paper. So great had the dilapidation of the
military force of the kingdom become, from the
penury of the Exchequer, and discontent and
desertion of the troops, that by a decree on
June 1, its organization was entirely j
changed, and they were divided into
forty-seven regiments of common and light in-
fantry, twenty-two regiments of cavalry, five
thousand artillery, two regiments of guards: iu
all, seventy thousand men, to which were to be
added forty-three regiments of provincial militia,
which mustered about thirty thousand combat-
ants. As to the navy, it had fallen into such a
state of decay, that the power which, two hun-
dred and thirty jears before, had fitted out the
invincible Armada, and planted such magnificent
colonics in the Indies, and even in later times
had all but rivaled the jtower of England upon
the seas, was unable to lit out a fleet to trans-
181S. 1
HISTORY OF EUROPE.
:i3
j>ort the military succors wliicli were so loudly
c.illed for to the'Xew World. In this extremity
the Government, with the money extorted the
preceding year from the priests, bought a sguad-
ro7i of old worn-out line-of-battle ships from
Russia, to which Alexander, out of pure gener-
osity, added three frigates in a present. Such,
however, was their state of decay that they took
live months to make the voj'age from Cronstadt
to Cadiz, and had to put into Plymouth to
'Ann His- refit.^ At length the squadron arrived
torique, i. at Cadiz, on '21st February, and two
301, 302. thousand men were embarked on
board of it for Lima.
The extreme penury of the finances, in conse-
5j qiience of the loss of the mines of
Extreme South America to the Government,
penury of jvnd its commerce to the country, was
es orspam. ^^^^ cause of this woeful state of de-
Decree, crepitude — a memorable proof of the
April 3, straits to which even the greatest
^^"^' naval power may be reduced by the
severance of its colonies. The government vras
overwhelmed with demands for payment of
debts by foreign countries, when by no possible
contrivance could they raise money to pay
their own armaments. The most pressing part
of the debt consisted of 1,500,000,000 reals
(£14,500,000), composed of vales, a species of
assignats issued in former times by the treasury.
The Cortes had provided for the payment of
the interest of this debt by assignation of the
property of the Inquisition ; but as the restora-
tion of the property of that body left nothing
for the creditors, the minister of finance, by a
decree on 3d April, reduced the debts to a third
of their amount, and made provision for the
interest of that third from the estates of the
j^ Church. By another decree, Corunna,
Santander, Cadiz, and Alicante were
declared free ports — a vain attempt to restoi'e
the commerce to which the loss of the colonies
had brought total ruin. A manifesto was pre-
pared, and submitted in the end of the
'' â– â– year to the Congress of Aix la Chapelle,
to be addressed to the revolted colonies, which
promised them an amnesty for the past, refor-
1 A^ Ti- . mation of abuses, and a certain degree
2 An. Ilist. c r ^ c Ti ^
i. 306, 310; 01 ireedomof commerce. It was ap-
Ann. Reg. proved of and published, but proved
1818, 129, of j^Q avail with men resolutely set
upon asserting their independence.^
An event occurred in the close of this year,
52. which, in its final results, was attend-
Deaih of ed with most important effects upon
Queen |jq|.j, kingdoms of the Peninsula. On
Maria isa- „-., .'^ , ,, „
bella of 26th December, tlio young Qucon
Spain. Maria Isabella, mIio had arrived
Dec. 20. from Brazil in tlie autumn of 1817,
to share the fortunes of the King of Spain, and
who was very near her time, was puildcniy
oeized with convulsions, and expired in twenty
minutes. The infant was delivered after the
mother's death by the Ctesarean o])eration, but
it expired, after being baptized, in a ft;w niin- |
utes after its mother. Being a female, it could
not have succeeded by the existing law, sanction-
ed by all the powers of Europe at the treaty
•■•An. Ili.st. of Utrecht, to the crown of Spain ;^
i. 310. Ijut, this bereavement, by leaving the
king to marry again, which, as will appear in
the sequel, lie actually did, was attended with
j consequences of the last moment to the Pcikp.-
sula, and of general interest to the whole o\
Europe. This death was almost immediately
followed by that of the old King, Charles 1\ .,
who had been forced to resign the crown at
Baj-onne in 1808, who expired at ^ ..
Naples on 20th January, 1819, a few 3gi ^s^ .'
weeks after his Queen, Louisa Maria Moniteur,
Theresa of Parma, had died on the Jan- 29,
road to that place.' ^^''*-
MeanAvhile the preparations for the grand
expedition to South America, which 53.
had been so long in preparation, went Disastrous
on without intermission ; although the ^^^^ e.\re-
fate which befell the advanced guard dition to
of two frigates, with two thousand Lima,
men, dispatched in the preceding j-ear, was rot
such as to afford very encouraging hopes of its
ultimate success. The soldiers and crew on
board one of the frigates mutinied, threw the
officers overboard, and sailed into Buenos Aj^res,
where they were received with open arms by
the insurgents, whom they immediately joined.
