment of coal depots' tin• the use
or -.British steamers on the Atlantic and Mediterranean
si6,-% of the Penininla.

Tit., Gazette of yesterday inserts the law for the ';up-
pre.ssio.t of monastic institutions. Th, loca. news o'f' the
capital is unimportant. The editor of the Porenir, for
having al.twunced some days ago that certain persons had
been &sot. tched from Madrid to tamper with the national
trouts, wat4arrested, to compel him to diselos:- the grottmli
of this anno lit:emelt, and was shmtly after liber,tted. It is
a fact peculiarly fitted for the French journals, which,
will, of eaurre, manufacture some twenty or thirty
arrests of " Porvenir Editors" out of the captioit of but
one. His Excellency Senor Acuna, Le,en re-
cently .elevated to a place in the cabinet, is givieg notch
dism isfaction. If tloi cry against him continues of the
same tone as at present, he must 5..,0n be r,olotted: among
the unsuccessful Minit_!.ers of oils Home Dliart:tieut
the Peninsula, a situation which ha, prove,: f.:tal to so
many aspiring statesmen in Spain. Senor klemtli7..h:; has
had a severe attack of bowel complaint doling the week,
but is now convalescent. , During the last. f.trtni,qht the
health of the elty, I may observe, suffered some change ;
diaNthie t and slight cases of dysentery being extremely
nt, probably owing to the intense heat of the wea:her.
N ),:e of these eases, however, assumed the character of
choier,,, and have almost entirely disappe tre,t . The Cennt
Latour Maubourg, French Ambassador a :be Court. of
Madrid, arrived it few days ago front Paris, with his lady.
to whom 11 s has been rece-utiy married. The political
of Madrid, Iltron Asalto, is spoken of as being ~hout to h
separated front thot office. He cannot have a more ineffi-
cient successor. Since the above was mitten, 1 have
learned that Ripon, stated in the early part &* this letter
had surrendered-to the factions, and that Urbioondo, with
4,000 or 5,000 men, was proceeding to 1;),. iabro, with a
view of facilitating the Pretender's pagsaguse: the river
by Cherta or some other point selettyti.

S. hundred of the National guards or N idrid have 1,-'n
7,011 ed out 0;1 (hay to-dly to supply too oi
,roops sent to Segovia.