Mr. GUEEHARD, by what he ...
The Times, 1824-04-21T00:00:00

Mr. OUEB1MARD, by what he calls his " Prospectus of a Royal Spanish Loan;" is trying oince more to raise the wind for King FERDINAND. He talks leariiedly about the milliotns to be borrowed-the interest to be paid-the Fun- dry series of bonds, professing to represent 200 piasters each-th-e privilege offered to the holders of tossing up for the' priority of payment-and; what is best of all, this balnkrupt borrower presumes to tell the wxorld ,Alxt-thl wholezlozuig Wto Be repiaid in 20,,ycars frow.Thl: whict tl"e,mouey shall-have beeii lenit to huimi. Now;,'M r GuEaHARD, let us ask you one or two plain questionas For whom are you striving to raise this money? and whai secarity have you to ofiEr? "For FMnDIWIAND VII. C and his royalsignature (quoth MIr. QuEsanARD), is the ' security of the lender, that the several branches of reve- ' nue which the King pledges for the principal and inter. Cc est of this debt will be honourably applied to these, and to " nootherobjects."Mighty well,we answer: but, likethecos. mogonymanin the Vicar of Vakefield, KingFERDINAND has told us all this fine storybefore. It is only two years since he borrowed large sums of money, which were furnished to him from this country-sums out of which he ate, and drank, and dressed himself, and kept his Court; and spent, rmoreover, a large portion of them in raising Royalist sol- diers, and in secretly (lestroying these very securities wwhich be tendered to us, his creditors, for interest, sinking fund, and so forth, on the principal we lent him. We cannot, therefore, believe one word this King of yours tells us, or a single promise that he makes. " Oh, but," says the finan- cier. ' King FERDINANnD was then in durance-the Cortes "had hold of him-he was not his own master, and had' "'no power to act but as they compelle(d hiw..", This, we rejoin, is the exact point to which we wished to bring you, Mr. GUEBHARD. King FE?DINAND assured us in the former instance, that he was free to act as he thought fit; he took his oath upon it to his own subjects; hie pledged his honour to us. Whiclh of you is guilty of the falsehood? for you flatly contradiet the King. Besides, if his Majesty excused himself from the ob'i- gatien of his former bond, because he " was not free," we ask'you, Is he free at this moment? If the Cortes then had lol0(l of him, is he not actually a prisoner surrounded by foreign soldiers ? And is not that an exc,ise, far more reasonable than the other, for denying the validity of the loan which vou are now requiring? We say for once,then, before you talk of contracting new debts, be good enough to (hscharge your old ones-before you ask a receipt for this year's, or for next year's interest-money, show that the last year's is not in arrear: the King's word of 1824 is not an atom better than his oaths of 1820, 1821, 1822: let him falfil his promises of the above periods-let him not laugh at the credulity of those wvho trusted him, and then ask them to trust him again. Uneertifjcated baulkrupts have no credit here, nor any where. Advise FERDINAND VII. to pay his old creditors, Mr. GUEOHARD, or it is some- thing more than a " toss up" that. you and he are hooted off oRr Exchange as a couple of base impostors.