dowment of the clergy is preserved, the labourer is consider ably relieved thus encouraging agriculture, an inexhaustible source of our wealth; and, in fine, the system of finance, which, suppressing burdensome and use. less taxes, or means of raising money, has fixed public revenues by preserving among the established contributions such as are less liable to abuse, and establishing new ones conformable to the principles of the political constitution of the monarchy, and adopted with success by the most civilized nations-all these objects are alike the work of the Congress. "I offer to the Cortes the expression of all my gratitude, for the zeal and wisdom that they have displayed in adopting measures of the highest importance to the state. The government will not neglect any means for ensuring their execution, as effectually as its own dignity and the stability of the constitutional system, which I will cause scrupulously to be observed, requires. "I also thank the Congress for the generosity with which it has provided for the wants and the dignity of my royal household and my family, as well as for the authorization granted to the government, to have means for covering the more urgent public expenses. Our relations of good understanding and friendship with other powers have experienced no change since the opening of the session; and I will endeavour to preserve them by all the means which are in my power, and which may be consistent with the dignity of the heroic nation which I am proud of ruling. "The treaty with the United States, which terminates our differences with that government, and includes the cession of the Floridas, has been ratified by the president, and the ratifications have been exchanged the 22nd of last February. I flatter myself that in consequence of this treaty, and ofthe settlement of our boundaries, which is to be effected by a mixed commission, our relations with the United States will hereafter experience no alteration. The firmness of my goveṛnment and the generous and active co-operation of his majesty the king of the Netherlands, place for the present our commerce in safety from all hostilities on the part of the Regency of Algiers. "In consequence of the new order of things, generously and spontaneously adopted by the king of the united kingdom of Portugal and Brazil, his most faithful majesty has taken the resolution of returning to Lisbon with his royal family, and leaving at Rio Janeiro the hereditary prince, in the quality of viceroy. I shall profit by the return of his most faithful majesty to resume the long-suspended negotiations relatively to the occupation of Monte Video and the eastern bank of the Rio de la Plata. "I have made know to the Cortes my sentiments on the subject of the events in Naples and Piedmont-events to which some malevolent persons wished to give, as regards Spain, an importance which they could in no way pos sess. "The interior of the kingdom enjoys tranquillity; the only band of factious men, which has existed in small numbers, has been dispersed and defeated by means of the energetic dispositions of the government and the zeal of our troops. It is to be hoped that its ill success, and the amelioration of the public spirit, will cause enterprises so mad to be henceforward abandoned, impotent as they are to impede the majestic pro. gress of our system. "Agriculture, industry, arts, and sciences already experience the ameliorations which they owe to our constitutional system. All these sources of public prosperity will be further improved as soon as they experience the effects of the decrees passed for their encouragement. But this is not the affair of a day; the seed which is thrown in the earth does not pro duce its effect in an instant. Commerce will prosper in proportion; and especially when, thanks to the aid which the Cortes shall be able to give it, the Spanish nation shall have for its protection such a navy as it ought to have. "I have seen with not less satisfaction that the Cortes have turned their eyes towards the administrainto of justice, which they have strengthened by measures taken to this end. "I shall spare no effort to obtain the re-establishment of order in the provinces beyond sea; and my government, urged by the Cortes to take the measures which it may deem suitable for their hap. piness, taking into consideration the state of those countries, will obey the call with that promptitude and generosity which characterise it. The Spaniards of both hemispheres must be convinced, that I desire nothing so much as their happiness, founded on the integrity of the monarchy and an observance of the constitution. "If, as I doubt not, the next Cortes imitate the noble example of the present, in their respect, their attachment to the throne, and their love to the country, I shall promptly have the satisfaction to see consolidated, in all these points, the system which is the principal object of my wishes." The President of the Cortes replied to the King in the following terms: "The Cortes have this day the satisfaction, for the third time of seeing your majesty in the midst of them, exercising one of the most important functions which the fundamental law attributes to the august dignity of your majesty. They terminate the present session of the legislature, in receiving the most flattering recompense of their labours, by the approbation which your majesty has been pleased to confer upon them. "Sire, the circumstances in which the Cortes were placed at the commencement of the session were difficult and complicated. The political situation of some of the states of Europe might have led them to fear that the dignity and tranquillity of the nation might have been put to hazard; the firmness wherewith your majesty's government demanded of certain foreign governments the explanations necessary to save both the one and the other, procured the double advantage of our seeing clearly recognized by those cabinets the justice and legitimacy of our political revolution, and of manifesting the respect and consideration which they entertain for your majesty as well as for the Spanish nation. This firmness has also shown how vain and illusory were the hopes of some silly individuals who relied for the success of their criminal enterprises upon foreign intervention. "The Cortes have seen themselves forced, by the obstinacy of a few factious persons, to adopt laws calculated to give your majesty's government the means of repressing their audacity, and of securing the public tranquillity. But if the justifiable anxiety that this chastisement should be accomplished by legal means, and not by popular effervescence, has placed the Cortes under the painful necessity of adopting measures of severity, they, at the same time, manifested their readiness to comply with your majesty's beneficent intentions, by prescribing regulations rendering the execution of those measures less rigorous, and by proclaiming amnesties in favour of individuals, who, by a prompt and sincere repentance, might prove that it was error, and not studied criminality, which had drawn them under the colours of the enemies of the constitutional system and of your majesty's throne. "The Cortes, in thus combining severity with clemency, conceived that these two legislative attributes should never be so prominently manifested as at the period when, by the effect of reforms dictated by justice and the public interest, a multitude of passions-some engendered by ignorance or misguided opinion, others springing from the perverseness of the human heart have burst forth in a manner equally criminal. A time will come when these persons, better