efforts by the unanimity and energy with which all classes in the state declared themselves against the factious adherents of Marino and Salvatierra, by the severe punishment which they experienced, and by the energetic law of the 25th of April, these enemies obtained the conviction that they could not enter into an open conflict with the friends of the constitution; they therefore prepared another kind of attack, which, though obscure, was for that very reason so much the more dangerous. To inflame the passions, to divide opinions, to scatter distrust every where, and thus to lead to anarchy and civil war, and to provoke, if possible, the interference of foreign powers, were, doubtless, the best means to succeed in their wicked object. Some foreigners also came to their aid, and circulated in Madrid, and in other towns, plans subversive of public order, which could not be a secret to the ministry.

This concurrence of fatal circumstances ought to have served them as a guide for remedying the evil in its origin, and thus avoiding greater evils which must necessarily have succeeded. The ministry ought to have calmed the passions, united men's minds, and thus have gained public opinion, by frank conduct free from all suspicion. But unhappily they did not take this course.

The Committee does not think it necessary to remind the Cortes of the influence which, in the effervescence of public opinion, the two appointments of minister of war were calculated to have -appointments which so agitated the public mind, and gave new food to the old fears and general

distrust. But how much was not that distrust increased, when the public, ignorant of the motives of the ministry, were made acquainted with the circular which the minister of the interior addressed to the political chiefs on the occasion of the approaching elections of the deputies for the Cortes? This measure, dictated, perhaps, by an unreflecting zeal, irritated and divided men's minds, excited violent passions, and inflamed the resentment of a great number of persons, who, with or without foundation, considered themselves possessed of just claims to national gratitude.

The Commitee does not apologize for exaggerated principles, nor deny the existence of persons who profess them. Every extreme is a vice, and it would be as ridiculous to suppose, in a nation of twelve millions of inhabitants, that no one carried his passion for liberty to excess, as to pretend that there were none who loved despotism. It is certain that there are fanatics for either extreme discontented, ignorant, and deluded persons; but the science of government requires that no point of union should be presented for all the descriptions; and the events which have given ground for the present report authorized the Committee to believe that the ministry has not on this occasion, exercised due foresight.

With the above events, unfortunately those of Arragon coincided. The fundamental law grants to the king the appointment and removal of civil and military officers, but the ministry ought to use this power, as well as every other which they exercise in the name of the monarch,

with prudence and discretion. The coincidence of the removal of the commandant-general of that province with the rest of the French emissaries in Arragon and Valencia, with the trial of Villamor, and other incidents, gave reason to suspect that all these circumstances had the same origin. The incomprehensible silence of the government on this occasion excited fears in some, at seeing calumniated, in public opinion, one of the men they believed most worthy of public gratitude. Others suspected that the attack was not directed against persons, but things; and all agreed, that the ministers, by their silence, had committed a most serious error.

Such was the state of public opinion when the sitting of the 12th of October increased the discredit of the Ministers. The government required to be authorized to maintain some corps of militia under arms, for the purpose of reinforcing the sanatory cordon. This demand appeared so natural, that the Cortes could not refuse it, as that would have been to charge themselves with the responsibility of propagating the contagion. Some deputies wished on this occasion to be informed of the means employed by the government for carrying this measure into effect, and of the resources which might be relied on for meeting the new expenses. The ministers, however, eluded the questions, and asserted that they possessed means of meeting these extraordinary expenses, though the ordinary expenses were notoriously in

arrears.

Here the Committee cannot refrain from offering to the con

sideration of the Cortes two observations, on account of the intimate connexion which they have with the principal object of this report:

1st. The Cortes in the preceding session determined on the means for meeting all the expenses; and either from ignorance or some other cause, those measures have not been put in execution, so that the public treasury is impoverished to such a degree, that obligations of the most sacred character, even those which should furnish supplies to the throne have not been fulfilled.

"2nd. The Cortes resolved on a system of taxes and administration, and that system has not been put in force, rather through negligence on the part of the agents of the administration, than from any resistance on the side of those liable to contribution. The events of which the Committee has been informed, and others of which it is still ignorant, have destroyed all the moral force of the administration; and whatever may have been their origin, their result is not to be doubted."

The series of events which the Committee has merely enumerated, and others of which it perhaps is ignorant, have nearly enervated all the moral force of the ministry: whatever may have been their origin, the result is undoubted.

We have seen civil officers and military corps, local authorities, have all demanded the dismissal of the ministry. Addresses, far from respectful, have been suc ceeded by menaces; and to the latter has been added disobedience, which the Committee would

wish to see blotted out of the history of the people who have done so much for the country, and to whose heroism we owe that glory which will never decay, and that liberty which we have sighed for. But the consequence is, that we have authorities which do not obey the government; and the ministry have found no other means of saving the vessel of the state than by submitting to the Cortes, in the events of Cadiz and Seville, a new proof of the obstacles which their measures experience. Notwith standing this, the Committee distinguish times, persons, and affairs. All the ministers have not equally participated in these events, but the Cortes cannot allow themselves to confound the authority of the king, which is one, indefeasible, and indepen dent, with that of the persons who execute his orders.

The mysterious conduct of the ministry, the state of the finances, the general distrust, and the efforts of the discontent and ambition of some, must influence the excited passions. Ambitious men of little reputation, and who cannot exist, except amidst disorders, wish to drive the people into the horrors of anarchy. This evil has produced another.

