The Sun.
London, England, 1823-08-20 00:00:00

[MORNING liEltA GIL]

News arrived yesterday in the city from Spain,
which,' under other circumstances, would have
been most interesting and gratifying to the Eng-
lish public. A vessel, which sailed from the
coast of Catalonia on the 2d, and reached Genoa
on the 7th instant, brought intelligence of Iwo
battles in that province. On the 27th July the
three Spanish Generals, Milans, Llobera, and
Manse, with their united divisions, attacked the
French near Manresa, and, after two days' hard
fighting, took from the enemy 3,000 prisoners.—
The French had a proportionate number of kill-
ed and wounded. The engagement must have
been an obstinately contested one. There can
be no doubt that the advantage was entirely on
the side of the Spaniards, as it appears they
burned Manresa, which was a strong position,
occupied by the French, and from which they
must have retreated. The second battle was
fought, or rather begun, on the 29th. On that
day Mina himself and General Rotten, the Go-
vernor of Barcelona, sallied from that city with
their whole force, and attacked the French on
the 30th, at Mataro, where we believe Moncey
was in` person. The fighting had not yet
ceased on the 2d-instant, and the vessel sailed on
that day without knowing the result. As she
sailed, fire was visible, it is stated, along the
coast, and on the taps of the mountains. The
melancholy glory which may crown the Spanish
anus in Catalonia at this moment, is, we fear,
matter rather of regret than rejoicing to the
friends of Spanish freedom, who are also the
friends of humanity. The vindication of a
just and noble cause, and the prospect of
great permanent blessings to a nation, should
alone reconcile the mind to the sacrifice of
human life in war. It is not likely that
any successes in Catalonia can materially
retard or influence the catastrophe which
seems so rapidly approaching before Cadiz.—
Nor is it probable that Mina would hold out
after a pacification had taken place in the
other provinces—not from any impossibility of
maintaining himself in Catalonia or Navarre
against any French force that could be brought
to bear upon him, but because lie could scarcely
hope for ultimate success. It is true, however,
' that Cadiz and the Cortes had not yst surren-
dered. The Bayonne dispatch, conveyed• by te-
legraph, and published in the Monitcur of Thurs-
day, was certainly incorrect. It is also worth
notice, that we have no accounts in the
French Papers of the adhesion of Zayas to

rf
DallaSterOS or of the submission of any of
the fortresses within the 'command of this
renegade General. —He included in his
convention with the French and all the troops
within his command, and the garrisons in the ,
places of strength. None appear as yet to have
answered his appeal. Had it been otherwise—
or had there been even a prospect of their fol-
lowing the example of Ballasteros, the French
would no doubt have proclaimed it with avidity
in the Monileur. lt appears, by accounts
from Madrid, that the rabble of the Faith, and
the Monks in that city, upon hearing (pre-
maturely) of the release of Ferdinand at Ca-
diz, manifested their joy in a manner very cha-
racteristic of their instincts and their cause--by
house-breaking, pillage, and massacre. They
loosened their fury upon all the mare respectable
inhabitants, who' were suspected of a want of af-
fection for despotism and the Inquisition, with-
out the least reprimand or check from the Re-
gency, or the Municipal Authorities of the Faith,
until they were lashed back into their kennels
by the French troops left in garrison there.

[MORNING CURONICLE.)
The French Papers of Sunday contain the
Edict of the King of Prussia on the organization
of Provincial States from the Mark of Branden-
burgh and the Margraviate of Lower Lusatia, of
which an abstract has already been given by us.
We learn from this document that the States in
question are to be a deliberative Assembly, and
that Berlin is fixed on as the theatre of their activity,
but what they are to deliberate on when they arrive
at Berlin is not very clearly stated. We learn
only that " they treat the objects in common,"
and that " for a valid resolution on the objects
which we have proposed for their deliberation, or
tuft to their decision under the reserve of our
sanction, or, in short, which must come in some
other way to our knowledge, a majority of two-
thirds will be requisite," from. which we are to
infer that the selection of the subjects en
which they nre to exercise their deliberative
faculties is to rest entirely with his Majesty. We
learn, however, also, that the proceedings of the
Assembly are to be printed, so that some day or
other a due measure of light will nodoubt bethrown
on its functions. With respect to its composi-
tion great credit we think is due to his Majesty.
The problem to be solved was the creation of an
elective legislative body in the hands of which
pure Monarchy might be perfectly safe. Two
dangers were more especially to be gUarded
against, a Legislature like that in a certain
country, independent of the people, but ca-
pable of dictating its own' terms to the Crown,
or one like that of another country, the
pure emanation of the popular %%rill. In the
course of the eight years which have elapsed
since his famous promise, his Prussian Majesty has
not been au inattentive observer of the working;
of the Constitutions, which SOME! of his Brother
Sovereign, who had less patience than himself, set
agoing; and he has arrived at the conclusion, that
the only mode of obtaining a perfect
against the two evils above alluded to, is to take
the election altogether into his own hands.—
Ali the Elections are under the surveillance
of the Provincial. Counsellor of the circle in
which they take place. lie directs the choice
of the Electors of Arrondissement, and of the
Deputies to the Assembly, either immediately or
by a deputy to he named by him." &c. Another
great cohstitution-maker of our day, Sir Thomas
Maitland, lilt upon it happy expedient for secur-
ing a proper descliption of representatives, which
is no other than to limit the electors in their choice
to the persons in the list furnished by himself.
'The consequence has been, that while all other
Legislatures, even the best disposed, have bad
their moments of ill-humour, the utmost harmony
prevailed, from first to last, between Sir Thomas
and his Parliament, from which he never had even
abiasiiingslien
juensktyilulwsivliorit)tt;
(dually
dare to say his Prus-
sian successful in his
experiment, and that his deliberative Assembly,
should it attain a happy old age, will never be
disturbed by any portion of the demagogical
spirit. His Majesty, as in duty bound, is to pay
his deliberative Assembly ; but if he pays them,
he has shewn that he means also to make them
work. "No Member is to be absent from the
Assembly without good reasons, and without in-
forming the Marshal.""'Three-fourths of the
total number of Deputies at least, are necessary
to all valid resolutions." How far adequate pay
would secure a good attendance in a certain As-
sembly in this island, We know not, but if three-
fourths of the Members were necessary to every
vote, without pay, things would go on, we fear,
rather tardily. However, as they give us their
services for nothing, we must be thankful, we
suppose, for what wC get.

