The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-17 00:00:00

The Insurrection in Spain.

(From the Cor'r'espondent of the Times)
MADRID, Jan. 12.
I went all yesterday about town inquiring what
were the causes and what the effects of the commo-
tion which had so nearly turned Madrid topsy-
turvy on the previous evening between 5 and 6
o'clock. All I could find out was that there had
been much ado about very little. Some very pal-
pable design to create a disturbance there had been.
There are men in Madrid, and their name is legion,
who consider themselves bound, and who would, no
doubt, be fain to do something for Prim. Nay, if
the choice were between him and O'Donnell—if the
difference could be settled by a mere show of hands
or even by a poll—l have not the slightest hesita-
tion in asserting that the former would carry the
day by at least 99 votes out of 100 against the
latter ; and this, not because Prim is thought to be
by any means the better man of the two ; not be-
cause in the opinion of these people there is much
to choose between them, but simply because Spain
lies on a bed of suffering—a move from one side to
the other is either a real or a fancied relief, and any
change is hailed as clear gain, for things can hardly
be made worse than they are.
But if many of the people at large, and especially
the leaders of the Progresista party, are in their
heart of hearts bent on mischief, they are also aware
that in their country revolutions are as much the
work of soldiers as masses are the business of priests
—and that the quarrel between the Duke of Tetuan
and the Marquis of Castillejos is not to be decided
by laymen. Which of those two military chiefs
muster more sabres and bayonets may be matter of
doubt, but there can never be any about the fact
that the people of Spain, like the Senate of Rome
in the worst times of the Empire, must always be
on the side of the ".gros bataillons."

Well, but if the soldiers are to raise a Prime Mi-
nister, as the old Praetorians did an Emperor, on
their shields, to power, could not, at least thought
the Progresistas, something be done to try the sol-
diers' temper, something to bring about that pro-
nunciamiento to which they are supposed to be so
strongly inclined ? This was the plan of operations
laid out for Wednesday evening, and the result was,
as I said, " much cry and little wool."
In the first place there was no firing. Those few
random shots which I and others with me heard
were not musketry fire, but were pte'ards, by which
attempts were made to create alarm. Whenever and
wherever one of those reports was heard there was
a rush and a run, and the natural huddling together
of the terrified multitude afforded an opportunity
for setting up the cries " Viva Prim I" "Down
with the Government !" cries, however, which the
crowd, only anxious to get out of the turmoil, did
not stop to echo. Some wretches of the very lowest
classes had been plied with wine till they reeled
with it, and it was these that by their hisses so very
nearly brought about a collision between the mob
and the Civil Guards at the Puerta del Sol. Finally
a band of mere urchins from school—not students
from the University, but mere schoolboys, the oldest
hardly 12 or 13 years old, upon being relieved from
their day's task, and coming forth into their street,
Calle Ancha de San Bernardo, set up the cry of
" Viva Prim !" and came on, a puny disorderly
phalanx, towards the Puerta del Sol. They were
-MciroT---14----tnnaNni or patrol of cavalry, such
as may be seen daily
fsegs in
these troubled times, and began hooting an ssms
at them. The good-natured troopers went their
way, heedless of the taunts ; though their officer,
nettled at the word " Cobarde ! Cobarde !" that
was flung in his teeth, had laid his hand on his
sword, and half drawn it ; but he simply shook his
head and rode on. The forbearance of the cavalry
was imitated by the foot soldiers and Civil Guards
on duty at the Puerta del Sol, who contented them-
selves with merely showing their bayonets to the
juvenile rioters, and, having cleared the square,
allowed them to hiss to their hearts' content, and
with full impufiity, in the side streets.
Things thus passed off with happy smoothness on
Wednesday evening, and Madrid en fut quitte pour
la pear. Yesterday morning, however, Senor Don
Isidoro lloyos, Marques de Zornosa, and Captain
General of :.\;-;:w Castile, after a brief allusion to the
attempted disturbance of the evening, " orders and
commands" that "any group uttering seditious cries
or in any manner disturbing the tranquillity of the
neighbourhood should be dispersed by the public
force, who are to make use of their arms." _ _

