The Sun.
London, England, 1826-12-14 00:00:00

King of France, by Lieut. General Vicomte Gudon, Commander
of the French forces in Andalusia, was attended by only forty-
six ladies, young and old ; a pretty strong proof that the occu-
pation of Cadiz is not very palatable to the inhabitants, howsoever
exemplary the conduct of the troops may be ; or that the Lieu-
tenant General has not the art of insinuating himself in the good
graces of the " Gaditanas."
When the insurrection took place in the province of Algarve,
which was no sooner excited than subdued, the Spanish authorities
at Ayamonte crossed the Guadiana, and entered Portugal with a
band of music, to bail the insurgents, and bring them into Spain.
A spirited remonstrance from Don Gonsalvez Vieira, the Por-
tuguese Cotten' General at Cadiz, to his Excellency the Captain
General at Seville, Don V. Quesada, caused the desired effect.
The Spanish authorities at Ayamonte have been punished.
The gradual decay of this fine country—which, under another
system, might yet be one of the most productive in the world,
could not be credited by any who have not seen what it once was
and what it now is ; its commerce annihilated, manufactures
destroyed its inhabitants ;educed to the lowest state of poverty
and wretchedness; all these in a nation whose climate is the most
delicious, whose soil the most exuberant, whose harbours the most
spacious—an awful warning to surrounding Potentates, and a
wholesome lesson to all those nations who enjoy the blessings of
good government wherewithal to be content.
It is much feared that the Guerrero, '74, Commodore La Bora,
sent (rein this port last year to the Havannah, has foundered at
sea, she was seen by several vessels dismasted and in much distress;
the other vessels composing her squadron have returned to the
Havannah. Should this melancholy catastrophe have occurred,
there remains but one more ship of the line, belonging to Spain—
lately so great, so powerful.
During the whole time that the Colombian privateers have in-
fested the coast of Spain, to the almost entire destruction of the
coasting trade, not one of them has been captured by any ship of
war, although the corvettes, Deseubiesta, Jason, Jainta, and
others, have been sent to look after them; but, on the other
baud, the Colombians have taken part of the convoy of these Spa-
nish men-of-war.
The number of the Colombians is diminished in this neighbour-
hoOd ; two vessels, however, which arrived here on the 16th from
Galicia, state that they were both boarded by a Colombian ship
off Cape St. Vincent, one on the I 1 th, the other on the 18th,
from whom they learned that six vessels which sailed from Cadiz
had lately been captured by the same Colombian. If the French
were to leave Spain, what should prevent the Colombians from
blockading Cadiz. The Spaniards, individually, could not exert
their local powers, and so weak is the Government, that they
could not efficaciously prevent such a blockade, which, however
chimerical it may seem, would not be unlikely to occur.
The French themselves are heartily tired of the occupation—
they say, " nous commis dans nue position en fausse :" with a
Constitutional Government ourselves, we arc controlling, by our
presence, the free exercise of the people of Spain, for the obtaiu-
meat of a similar benefit ; and we are moreover, for the same
reasons, sustaining Spain in her opposition to tl.e existing order
of things in Portugal, which France has openly recognized. By
our presence, we strengthen the king against his people, in his
determination not to admit of "an intercourse between Old and
New Spain. Whilst we French are sending out Consuls to South
America, we•are doing duty as sentinels over the prisons of Spain,
teeming with prisoners guilty of no greater crime than that of
having obeyed their sovereign in swearing to the Constitution.
Our troops are employed to aid an arbitrary police, in the ap-
prehension of individuals, to whoM the nature of their offence is
not perhaps for years afterwards communicated, and to sustain
the Spanish authorities in the exercise of a power which we col-
lectively and individually condemn ; and yet, they say, France
has not the resolution and the good sense to free herself of this
inconsistency, and by withdrawing her troops, afford facilities to
the establishment of a wiser system of policy."
I send this letter by the steam ship George the Fourth, which
we hope, at Cadiz, may become a regular means of coon:outage-
tion. The celerity of their voyages renders it peculiarly desirable,
that the General Steam Navigation Company may meet with
such encouragement as to induce them to persevere. Were Cadiz
what it once was, and what it might become, this city alone
would support such a ship regularly, and, we trust, if there
should be a loss in the first instance, that the General Steam Na-
vigation Company will, notwithstanding, give the undertaking a
fair trial of some months, for it is by perseverance only that the
benefits of such rapid communications can be thoroughly known
and duly appreciated.