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BOOK VIII.

CHAPTER I.

Bonaparte intent on the Subjugation of Spain and Portugal-Description of Spain, and its Inhabitants.-The Inquisition.-Bonaparte's Plan of Treachery and Force.-Arrival of the Grand Duke of Berg in Madrid.-Deplorable Situation of the Prince of the Peace.-Success of Murat's Intrigues.-King Ferdinand in Bonaparte's Power.

THE treaty of Tilsit was hardly concluded, when Bonaparte, agreeably to what had been agreed upon between himself and the Emperor Alexander, turned his eyes to the west of Europe and Portugal. In this he was, no doubt, actuated by a passion still more stimulative than his usual lust of conquest. His mind could never be quiet as long as the sovereignty of a neighbouring, great, and glorious peninsula resided in the house of Bourbon. The reduction of that noble country under his own power appeared to be necessary to the security of the thrones he had already usurped, and even to his personal safety. Spain, in ordinary language, is considered as consisting of one extensive state or kingdom; and so it is in its foreign relations, and sundry other points of the greatest importance. But under the crown of Spain are united many states or kingdoms, which have gradually coalesced into one monarchy; each kingdom (formerly so called) retaining still, together with many particular laws and usages, a peculiar and distinct character, and some of them separate local interests: circumstances which, no doubt, presented to such a mind as Bonaparte's, hopes of being able to call to his aid the destructive power of division and discord. The northern districts, containing the kingdom of Navarre, the three provinces of Biscay, and the principality of Asturias, enjoy peculiar privileges, being governed in some sort by themselves, and by far the greater part of their contribution appropriated to the expenses of their own municipal establishments. These provinces, consisting chiefly of prodigious tracts of mountains, produce a race of hardy, race of hardy, active, and industrious people, who, for want of sufficient employment in the cultivation of the ground, or in the iron mines with which their country abounds, have naturally devoted them

selves to the sea-service in various branches; BOOK VIII. and from those tracts of sea-coast, the Spanish navy draws the most energetic portion of its mariners.

The other parts of Spain are very unequally distributed into those belonging to the crowns of Castile and Arragon. To Castile belong the kingdom of Gallicia, the provinces of Burgos, Léon, Zamora, Salamanca, Estramadura, Palencia, Valladolid, Segovia, Avila, Toro, Toledo, La Mancha, Murcia, Guadalaxara, Cuenca, Loria, and Madrid: to these are added, the four ancient Moorish kingdoms, composing the provinces of Andalusia, namely, Seville, Cordova, Jaen, and Grenada. To the crown of Arragon belong the kingdoms of Arragon and Valentia, the county of Catalonia, and the kingdom of the island of Majorca. The states under the crowns of Castile and Arragon had their several cortes or assemblies of representation of the different orders of inhabitants; but those of the two crowns were never united into one body; and, indeed, since the days of Charles V. who resigned the government in 1555, the cortes were seldom convened.

The government, however, though in appearance despotic, and independent of the will of the nation, was, as is the case in even the most arbitrary European states, tempered by a complicated system of councils, in which, if judgment was tardy, it was commonly just.

The great and important Peninsula of Spain (including Portugal, naturally a part of the same country, and at various periods subject to the same sovereign) is most advantageously situated between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. It commands the narrow strait of Gibraltar, the only communication between these seas, and occupies in some respects the centre of the habitable

CHAP. I.

1808.

CHAP. I.

1808.

BOOK VIII globe. This Peninsula, a name by which the Spaniards frequently designate their country, extends, where broadest, from west to east, about 640 English miles: and from north to south about 540 miles. The population of the whole Peninsula has been computed at between thirteen and fourteen millions: of which Portugal is supposed to contain two, millions. The remainder, distributed over Spain, will afford only about seventy-four persons for every square mile, while the inhabitants of England are computed to exceed 150, and those of France 170, on a similar extent of territory; many parts of the interior being almost destitute of springs and rivers; and others being exceedingly mountainous. Indeed, on the first glance at the map of Spain, it appears to be a country shaped, and in a very great measure consisting in belts of mountains, ramifying from one another, and leaving intervals of various breadths between them, yet all of them linked to the same mass or stock. The sea-coasts of Catalonia, Valentia, Murcia, Grenada, and Andalusia, present scenes of amazing fertility, active industry, and crowded population.

