"Among the inconveniences of authors in the present day, it is difficult for any who have a name, good or bad, to escape translation. I have had the fortune to see the fourth canto of Childe Harold translated into versi sciotti-that is, a poem written in the Spenserean Stanza into blank verse, without regard to the natural divisions of the stanza, or of the sense!!"-Preface to the Prophecy of Dante.

NORTH AMERICA; THE PARTLY-SUCCESSFUL ONE OF FRANCE; AND THAT WHICH IS NOW THE OBJECT OF GREECE;

AND

CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH SHOW WHY THE NEAPOLITAN FAILURE

IN PARTICULAR, IS TO BE ATTRIBUTED TO THE LONG-EXPERIENCED DEGRADATION OF THE SOUTH OF EUROPE.

[Translated exclusively for the PAMPHLETEER.]

LONDON:

ADVERTISEMENT.

I was present at the downfall of liberty in the two Peninsulas, and was intimately acquainted with many of the principal actors in the revolutions of Spain, Naples, Portugal and Piedmont. My connexion with those who composed the representative governments of these four nations was such, that none of their proceedings could escape me.

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The melancholy circumstances of the times have obliged me to retire into a solitary corner, in a country not my own. Reading in my retirement what has been published in England and elsewhere relative to the loss of liberty in the two peninsulas, I have said to myself, "How could past misfortunes have been avoided, when even now the true causes of them are unknown." Hence, I sat down to write, in the hope that a knowlege of these causes might be serviceable to the interests of humanity. But I can neither publish the manuscript in the country in which I live, nor can I publish it in any other on this side of the Atlantic, with my name affixed to it, without the hazard of being exposed to death on the scaffold, or at least to pass the rest of my life in a prison. This circumstance has induced me to cause the manuscript to be published anonymously. The day will come in which my name shall be declared.

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July, 1824.

IN SPAIN, NAPLES, PORTUGAL, AND PIEDMONT.

SPAIN.

THE ideas of liberty lately arisen in Spain are chiefly attributable to the invasion of that country by the French. It has always happened that where the invaders are more enlightened, or more civilised than the invaded, the latter participate in the knowlege and civilisation of the former. At the same time the insurrectionary war which was waged by the Spaniards gave them a considerable impulsé, and the partisans of the despotic power of the Bourbons in Spain, together with the foreigners who fomented that insurrection, alternately used every endeavor to excite those sentiments of patriotism and glory, which quickly lead to a more elevated desire for liberty. These sentiments were not at that moment so formidable to the partisans of arbitrary government, as the gigantic power of Napoleon, which threatened so closely the ancient despotisms of Europe. This was the true origin of liberal opinions in Spain. But in order to be still more correct, we ought to add that free-masonry was not altogether unknown in Spain before the French invasion, in spite of the dreaded Inquisition. But the Free-masons were so few in number, that no account was kept of them. These few were confined to some

There is one circumstance relative to free-masonry which is worthy of attention, and with which the public may like to be acquainted. A short

young men who had lived in France, or in Italy, or to the officers of the navy and sometimes of the army. And although afterwards free-masonry was greatly extended in Spain, and during the constitutional regime was employed by interested men as a stepping-stone to office, it never became popular among that class who were most desirous of liberty, and who considered the Free-masons as impious and infernal persons. Hence it arose that the Communeros, among the principal of whom was the traitor Ballasteros, were so numerous, and acquired popularity so rapidly.

The founders of the Communeria, that is to say, those who held the first sitting at Madrid in 1821, did not amount to twenty. These made use at first of the name of Ballasteros, in order to spread the new sect, which in less than two years became much more numerous and powerful than that of the Free-masons, though the latter reckoned among their numbers some of the most distinguished men in that country.'

time before the French revolution took place, free-masonry florished in Naples, more than in any other country of Europe. It was embraced by the most distinguished persons in the kingdom. Queen Caroline of Austria was among their number, and was in consequence much courted by the free-masons all over Europe. Meantime, the king of Spain, Charles the 3d, father to the present king of the two Sicilies, being informed of the progress free-masonry was making in Naples, wrote in the most positive terms to the Neapolitan ministry to say it was absolutely necessary at any rate to put a stop to it. Queen Caroline, who in spite of her anxious desire to penetrate the secret councils of the Cabinet, never could obtain that object, was ignorant of the orders which had arrived from Spain, and a person high in office, named Pallante, was charged with the proceedings. He soon succeeded in taking by surprise the members of the principal lodge, which was held in a country-house near the capital. Irritated by this, not only because she patronised free-masonry, but because she detested the influence exercised by Spain over Naples, Caroline of Austria took steps for preventing the members thus surprised from experiencing any inconvenience, and Pallante was dismissed from his office. Neither this circumstance, nor the so-much-boasted liberality of Joseph the 2d, ought to occasion surprise, for the absolute princes of that day felt themselves so secure in the blindness of their people, that the tragedies of Brutus the first, and of the death of Cæsar, were represented in the royal palace of the Caserta near Naples. Yet this Princess, who could hear with complacency the tragedy of Brutus, and who herself belonged to the sect of the freemasons, finished her career by sending to the scaffold with unpitying cruelty the first men and principal free-masons of Naples. The Italians say "The wolf may lose her skin, but not her vicious disposition."

Some persons pretend that the want of agreement between the masons and Communeros occasioned the loss of liberty in Spain. Those who entertain this opinion, however, are but superficially acquainted with Spanish affairs. That country might indeed have lost her liberty though she had not been attacked by the hundred and fifty thousand bayonets of France, but the Communeros were not opposed to the Masons, and as a proof of