General Dupont, must, in case of disaster, have buried under its ruins, the hopes of the nation, then fixed on that alone.

Apparently weak to restrain this torrent were the veteran national troops then assembled, as if by a miracle, in that province, and the valiant volunteers, who roused by the voice of patriotism, hastened to their banners. For 13 years the former had not made war, and the latter had never seen it. All minds were suspended between hope and fear, anxiously waiting the event of that struggle which for the time it lasted, and the consequences it involved, formed the most terrible crisis of our movements and designs. The morning of the 19th broke; the armies were in motion; the clamour of war agitated the air; unanimity and foresight animated the chiefs, intrepid valour shone in the soldiers, and the most happy and virtuous emulation in each of the corps which composed our army. The battle was fought, and those ambitious Titans, fulminated by our inimitable artillery, were precipitated from the summit of their insupportable pride to the degradation of captivity. The shouts of victory resounded in the districts of Baylen and Mengebar, and were re-echoed by the summits of the Sierra Morena; in an instant they filled all Andalusia, and gave new life and joy to all the inhabitants of the peninsula, O Andalusians, that exultation, that unexpected joy which then filled your hearts, and the splendour which this great event reflected on your peninsula, followed closely on the uncertainty and consternation in which you were. But you had not suffered French oppression; you had not known their insufferable pride, their insensate vanity; you had not heard them boast that it was impossible to beat them; you had not seen them enthrone their wretched king, whom they carry about with them like a puppet on the throne destined by us to be hereafter the seat of innocence and justice, and not of iniquity and infamy. You had not seen them, in fine, dispose of and abuse all public things, pervert the weak, insult and persecute the good, exalt the bad, and announce to us as indestructable and eternal, their abominable tyranny: and all, all this was necessary to have conceived the delicious glory and in effable pleasure of liberty; to know how

sweetly sounds the noble name of Baylen in the ears of a Spaniard.

At hearing this, all this wretched rabble fled precipitately like thieves driven out from a house they are plun dering. No care was taken, no provi sion made for the future regulation of a capital they called their own. The echo of the name of Baylen confounded them, and without leaving them any other thought than that of saving themselves by flight, snatched the government from their usurping hands and transferred it to ours. Memorable 19th of July! If our revolution has assumed in the political order, the majestic and august character corresponding to the movements of a powerful nation; if notwith standing the reverses which we have since suffered, we have never been abandoned by dignity or hope; if that' hope has redoubled the sacrifices and efforts of the most magnanimous people upon earth, to thee is it owing, thine is the glory, thine the praise.

A year ago divided Spain was viewed with indifference by some, with compassion by others, and by many (O Shame!) with contempt; degraded and enfeebled within, overpowered without, the lords of the two worlds were nearly sunk in the ocean of French ambition; and seemed about to disappear from the political system of Europe. But what prodigies in the course of a year! you have awaked from the disgraceful lethargy in which you lay; you have overturned the throne of arbitrary power which consumed you; and you have made prisoners of war awhole French army, concluding your first campaign, contrary to all expectation, in the most brilliant and fortunate manner. In this year, which will be eternally memorable, you have reunited the state then divided into as many fractions as provinces, and assailed by a cloud of disasters, accumulated over your heads as if to defy human assistance; you have shewn yourselves more interesting and respectable in adversity than great in good fortune.

The precious fruits of this sublime constancy are the powerful alliances by which you are supported, the powerful and better organized armies by which you are defended, and the discomfiture of your enemies, who, retiring on all sides, only endeavour to preserve themselves united. Spaniards, their feebleness and confusion offers us an

opportunity to renew, at the same period, on the same day, the immortal success of Baylen.