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The hardy, industrious, and adventurous mountaineer of the north; the sedate and solemn inhabitant of the broad and arid plains of the two Castiles and La Mancha; the pensive and taciturne Estramaduran; the volatile and talkative Andalusian; the laborious cultivator of the shores of the Mediterranean-these different descriptions of the population of Spain, resemble each other in so few points as to appear to be of very different descent, and indeed the production of very different countries and climates. In one important particular, however, the national character of the Spaniards might be traced in every corner of the kingdom. Entire and respectful submission to the authority of the sovereign was every where predominant. For while the Catalonian was proud to think, that the king was not king, but only Count of Catalonia; and the Biscayan, that he was only lord of his mountains; they both agreed in yielding most implicit obedience to his mandates, when promulgated in the customary forms of each respective district. That the Castilian and the Arragoneze should glory in their submission to the royal authority, is not surprizing, as from the union of the sovereigns of Castile and Arragon, sprang the family which in the course of time became masters of the whole country. Arragon and Castile had likewise embraced the interests of the house of Bourbon in the dispute with that of Austria in the beginning of the last century. That the Catalonians, however, should have evinced, in 1808, a decided attachment to the reigning family, against whom they had obstinately and long contended, and from whom they had received no favors, but many marks of dis

like, having been disarmed, and experienced various other proofs of distrust from those in power-that the Catalonians should manifest, at this time, a decided and determined attachment to the interests of the house of Bourbon, can be attributed only to an inveterate aversion to their neighbours on the northern side of the Pyrennecs, with whom, for ages, they had been in almost continued hostility, from whose inroads and devastations they had often severely suffered, and whose revolutionary doctrines, moral, political, and religious, as well as their actions, were calcu lated to inspire Spaniards with aversion and horror.

Another feature, strongly characterising all the provinces of Spain, and indeed all the subjects of his Catholic majesty in any quarter of the world, was an absolute devotion, not only to the doctrine, but to the policy of the see of Rome. In this absolute devotion to the church, the Spaniards, with perhaps the exception of the Portuguese alone, exceed all the nations of Europe. The church or secular clergy in Spain possessed immense revenues, even the third part, it has been computed, of the whole land. But it would be extremely erroneous to conclude that those revenues were appropriated to the sole enjoyment, application, or accumulation of the several incumbents. Of late years, it became the policy of government to grant pensions on the richest benefices, for the support of various public establishments; so that even the metropolitan of Toledo, the most exalted dignitary of the kingdom, although nominally enjoying a revenue of perhaps 100,000l. sterling, could not, in reality, dispose of more than a fourth part of that sum. The opening of roads, the construc tion of bridges, the establishment of inns and schools, the reparation of churches and chapels, and various other works of public utility, which in Britain are carried on at the expense of the state, or more frequently of individuals and associations, in Spain are often imposed on those enjoying large ecclesiastical possessions; and where such duties have not been imposed, the incumbents, from zeal to the public good, or even from a desire to imitate the conduct of their predecessors or contemporaries, have often charged themselves with that performance.

The attachment of the people to the church and its ministers was also warmly cherished by the exemplary deportment of the episcopal body, who, from the day of their appointment, immediately repaired to their respective dioceses, in which they uniformly resided, there devoting themselves entirely to the various duties of their station.

