Star.
London, England, 1824-03-13 00:00:00

SPAIN.

PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.

MADRID, FEBRUARY 26.
The 'removal of the fourteen Councillors of Castile
was not in consequence of the recommendation and ap-
proval of the Ministers, as I had supposed, but effanated
directly from the King, without any previous commu-
nication at all with theM: no reason whatever was, or
has been hitherto assigned, and at present the conjectute
is, that it must have been at the instigation of someone
constantly about the king. His Majesty has, in the
lame manner, orderedthe dismissal of two of the prin.
cipal Secretaries in the Minister of State's Office. Count
Ofalta 'was thunderstruck when he received the mes-
sage, as it deprive. him of the means of getting on at
all with the business of his.office, as the whole weight of
it lay with the said Secretaries, who were the most com-
petent and efficient in the dis Charge of it. This conduct
of the King is the universal theme of conversation. The
'officious person is supposed to he Ugarte, who has re!
presented that the persons dismissed were Constitu-
tionalists in their hearts, with the mere outs and parade
of Royalism : and this, probably, is the whole head anti
front of their offending. It can hardly be.imagined that
Ugarte is influenced by Russia now, for what has that
Power to gain by it ? What possession, what commerce,
what money in lieu of worn-out ships, what benefits in
any shape has she to get by a predominance in the Coun-
cils of his Catholic Majesty ? And though her principal
object may be the crippling of British ti ade, whenever
it can he disguisedly done, the Gentlemen dismissed
could tend hardly in any way or manner to promote it. •
It can therefore only be accounted fhr by supposing that
this man has now .become the tool of the Clergy, and
that they are working their designs through him. We
may expect some other changes, probably of importance.
The "Junta de Aranceles (Committee for fixing the
Duties of Foreign Trade), is decreed to be re-established
—the tat iff will, therefore, be immediately revised, and
the British manufacturer may be‘istepaied to hear that,
his articles will receive the " highest consideration."
:De Minister of Finance wishes to scrape together
whatever is to be had, and as the wear of English
manufactures is so univei sal, the higher the duty, so
ranch the more he thinks to gain, without perhaps know-
ing or reflecting. that already nineteen parts out of
twenty ate illicitly introduce', by reason of the very
high duties, and to increase ,them will send the other
twentieth to the smuggler also.
The situation of Government is every day more em- •
barrassing ; the French afford a hoop to the barrel,:
utile' wise it w.n.lid instant;` fail to pieces. Them is no
money anywhere—the more the Minister endeavours
alter it, the less there appe.o sof it. I understand, at
the Treasury the other day, a wag ati-ixed on the door,
" No further payments will be made."
The Curare Merino has dismissed his men, or rather
has disn.issed himself from them, and takes leave in a
ljng disconr:.e. I have not yet heard positively that
any have been disarmed—the Government say they are;
that tie person sent the order being but a youth,
Karim %%mild not ca-edit his being inn u ted with it,
upon which the young officer wrote to his father a long
. story of the whole being a set of rebels, and which being
glee 11 to the Minister of War, occasioned the ferment,
PIIA the sending of the French troops, and that all is as
it should I,:e.

It is said that the B iron Ea oles is increasing his forces
instead of sending theirs to the right about ; whether
with the object at keeping dorm the Constitutionalists,
who are extremely numerous in Barcelona and its neigh-
bourhood, or for the rut pose of ordering matters as they
should be, we have yet to lea, n.