Proceed then, bravely forwards, and act in concert with the noble efforts of your warlike allies. Do you not perceive that heaven, wearied with so many horrors, points out the path of fortune to the nations who struggle for justice? Do you not hear the shouts of victory resounding from the confines of Italy, from the banks of the Vistula, from the isles of the Danube? They were the most warlike divisions of the tyrant, champions, the ministers of his ambition, the companions of his crimes. There was he himself animating and directing destruction, and arming the death blow at the liberty and the existence of a hundred

innocent states. And there was it that his pride has been abased, his armies thrown into confusion, and he himself compelled to repass the river, flying from the Austrian star which has now obscured his own. Every battle which is fought there, every man who falls, each drop of blood which is there shed, is a tribute, Spaniards, is a tribute paid to your liberty and your vengeance. Can you desire greater good fortune, greater honour? Placed in the first rank, and raising in this great contest the banner of hostility and extermination_against France, redouble your efforts.-Remem ber Baylen, and suffer no nation to wrest from your hands this splendid prere gative.

ON THE MEANING OF THE TERM ALLEGIANCE.

To the Editor. SIR,

I perceive by the accounts lately published respecting the deposition of the King of Sweden, that the Baron de Mannenheim stepped forth in the diet, and after recounting the grievances alledged by the people against the late King Gustavus, pronounced a formal renunciation of bis ALLEGIANCE; which proceeding was approved by the other members of the states then assembled. This circumstance greatly elucidates those primitive institutions on which all the free governments of gothic origin were constructed; and consequently leads us to a just conception of the Revolution of 1688, respecting which Mr. Burke has retailed so many errors in his famous publication on French affairs. It shews that there was ab initio in these governments, a compact between the prince and people, which if broken by one side, absolved and emancipated the other; as was well said at that period of time (I mean the Revolution) by the Rev.Samuel John

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son, and Nath. Bacon, two very pithy and ingenious writers. "A bargain's a bargain," said they; "he who "breaks it himself cannot complain "of any infraction that may be made

by the other party; it is a knot "that you cannot untie at one end "without loosening the other also." No man contributed more to the Revolution than Samuel Johnson, by his Julian the Apostate, his His tory of Magna Charta, and his Address to James's Army, which induced them to lay down their arms. He proved that James had broken the compact, and consequently had absolved the people from their allegiance; and the convention parlia ment adopted his very words in their famous declaration, "That King "James II. having endeavoured to "subvert the constitution of the "kingdom by breaking the original "contract between king and people, "and by the advice of jesuits and "other wicked persons, having vio"lated the fundamental laws &c. "hath abdicated the government." To abdicate the government, is to forfeit the government. The conference which is given at length in Rapin, folio edition, Vol. II. p.787.

between the two houses decides this point, and the Scotish parliament actually used the word forfeited instead of the other.--There were, however, many at that time, who would not allow that the crown could be forfeited: they were tories, and contended for divine right, which they held of course to be indefeasible; the whigs on the contrary deriving the regal right from compact, consistently maintained it to be defeasible. Now this question was, if properly considered, a question of fact and not of theory and speculation; and amongst the many evidences that concur to establish this fact is this construction of allegiance; and surely it is very important that not only our ancestors, but that all the other gothic nations likewise, considered this institution of allegiance as comprising that very compact between prince and people, which was rejected at that time, as a chimera by the tories, and upon which their antagonists the whigs grounded the right they asserted, and actually did carry into execution, of putting James's forfeited crown on the head of King William. The tories of that day considered William as an usurper; and by the same rule our modern tories, if they were consistent, would hold George III. to be one likewise, for he stands in William's shoes. But if James did commit forfeiture or defeasance, if by breach of compact he divested himself of the crown, then might another be lawfully and constitutionally inpested with it, and there is no usurpation, or continuance of usurpation in the case. Now, sir, as I really wish the King of England to be considered as holding his crown by a better title than continuance of usurpation, I was really gratified to find a reference to those old primitive notions respecting the nature of the connection between prince and people referred to in the late transactions at Stockholm; and, without digressing at

VOL. VI.

present to other collateral circumstances in proof that compact is the ground work of our government, I shall confine my present remarks to illustrations of the institution called allegiance, premising that a similar renunciation to that made so lately in the Swedish diet, was also made in England on two important occa sions. The first was at the deposition of Edward II, who most unquestionably broke the compact we are treating of. He was crowned by the Bishop of Winchester on the 24th, of February, 1308; and the form of the oath is given in Rapin, folio edition, Vol. II. p. 389. as follows.