rnuss.]

The last Paris Papers bring nothing new from
Spain. The Etoile stptes the last accounts 're-
ceived from Cadiz to reach to the 6th. With
its usual anxiety for the Bourbon lineage, it
mentions Ferdinand's health, and that of the
Royal Family, to be. good ; but says, that affairs
were not as far advanced as was at first
believed. At Madrid (gifis lemperet a 10.
cismis,-when the melancholy tale is told) all
the marks of public rejoicing, hall been taken
down; anti suddenly disappeared, the news
of Ferdinand's enlargement being Unhappily
premature. Madrid and Saragossa both have
been the scenes of dreadful commotions, during
the night of the 10th of July. The fanatics and
rabble of Madrid paraded the streets with horrid
yells and exclamations. They were armed with
clubs and other weapons, and attacked all
those wretches chose to brand as enemies and
Liberals. When. the night had advanced, the cry
for plunder was heard amongit the mob, and the
word passed to attack and pillage the !souses of
the Constitutionalists. The Work of robbery in
stantly -
commenced, to which its authors were di-
rected by the surrounding illumination, and from
plunder theie demons proceeded, as a conse-
quence, to massacre. •Eighteen to twenty indivi-
duals, it is calculated, fell victims to the fury
Of these monsters, before their rage could - be
checked. Like savage Indians they danced •and
exulted round the writhing members of the vie-

tins they had murdered. These are the partl-4
sans of the imrnactilate Regency—the supporters
of till principles Angouleme and his sqnadrons
cameinto Spain to propagate! Unhappy Saragossa,
it appears, has been outraged by excesses of the
same dreadful sort ; on the Roth July, about
eleven in the morning, more than 8,000 ,
pea-
sants rushed into Saragossa, and, after dividing
into bodies, took possession of the different
streets, attacked the houses of the richest and
most respectable individuals, suspected by them
of being Constitutionalists, arrested them on the
spot, and hurried them to the church of the In-
quisition ; in less than two hours 1,500 indivi-
duals were crowded together in this church. Soon
after a deputation of the abominable insurgents
presented themselves before the Spanish' General,
Joachim Ferreyra, demanding authority from
him to plunder the houses of the individuals ar-
rested. The Spanish Commandant appears to
have acted with equal principle, humanity, and
determination, and to have reprobated in the
strongest terms the propositions of this banditti ;
but to save the residences of the victims from
their cupidity and fury, he was obliged to con-
cert measures at once with the Commander of
the French garrison ; ' and, through their mu-
tual intervention, the horrid pillage was pre-
vented, but they could not succeed in liberating
the arrested Spaniards. To prevent a general mas-
sacre, which it is asserted the populace and pea-
santry were decided on if the troops made the
least effort to set them at liberty, Ferreyra,
the Spanish General, and the French Command-
ant, dispatched an extraordinary courier to
Madrid, apprising the Regency of the appalling
circumstances, and their orders-were looked for
at Saragossa with the deepest impatience and
anxiety. Thtis have the French, by their in-
trigues and second invasion of Spain, roused a
hellish spirit of inveteracy now desolating the
whole kingdom, and hostile even to themselves,
which theyare utterly unable to subdue. In Madrid
the Manolos are masters ; in Saragossa an infu-
riated peasantry have committed the excesses we
have shortly detailed ; from Corttova, its fanatics
have been calling for the re-establishment of the
fell Inquisition. With Angouleme's arrival, like
Death on the Pale Horse of the Revelations,all the
agents of destruction and horror have followed in
his dark train. When he would divorce himself
from them they will no longer separate; he may,
of necessity, negociate with the Cortes, but how
is Spain subsequently to be tranquillized ? Is
she to remain lhe sanguinary theatre of civil pro-
scription and war, and a Servile war to rage
through her proviuces ? Dreadful and irreparable
injuries have been dealt that unhappy country
by the French Cabinet; but fur them both Spain
and Portugal would have preserved their liber-
ties in quiet, and been now perfectly undisturbed
and tranquil.