advised, will detest the unjust cause which they embraced in a moment of delirium, and in imitation of others who will ever be stigmatised as the disgrace of a free and civilized community. "But if the consolidation of the constitutional system, and the concoction of the laws necessary to restrain the audacity of its enemies, have principally fixed the attention of the Cortes, they have occupied themselves, with the same ardour, with all the other objects which belong to the public administration. The formation of the codes of our jurisprudence, that of an economical system, the organization of the clergy and militia, the establishment of a wise and uniform system of public instruction, the diminution of the tithes, and other burdens falling exclusively upon agriculture, the encouragement of our nascent industry, the prompt extinction of the national debt, the examination of the general budgets of the national income and expenditure, and finally, the organization of all the branches constituting the political machine of the state, have constantly occupied the attention of the Cortes, and excited among them the noble ambition of leaving behind them, as the aggregate of their labours, a great and usefulmonument, worthy of the lights of the age, and of the wants of nations. "In the midst of objects so important, the Cortes, whose session is limited by the constitution, beheld, though your majesty's fore sight had prolonged the term, their labours about to terminate without the complete accomplishment of their purpose. They were leaving unattained several important objects recommended to their care. They were leaving the vessel of the state tossed between the hope of seeing her future destiny secured, and the fear of seeing new pilots make her take an opposite direction. "Your majesty, participating in these fears, has thought proper to announce to us the convocation of the extraordinary Cortes; and thus manifesting your ardent wish to see all the parts of the constitutional system consolidated, your majesty acquires fresh claims to the gratitude of the nation, and the veneration of all your subjects. "Thanks be unto you, sire, for this resolution, by which, identifying your wishes with those of your people, your majesty shows how much you merit that glorious name, which not vile flattery, but the national gratitude has engraven upon your throne. The Cortes rejoice with your majesty in a measure, the mere announcement of which restores tranquillity to those who feel an interest in the glory of the country, and in the establishment of those laws which will at once secure her future prosperity, and impose silence on the enemies of our constitution, among whom there can be none but those who are the enemies of your majesty's person and throne. "In the confidence that your majesty's government will continue to give unequivocal proofs of energy and zeal, in the punctual observance and maintenance of the constitutional system, and in the execution of the decrees of the legislature, the deputies of the nation enjoy by anticipation the flattering prospect of the be nefits which must result therefrom. When your majesty's voice shall anew assemble them in this august edifice, they will meet with the same zeal to devote themselves to the discussion of such affairs as your majesty, in the exercise of your constitu tional prerogative, may think proper to submit to them; and when the term of their powers shall have expired, they will return to their respective homes, where they will ever approve themselves models of attachment and respect towards the august person and family of your majesty, as they have been models of firmness and constancy in defence of the liberties of the nation and the prerogatives of your majesty's throne." within these three days, it would appear either that great crimes have stained the memory of general Morillo, or that the authors of these infamous reports have forgotten the principles of justice which distinguish the Spanish people. LETTER of GENERAL MORILLO, in justification of his Conduct at MADRID, on the Night of the 20th August, 1821. "It is painful for a citizen who fulfils his duties, and for a military man, full of honour, who has often faced death in the field of battle, to appear criminal in the eyes of the public, and to see his opinion attacked in the most cruel and afflicting manner. In listening to the clamours of an infuriated populace, and the threats of blood and proscription of which I have been the object "In the night of the 20th instant, I received several reports from an officer stationed at one of the posts of this capital, who sent me notice, that his guard was surrounded and insulted by a number of ferocious men, who had already thrown stones, and in many other ways outraged the national arms, which I am proud of having the honour of commanding at this critical period. "He who does not know the deep impression which such reports make upon a chief, the importance which a military man gives to every thing which can hurt or outrage the arms which his country has intrusted to his charge, and the effervescence which agitates all minds in these important movements (and mine in particular, who thought that I perceived the public safety compromised and in danger), he alone will be able to cast reproach upon my conduct for the recent transactions, and it is only on that day that he can represent it as horrible,' &c. &c. I shall not descend to minute details; it is sufficient for me to say, amid the grief with which I am afflict ed, that in many facts I have been calumniated. I injured no one, and I suffered no one to be ill treated. I bore much abuse; and if I had been such as wickedness and bad faith have represented me, horrors of another kind would have signalized that night already too calamitous. "The man who, at the head of the military force of this province, has always conducted himself as a citizen-he who, in all his actions, has breathed only a love for the liberty which we enjoy he who, in the exigencies of authority cannot be reproached with committing the least violence he who constantly has watched night and day over the public tranquillity,-such a man, I say, ought not to be pourtrayed under such horrible colours, nor see himself condemned without being heard. "Public men, who proceed in the path of duty, have in all cases a claim upon public consideration and respect; and in seeing myself placed on a level with those traitors who endeavour to overthrow the edifice of their country's freedom, I have a right to complain and to appeal to an impartial and sensible public against such injustice. "My public life has been stained with no crime; my heart is pure and ardent for liberty; I have conducted myself at the head of the military command of New Castile with the same frankness and good faith with which I commanded the brave men whom I have so often led to battle. I appeal for the evidence of this to the whole nation. I pray, then, the men of elevated sentiments to enter for a moment into the situation of one so conscious of his own integrity. I ask the nation if men who have served it since they first drew breath ought to be judged with such intemperance regarding an incident so misrepresented. "I shall content myself, therefore, for the present, with declaring to the public, in the most solemn manner, that injustice may afflict, but it will not humiliate General Morillo. "I assure them at the same time, that I will accept of no command till this affair has been brought to a trial,-until my con duct on the present occasion has been represented under its true colours. (Signed) "PABLO MORILLO. "Madrid, Aug. 24." |