The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-11 00:00:00

'the Military

evolt in Spain.

--4--

(From the Correspondent of the Times.)

MADRID, Jan. 7.
When O'Donnell in the Senate the other day ex-

pressed his confidence that he would be able to raise
the state of siege within 48 hours he seems to have
calculated the chances of the conflict with tolerable
correctness. One of the insurgent columns under
the orders of Major Campos and Gonzales, after
moving as far north as Benavente, and then as far
west as Puebla tie Sauabria, is positively stated to have
crossed the Portuguese frontier at Braganza. Prim,

who from Terrancon had marched to Santa Cruz de

la Zarza and Villatobas to the neighbourhood of the
Tembleque station on the Great Southern Railway,
interrupting the communication on that line, seems
now to have moved further westward (as the traffic

with the south is said to have been re-established),
and taken the direction of the Toledo mountains,
with the intention, as his adversaries suppose, of
following that long sierra all the way to the frontier
of Portugal. Two companies of infantry are said to
have joined him from Cuenca. Agreeably to the
latest bulletins of this morning, Prim slept last night
at Villarabia de los Ojos, and proceeded this morn-
ing towards Daimiel and Ciudad Real, where he
found himself between the pursuing column under
Zabala, which had reached Madridejos, and that of
General Concha, Marques del Duero, who was ad-
vancing to meet him from Manzanares. Prim's only
line of retreat is along the chain of the .Toledo
Mountains. Private information, on ~which I feel
inclined to rely, assures me that he has with him no
less than 150 volunteers or guerrilleros, under the
guidance of Noy de las Varraquetas, upon whom he
has conferred the rank of Lieut.-General. These

active and daring paysanos, or countrymen, as they
are called, are of infinite use to the regular soldiers
in whose frontand rear they hover, catering for food
and forage, scouring the land' far and wide, and
acquainting the commanding officer with the move-
ments of the enemy. An aide-de-camp of Zabala,
who was in Madrid the other day, reported that he
was to start with his forces from Aranjuez on the
morning of yesterday, but, strange to say, was not
aware of the line being interrupted at Tembleque.
I told you in a former letter that this Zabala, who
is Minister of the Marine, and Marquis of Sierra
Bullones, is not popular with the troops, who at
first refused to march under his orders. He took
with him a large body of Engineers, on account of
the particular confidence O'Donnell has in those
troops, and on being stopped on the right bank of
the Tagus at Villarejos by the sinking of the sus-
pension bridge, he summoned the commanding offi-
cer of the Engineers, and bade him throw a bridge
across without delay. The officer pleaded the want
of materials, which he would have to send for from
Madrid, and which would not be forthcoming for
48 hours, whereupon Zabala flew into a towering
passion, upbraided the man for incapacity and sloth,
and upon his remonstrating rather tartly sent him
to the rear disgraced. As the Engineer officer hap-
pens to be highly esteemed and beloved by the men
in his corps, it is not likely that Zabala will have
won the hearts of his column by this unprovoked
and irrational act of severity.
The Government, as you are aware, had from the
very beginning of the disturbance closed all the
clubs, casinos, and other places of rendezvous in
Madrid. They yesterday published a decree dis-
solving and forbidding all political associations.
They broke up the Progressista and Democratic
committees all over the kingdom, and arrested seve-
ral of their members both at Saragossa and Barce-
lona. The first of those cities and the whole of
Arragon were declared in. a state of siege, notwith-
standing the perfect tranquillity those provinces are
officially described as enjoying. Arrests have also
been made in Madrid.
One of the most inoffensive establishments in the
capital, the casino, or club, in the Carrevade Sen
Geronimo, continues to be shut up night and day,
to the groat discomfiture of the old habitue's, who can
hardly be said to have any other home in the world,
and who are now crowding before its doors in the
street, like sheep out of their fold. It is the most aris-
tocratic reunion in the place, consequently the most
conservative, and its members, belonging as they do
to every shade of political party, meet there as in a
neutral ground in peace and harmony, or if they
ever quarrel it is only over their rubber of whist,
or over their rouge et noir table. The reason why
the Government chose to be so inexorable against
this harmless nest of night crows was that some was
bethought himself of sticking up on the walls of the
drawing-room O'Donnell's proclamation to his troops
at the time of the military insurrection at Vicalvaro
in June, 1854, simply substituting Prim's name in-
stead of O'Donnell's,—a piece of cutting satire, no
doubt, as Prim's movement at the present juncture
is neither more nor less than a parody on the cavalry
exploit which removed the Satorius Ministry from
the Queen's Council. The deeds are alike, almost
identical. The Queen, it is said, seems to have
been struck with the analogy between the Aranjuez
mutiny and the Vicalvaro rebellion, as upon the
Minister laying before her the decree by which
Prim is declared a traitor, and as such deprived of
all ranks, titles, and honours with which he had
been loaded, she positively refused to put to it her
signature, or "rubric," observing to the Minister
that " she had been made to sign precisely such a
document against one who was called the traitor
O'Donnell 11 years ago,—an act which did not
prevent the same O'Donnell exercising supreme
power over the country and over herself for years
and years afterwards." It is not impossible that
her Majesty's reluctance may have been overcome,
as it is said the decree in question is now in the
press.

That Prim is a monster of ingratitude ; that he
has forgotten how the Queen raised him to the
highest rank in the army, lavished all orders and
decorations upon him, made him a grandee of Spain
of the first class, created him Conde de Rens, and
Marques de los Castillejos, and finally did him the
honour, hardly ever vouchsafed to a subject, of
holding his infant daughter at the baptismal font,
thereby contracting spiritual kinship with him ;
that O'Donnell showed himself clement and mag-
nanimous with him by cancelling the decree which
had banished him to Oviedo ; and that he has re-
quited both his Sovereign and his military superior
by a treason of the blackest that we learn
from the official papers, which finds no words adequate
to convey their detestation of the war, and think
no gallows could be sufficiently high to hang him.
There is no doubt that, independent of any justice
or injustice of this cause, Prim will have to answer
for the rashness with which he committed himself
to an enterprise which, as it would now appear, held
out so little hope of success, and the result of which
will be to itrce back his country for a year or two
in that career of financial and social improvement
on which she was so slowly and painfully struggling
to put herself. The consternation and confusion of
all men here is beyond all belief, and hardly seems
commensurate with the actual importance of the
escapade which has given rise to it. The effect of
the mutiny of those few squadrons on 'Change, on
railway and canal enterprise, on public confidence
in any kind of undertaking, is incalculable. Never
have I seen the commercial men, who are numerous
at my hotel, so downcast as they have been for the
last three days.

On the other hand, the Government itself, even
in the midst of its triumph, seems hardly able to re-
cover any of that calmness and serenity in which,
in other communities, resides the main Prestige of
the ruling powers. The O'Donnell Ministry are, or
affect to be, in a most inconceivable " funk." I use
the vulgar word purposely, because nothing can
better convey the craven countenance the Govern-
ment has put upon the matter of the Prim rebellion,
both before and after its outbreak. The terror be-
trayed by the authorities is altogether so abject that
it 'night almost seem to be a counterfeit, and one
finds it difficult to reject the suggestions of those who
tli'k that „
O'Donnell has some reason for pretend-
ing tobe so much afraid that he is looking for a pre-
text for
backing out of the liberal policy with which
he had inaugurated his.
accession to power, that he
aims at the assumption of absolute, irresponsible
authority, or, finally, that he wishes to throw dismay
and bewilderment into the mind of the Queen, and
to terrify her into that abdication to which she has
hitherto shown herself so little inclined. Why,