The abbies and convents over Spain, appropriated to the reception of females, were some years ago calculated to contain about 34,000 persons, while those for the accommodation of

monks and friars, of all descriptions, were inhabited by nearly double that number; of this last description of persons, by far the greater number might certainly be considered as lost to the prosperity of the kingdom, But the bene dictine, Bernardine, and some others of monks, might, in many respects, be considered by the population around, as eminent benefactors to the country. Continually fixed to one spot, in the midst of their possessions, they were naturally led to cultivate and improve their common he ritage and being destitute of the power of accumulation, they regularly expended their income in the quarter from whence it was drawn.

On the other hand, the great nobles and proprietors of land, with a very few exceptions, abandoning the care of their vast domains to agents and intendants, drained the country and its cultivators, to supply the exigencies of an idle and often dissipated life in the capital and other great towns. This injurious dereliction of the country is, no doubt, to be attributed in a great measure to the introduction of French manners, and a frivolous taste; and, above all, to the jealousy entertained by the first Spanish kings of the house of Bourbon, of the old nobles of Spain, who, in the war of the succession, had very generally, and very naturally, manifested a predilection for all the house of Austria.

A great and opulent lord, residing constantly on his own domain, was an object of displeasure to the court; of discountenance, and even mo lestation.

The noble spirit of the Spanish grandees in general, sunk in luxury, indolence, and vice, suffered a gradual depression. They were neither invited, nor ambitious to share in the employments of the state, so that, with the exception of a few ancient names in the church, of the army, and still fewer in the navy, the great body of the Spanish nobility ceased to be of any political importance in the kingdom.

It is extremely remarkable, that it was not among the great landed proprietors, who had, in the common phraseology, the greatest stakes, that the patriotism of the Spaniards shone forth with the greatest splendour: but among the commercial class, whose property was in some measure moveable, and the clergy, who at best were only life-renters. The nobility, in general, did not seem to feel the amor patriæ, the attachment to natal soil, so strongly as the clergy of all ranks, who resided in their own dioceses, parishes, and monasteries, nor even as that of the poor pea

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CHAP. I.

1808.

ginning of the last century, the Spaniards and BOOK VIII. French were engaged almost without intermission in hostilities. Another reason for the peculiar dislike of the Spaniards to their northern neighbours, is found in the national character and deportment of the French, who not only affected or really felt some degree of contempt for the Spaniards, but commonly took very little pains to conceal or disguise their sentiments towards them. In this national dislike, persons. of all nations, who entered Spain from France, were involved, until their real country was known.

As the Spaniards had their national aversions, so they had likewise their national attachments. It would, at first sight, be difficult to account for any partiality they should entertain for the British nation. But such a partiality they certainly did possess, and were eager to demonstrate. The two countries, it is true, were formerly closely connected by various ties, political and commercial; and those ties, notwithstanding the dissolution of the ancient intimacy, by the accession of the house of Bourbon to the throne of Spain, still retained a firm hold of the steady and honorable character of the Spaniards. As men are never more intimately united than by a community of sentiments or feelings, and as the Spaniards believed the English to have no greater respect for the French nation than they had themselves, this warm-hearted people looked on a Briton as in some measure a sharer in his own existence. The Spanish traders, in general, had an opinion that in all commercial transaction, no nation came so near as the British to their own, in probity, punctuality, and fairness of dealing.

On the subject of religion, the Spaniards sincerely lamented the defection of the English from their ancient professions of faith. But this sorrow was attended rather by a hope, that, at some future period, Britain might return to what they considered as the right way, than by any aversion to their company, or their opinions on other subjects: whereas the natives of Ireland, formerly more numerous in their service than of late years, who professed to be in communion with the church of Rome, were, in many instances, subject to the suspicion of a temporizing policy.

The frequent wars between Britain and Spain unquestionably kept alive a spirit of estrangement in the Spanish nation. But that great portion of the people who pretended not to inquire into the secret causes of political events, were in the habit of attributing those public enmities rather to the predominating influence of the French counsels in the administration of national affairs, than to the existence of any just cause of complaint immediately between Great

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