Thanks, perhaps, to these measures, profound
tranquillity reigned in Madrid yesterday. A con-
siderable force of Civil Guards paraded the Calle
Aucha de San Bernardo and the purlieus of the
University. In the evening towards dark a very ill-
looking crowd had been gradually gathering at the
Puerta del Sol, butupon a column of about 200 Civil
Guards marching out of the Palacio de la Goberna-
cion, and forming in front of the house the would-
be rioters slunk away. For the first time I noticed
yesterday that cannon have been drawn up in the
courtyard of the Government House.
The elements of mischief are indeed astir in Ma-
drid, and things arc hardly likely to terminate with-
out bloodshed here any more than they did in Bar-
celona, where we are told seven persons were killed.
Of serious disturbance, leading to any great change,
however, we hear not one syllable, nor are welikely
to hear. The whole country is in an expectant atti-
tude, ready to submit to such fate as the fortune of
arms may award. Little doubt ought we to enter-
tain as to what the upshot of the military move-
ment may be if we were to believe the oft repeated
official assertions that Prim and the insurgents are
in fall retreat upon Portugal, along the crest of
the Sierra de Toledo, with Zabala's column march-
ing on their right flank on the Tagus, and that of
Eehagu.e equally pressing upon them on the left
along the valley of the Guadiana. A more
miserable plight than these insurgents have been
brought to or more hopeless straits, if we believe
can
these Government bulletins,hardly be imagined,
yet Prim still holds on, and is still a long way from
the Portuguese frontier, and the 48 hours within
which O'Donnell had engaged to raise the state of
siege have stretched to ten days, and no one knows
what the morrow may bring ; for O'Donnell himself
is well aware that there is not one regiment--not
one man, from the drummer to the Field-Marshal,
on whom full reliance may be put from morning to
night. To such a state has Spain been brought by
the supineness of her people and by their proneness
to acknowledge the ascendancy of any chief, -who-
ever he may be, who has the greatest number of
troops to overawe them with !
It is probably owing to their fear of shocking the
array by any deed of severe justice that the Govern-
ment, after trying and convicting those two sergeants,
who were found in " flagrant conspiracy" at the
Pueblo office, as I informed you in my yesterday's
letter, after sentencing them to be shot, and appoint-
ing the day and hour of execution, allowed them to
escape from confinement.
The captain-general of New Castile applied yes-
terday to the Senate for permission to proceed
against Don Juan Prim, Marques de los Castillejos,
as guilty of treason and rebellion, praying that the
Senate might please to waive in his case the privi-
leges and immunities to which he would be entitled
as a member of the House. The demand was re-
ferred to the Sections, who wouldappoint a commis-
sion to consider acid report upon it.
Notwithstanding the unsettled state of Madrid,
the Queen has been driving out these last two
evenings both in the town and the neighbourhood,
and even walking in her favourite promenade of
the Retiro. She has a lot
or oninea-f mdonndays' avisits,s to pay
to as
her
devotions to, a novena,
miraculous images, whose
many churches boasting
assistance in her forthcoming confinement is to
be propitiated. On 'Wednesday her Majesty
drove to the Church of the Salesas Viejas ; yester-
A few days
day to that of our Lady of Loretto.
ago the Queen published a decree appointing all the
forms and ceremonies which are to be observed,
during the " auspicious event of her confinement,"
naming all the persons, Ministers of State, Court
dignitaries, deputations from the Senate and Con-
gress, commissions of the Body of Grandees, Cap-
tains-General of the Army and Navy, Knights
Grand Crosses and Grand Cordons of the various
Orders, prelates, magistrates, &c., and foreign
diplomatists who are to be in attendance, and or-