The local authorities have been compelled to unite in juntas, which the constitution does not recognize. Chiefs of military corps, and local militia, and even prelates have assisted at these meetings, formed of persons who dare to call themselves the delegates of the people, though the constitution knows no other delegates than the deputies to the Cortes. The liberty of the press has been profaned by the scandalous abuse made of it. Such are the evils we experience. The conclusion is, that it is necessary to address a message to his majesty, in which the Cortes shall set forth

"1. That in order to appease the apprehension and distrust of the nation, and give to government the requisite influence, it is expedient that his Majesty should deign to make that reform in his administration which circumstances render absolutely necessary.

2. That if his Majesty should think any legislative measures requisite for the remedy of the evils and abuses complained of, the Cortes would be ready to take into consideration any project of law which his majesty, in his wisdom should deem fit to propose."

province, and of all the Spanish people, now raises with the most lively joy, its accents towards that same Congress, to manifest sentiments of personal gratitude, and at the same time of public

gratitude, for the decision of the 15th current. That determination has calmed the distrust of the friends of just liberty, has dissipated the general disquietude, and fixed the fate of the country by assuring its safety. The nation was about to be plunged into the abyss of discord, when the august voice of the fathers of the country, pointing out to the monarch the danger towards which he was conducted, showed him the only means by which he could avoid the precipice, and preserve untouched the precious deposit of a power no less necessary for sustaining the dignity of the government, than for maintaining the order and obedience of subjects.

"The present ministry does not possess the necessary moral force.'-Such is the declaration of the supreme oracle of the nation. This is a sentence of reprobation, from which there is no appeal, stamped on the ministers; and it is also the justification of the grounds on which the province of Cadiz was alarmed, and the authorities were compelled to act. A ministry which has lost the auxiliary force of opinion, is no longer capable of directing the state. It could not compel obedience, even if it possessed the physical force which it wants, for it is impossible to govern twelve millions of men by a perpetual constraint against their judgment and their desires. And what moral force can men destitute of esteem, accused and rejected by the opinion even of those who have to obey their orders, possess? If without this moral force the ministry cannot, as has been declared by the Cortes, neither suc

cessfully direct the government of the nation, nor maintain and cause to be respected the dignity and prerogatives of the throne, it is fit that such a ministry should be taken from the helm of the state, and its removal is justly demanded.

"Nevertheless, the first applications addressed to the throne, avenues to which were shut by the ministers, being disregarded,

the representations addressed to the permanent deputation having had no effect, as no deci sion could be obtained until the meeting of the next legislaturewhat resource remained for the people and the magistrates, when they could not address themselves to the extraordinary Cortes, that assembly being limited to the objects for which they were convoked?-that alone which they finally adopted-doubtless a melancholy resource, but inevitable if the state was not to be abandoned to the perils which menaced itnamely, to suspend obedience to orders which appeared suspicious.

"This opposition was the only means for defeating measures which might be fatal to public liberty, and for making the ministers feel their weakness, whereby they might be induced to prevail on the monarch to refer to the judgment of the Cortes, in which safety could alone be found. Without resistance-not to the throne, but to the ministerseven though the distrust of their intentions had not been well founded, it is at least certain that the conflict of passions, the division of parties, the inefficacy of the orders of authority, popular anarchy, and all the calamities it

produces-calamities recognized by the determination of the Congress, would never have been stopped, or at least would have long continued. Such has been the only object of the authorities in their decisions and in their addresses, and not the ambitition of possessing an authority which they never could wish to maintain against the government of the nation, nor the desire to show a spirit of disobedience to the king, whom they have sworn to defend, and whom the constitution recognizes. This object has happily been fulfilled; it will always justify the spirit which has animated the authorities of Cadiz, though they have had to depart from the legal path which the ministry had closed to entrench themselves within it.

"Placed between the people and the throne, how could the authorities of the province stifle the fears and the clamours of those they were appointed to govern, without thereby forcing them to provide for their own security, and to seek themselves the remedy which their magistrates had refused them? Cadiz saved herself. Cadiz has preserved order amidst agitations; not a single drop of blood has been shed in Cadiz, because the authorities listened to, and shared the wishes of the people-they acted in the place of the people, in order to preserve their repose. The blood which has flowed in the provinces where the authori. ties have been silent, in the provinces from which the chiefs most distinguished for their patriotism and courage have been removed, is a painful but incontestible testimony that the magistrates of Cadiz were not deceived as to the

grounds of their complaints, and their resistance to the admission of chiefs who would have exposed this province to the same disasters.

"Cadiz wants nothing more than the constitution. Never will it disgrace the glory of having been the cradle of liberty, and the safety plank in the shipwreck of the country. If enemies raise their heads in the other provinces-if they dare to trample under foot the sacred compact of our alliance and our prosperity, all the inhabitants of the province of Cadiz are ready to fly to its defenceto seal it with blood-to punish the aggressors, and to prove in the face of the whole world that their actions never have had, and never can have any other object than the support and defence of the constitution and the monarchy.

"Invoked by the people, and urged by the opinion of the province, the authorities of Cadiz agreed on the 17th of November not to obey orders transmitted by the ministry, when these orders should be of a nature calculated to compromise public tranquillity. This resolution, which was necessary for the preservation of the laws and of the constitution itself, the empire of which was about to disappear amidst disorders, cannot be disapproved by the Congress, charged sovereignly with the maintenance of the laws and the constitution. The ministry once removed, and confidence restored, the province of Cadiz and its magistrates will manifest, as they always have done, their obedience to the constituted government, without any of the contradictions or reserves which could alone be dictated by