The Sun.
London, England, 1823-11-07 00:00:00

ARRAIGNMENT OF RIEGO.

Criminal indictment against,. Don RAPIIAF.I.
al EGO, in the Process- commenced this day
before the second tribunal of the Alca ides of the
Royal Household of the Court :--
" ILLusTatotis Lottp—lf the Magistrate, to wham is
confided the proceedings against the traitor Riego, were obliged
to enumerate all the offences and villainies which crowd the
history of his criminal life, and to which he has added the cli-
max by the crime of high treason of which he is accused, whole
days would be insufficient fer the recital. The brevity,-how-
ever, which is imposed upon that functionary, and the short space
of time during which the Proourcur-General has had the do-
cuments in his hands, because he has merely consulted the
interests of public vengeance, do not'permit him to enter into
Rill details in his exposi ; it is necessary that the greatest
and most atrocious of crimes should receive a prompt punish-
ment. Influenced' by these motives, and desirous that this
cause should be decided without delay, the Magistrate finds
himself compelled to limit the accusation, and to reduce the
numberless crimes' imputed to the accused to the single one of
high treason. The. loyal Spanish people demand, with one
voice, vengeance for the evils which have been committed in
Spain during the Revolution ; society end the nation demand
that Riego should be punished, as one of the most guilty of
the Revolutionists, who, after having revolted against the le-
gitimate Government of our Kings, caused so many calumnies
to the generous and noble Spanish nation.
The infamous Riegii; availing himstlf of the baseness of
the soldiers destined to, pacify Anieriea, forgetting the duties
imposed upon him by the mission with which he was charged,
and proolaiming u Constitution ,which had been abolished by
his Sovereign as destructive of his sacred rights,--the basis of
an anarchical Ooverntnent and the destroyer of the fluida:.
mental laws of the Monarchy, of our manners, of our customs, ,
and of our holy teligieri—the infamous Riego, I say, is the
author of all themealatnities ; it.is he who has caused the eY
of a just and magnanimous King to shed teats over the misfor-
tunes of Spain ; it is he who has disregarded the most sacred ,
dutitl, who has violated the oath which he took beneath the:;
banners of his King and master, at the moment when he corn-.
menced the honourable career of arms ; it is Riego, in fact, who
not only published that Proclamation, but who, putting himself'
at the head of a licentious soldiery, violated the Spanish:toll-.
tory, forcing the inhabitants, by, the terror of his arms, to par-
take of this reason and perjiiry.. 'l,le removed the authorities
who were legitimately constituted, substituted in their place
the Constitutional authorities, composed of rebels and dema-
gogues, which obtained for him the name of the Hero of Las
Cabesas ; he compelled the King our Lord to accept this odious
Constitution, the source of sonititty miseries to Spain.

" Since that period, Riego has incessantly been an object of
opprobrium to the peninsula, by presenting hiniself in the pub-
lic squares and in the bslcanies of, all the houses where he
lodged; preaching rebellion, causing the fatal Constitutional
system to triumph, anti authorising the most heinous crimes,
Me inevitable result of a revolution which inflicted upon the
august and sacred person of his Majesty the utmost bitterness
and outrage."
" If your Fiscal, illustrious Lords, using the right which be.
longs to his function, vere to collect all the sccusations that
exist against Diego, he would unfold to of day a series
of crimes of every description which have so incensed the noble
Spanish nation; that frotnill parts of the Peninsula the cry has
spontaneously arisen, Leath to tfir traitor Riegu In the
ardour of their zeal, they ~have; mingled with this cry that of
Lung live the absolate:Kingi'
" There is no doubt, however, that the precise nature of the
indictnientpreferred against Riego, imposes upon your Fiscal
the necessity of confining the accusation to the horrible offence
which this traitor committed, as a Deputy of the pretended
Cortes, in voting for the removal of thelting and Royal Family
to Cadiz r in employing violence and menaces towards his Ma-
jesty, who energeticallyrefitsed to obey such a mandate ; and
in carrying his audacity,.so: far as to strip the bimetal, already
a captive, of the ephemeral authority which threevolution had
consented to leave him.
" Bet,' inthe case referred to, we have in our hands all the
documents, ell the Proofs which, in cases of a much less gray'?
complexion, are absolutely necessary to apportion justly the
pains and penalties incurred. Here, the crime consists in the
violence employed to-vents the King, our Lord, to force him to
consent, in spite of his resistance, to his removal to the island
of Cadiz—a crime unprecedented in the annals of Spain; it
consists, too, in the creation of it Regency, in consequence of a
proposition which wrisltuale in that same 'Cortes by the De.
put". °alien°, another traitor, the accomplice of Riego; and
all those acts of violence and of revolt manifestly constitute
the crime of high treason, which out laws punish with the pain
of death and other infamous penalties, -conformably to Tit. i.
of partitlar, which. agrees in this particular with the

Recoyilaclon.
We recogni2e as accused and convicted of this horrible at-
tempt, 1:1-;t3 DOn Raphael Riegu, one of The Deputies by
whom the odious propOsition .of was adoptki. The
proof othis culpability result*, not only from the informations
obtained by the Royal Court Audiencla of Sevilla (eritninal
Chamber), and which are found corroborated by all the jour.
nett of that period, whieti inserted a faithful and very circurti.
istantlal re/ma of the scandalous sitting of the 11th of June
last; but, forther.,,by the confessions of the criminal himself—
' confessions which cast upon the mass of important proof*
which we have collected ii living light which itself becomes

evidence.
" From all these considirstions,,the Fiscal demands that the,
traitor Dim Raphael 1114), accused and convicted of the
crime of high treason, shall be condemned to death ; that /lie
property be confiscated 'for the ,public good, that his head be
exp Used at Las Cabezas de St. *lust), and that his body be divided
into four quarters, one of which shall be carried to Seville, an-
other to the Isle of Leon, the third to 'Malaga, and the fourth
lie exposed in this capitt4 in some place of public resort ; these
cities toeing the principal points where' the traitor Riego fanned
the flame of"revolt, and manifested hiy perfidious comiuot.—
' Thus demands the Fiscal, in behalf of public justice. whose
defence is confided to him, and in virtue of those privileges
which belong to him in quality of King's Procureur.
Madrid, Oct. 10."

NATIONAL gOClETY.—Yestetday the General
Committee of the National Society, for the Edit-
cation of the Poor in the Principles of the Esta-
blished Church, held their Nteeting at St. Mar.
tin's Vestry it uona.
Present—The Lord Brstior of. LONDON', Sir J.tit. LANO.
unx, Bart. Right Hon.t
Str JHN NICIIOLL, Archdeaconm-
s
Pov , r and Cmenatno ; andO
other Members of the Co
mittee.
Nine fresh Schools were united to the Society,
and nine grants of money, in sums from '2Ol. to
200.1. each, voted towards the erecting, enlarg-
ing, and fitting up of School Rooms.