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Bishop of Winchester. Sir, will you keep and confirm by your "oath to the people of England, "the laws established by the pious "Kings your predecessors, and par"ticularly the laws, customs, and "liberties granted to the clergy and "people by the glorious Saint Ed"ward your predecessor??

"King. I will and promise it." There is no occasion to copy the remainder of this solemn ratification of a clear and express compact be tween prince and people; only I wish to observe that the laws called Saint Edward's are the fundamental laws alluded to in the declaration of the convention parliament which James II. is there asserted to have violated. Edward II. having been deposed in a legal and regular way for this wicked violation, Sir William Trussel, having a power of procuration from parliament for the purpose, pronounced to him these words, which are more full, though to the same purpose as those of the Baron de Mannenheim. “I Wil"liam Trussel, procurator of the "prelates, earls, barons, and peo

ple in my procuracy named, ha"ving for this full and sufficient power, do surrender unto you Ed"ward late King of England, the " homage and fealty of the persons "aforesaid, and do acquit the same

"in the best manner the law and cus"tom can give it, and do make this protestation in the name of all "those that will not be in your "fealty or allegiance for the future." By this memorable act it is very plain that the law and custom did hold a person acquitted of this obligation, when properly renounced and breach of compact in one of the parties, necessarily gave the other this right of renunciation. Though Rapin says that there was no precedent for this case, and supposes Sir W. Trussel to have used a form of his own, yet it is nevertheless true that in that age such renunciations were common at least upon the continent, where the great feudatories of the French crown always performed this ceremony before they joined the English, for otherwise they would have been considered as perjured.

The other instance is that of Richard II. also deposed for breach of compact, as is plainly proved by the articles of deposition, thirty-three in number, on which Rapin says;—" At "the same time commissioners were appointed to give him notice of his deposition, and to annull the oaths "and homage of the people of Eng"land, after much the same manner as in the case of Edward II."

Vol. II. p. 475.

You perceive, Sir, from thèse instances that allegiance was a tie which might be dissolved by formal Tenunciation; not as many people conceive it to be, an obligation under which the subject is born, and from which he cannot by any means emancipate himself.

Another false construction which has been made respecting this institution is that it binds on one side only, leaving the other party free. I might refer to the coronation oath above quoted, and to another well known ceremony of exposing the person of the King on the four sides of the scaffold previous to admini

string that oath, and demanding of the people if they would have him to be their King, a ceremony that continued till the reign of Edward VI. also to a very strong passage in St. Edward's laws, all which prove a voluntary and reciprocal compact; but I wish to shew that allegiance itself was such a compact, instead of being, as some would interpret it, a blind and stupid bond of unlimited and unconditional obedience.

Allegiance in low latin Ligeancia, Ligeitas, Ligiatio, Ligeia, Ligiamentum, and Ligium is, say the glos saries, derived from Ligatio, idest Fœdus vel pactum; words which denote both a covenant or compact and the origin of a system, which, till Lord Lyttleton's Life of Henry II. was published, was considered by some people here to have been a system of absolute submission, without any reciprocity in the obligation. They understood it better on the continent. Ducange explains this compact by the request that preceded it, Domine, si vis, faciam stabilitatem inter nos et ligationem firmissimam. He also tells us that the oldest feudal writers as Cujacius, Vignerius, &c. give it the same interpretation as Leud, a word which from being first applied to the social bond or oath taken by our ancestors to be faithful and true to each other, that is, to the community or the people, came afterwards to signify the people as well as fidelity; his words are Volunt (that is Cajacius &c.) esse ejusdem originis qua Leudis, ad Leodis id est fidelis, quemadmodum ex Leod ium urbe nota in Eburonibus liege dicimus. It is very true that both Liege in Germany and Leeds in England are derived from Leud or Leod, the faithful or the community; and thus Dr. Johnson in his Dictionary has retained the word Leod, a country or nation. But Boullainvillers, that learned antiquary, in his account of the Franks, gives the clearest account of the origin of this institu