The other was captured off the coast" of I'eru
by the insurgent squadron, and eight thousand
muskets which it had on board were immedi-
ately appropriated to their use. Undeterred
by these disasters, however, the Government
continued their preparations for the grand ex-
pedition with the utmost activity; and by the
middle of January fifteen thousand ^
men were collected in the Isle of 1819179:
Leon, and six ships of the line, in a Ann. Hist,
tolerable state of equipment for the '• ^R ^l.l .
voyage.^ "â– -' ^
The disorganized state of all parts of Spain,
however, still continued, and the re-
peated revolts which broke out, cspe- pre&^h rc-
cially among the soldiery, might have volt at Va-
warned the Government that a serious lencia,
disaster was impending over the mon- which is
1 1 ..1 f ^1 i. i suppressed
archy, and that the great armament jau; 21.
in the Isle of Leon was not likely
to sail without making its strength felt by
the Government. On the 21st January a fresh
conspiracy was discovered by General Elio in
Valencia, the object of which was to assassinate
him and his principal officers, and iunncdiately
proclaim the Constitution of 1812. At its he;ul
was Colonel Vidal, who made a vigorous de-
fense against the soldiers sent to arrest hini,
and was only made prisoner after he liad been
run through the body. He himself was hanged,
and his associates, \o the number of twelve,
shot from behind, the punishment reserved for
traitors. This event had a melancholy cflVct
upon the fate of the prisoners at Barcelona, who
had been implicated in (Jcnoral Lacy's revolt
in the ])rec<'ding year. They wore condemned
to death to the number of Heventecn, and ex-
ecuted withotit mercy. Disturbances at the
same time broke out la New Castile, Estrema-
diira, and Andalusia, the roads of which were
infested by bands of old gnci-rillas, who fornu'd
themselves into bands of robiicrs, amount iiig ti)
three hundred tmcii. But. all these disorders
were ere lont^ thr
great revolt which broke out among „ .
the troops in the Isle oi l.,eon, which jj .(^^4 -j^j .
was alten(le
tant consequences on both hcniis- j^''-'i ''**«
phores.'
214
11 1 STORY OF KUROl'E.
Such hnd been the penury of the oxclicquor,
niul the stiito oi" ililiipiiliition into
Causfs of 'Nvhioh tlio once niniinitioont ai-seniil:*
ilio Tiyoli nnd ilockyftrils of Omiiz liad fallen,
111 (lie Islo ti„jt tlio fitting-out of the expedition,
oi eon. nf(^,r two years' incessant prepara-
tion, was still inconii>lete. Two ships of the
lino and a frigate were dispatched on 11th May,
to clear the coasts of America of the insurgent
eoi-saii-s who infested them ; but one of those —
the Alexander — was obliged, a few days after,
to return to Cadiz to refit. During the long
delay occasioned by these difliculties, the troops
collected for the expedition, -which by tlie end
of May amounted to twenty-two thousand men
— a force perfectly capable of eflfecting the sub-
jugation of South America, had it arrived in
safety at its destination — were left concentrated
and inactive in the island of Leon. Dtiring the
leisure and monotony of a barrack life they had
leisure to confer together, to compare the past
and present condition of their country, and
ruminate on the probable fate which awaited
themselves if they engaged in the warfare of
South America. A large number of veterans,
who had served under Murillo in those disas-
trous campaigns, not a few of whom were in
the public hospitals suftering under severe mu-
tilations, gave the most dismal accounts of the
dreadful nature of the warfare on which they
were about to be sent, the ferocious enemies
with which they had to contend — the English
veterans trained imder "Wellington, who formed
so large a part of the insurgent forces — the in-
terminable deserts they had to cross, the pesti-
lential gales, so fatal to European constitutions,
with which the country was infested, and the
frightful warfare, where quarter was neither
asked nor given on either side, which awaited
them on their arrival. A proclamation of the
king, issued on 4tli January, in which
it was announced that no quarter would
be given to any soldiers of foreign nations found
combating in the insurgent ranks,
ii^3g4^3'&5 rather increased than diminished
Ann. Reg.' these alarms, by proving the reality
1S19, 179 ; of one of the many, and not the least
f'l?8^179' formidable, of the dangers wliich
' ' ' ' ' were represented as awaiting them.'
To these considerations, already sufficiently
5g powerful, were added the efforts of
Efforts of the merchants and revolutionists of
the Cadiz Cadiz, who spared neither their tal-
hberals to gjjj.g jj^p their riches to induce the
promo e 1 . ^ggg^j^g^ troops to abandon their
duty and revolt against the Government. They
painted to them in the most gloomy colors the
disastrous state of the country, with its colonies
lost, its trade ruined, its exchequer bankrupt,
its noblest patriots in captivity or in chains, its
bravest generals shot, its liberties destroyed,
the Inquisition restored, the public education in
the hands of the Jesuits, an inconsistent cama-
rilla, fluctuating in every thing except evil,
ruling alike the monarch and the country.
They professed the utmost respect for the
king, and the firmest determination to protect
his person and just authority : the only object
â– was to displace a ministry, the worst enemy
he had in his dominions, and restore the Cortes,
the only security for their prosperitj* and just
administration. To these considerations, in
[Cn.vp. YII.
themselves suilieicntly just and powerful, was
added the gold of the Cadiz merchants, who
hojied, by frustrating tlic expedition, to suc-
ceed in re-establishing i)cace with the colonies,
and regaining the lucrative commerce they had
so long enjoyed with them. The result was,
that, before the time arrived when the expedi-
tion could by possibility set sail, the whole
army was imbued with revolution- i Martig-
ary ideas, and only awaited the sig- nac, i. 178,
nal of a leader to declare openly !,''•* '..A,"!!-
• 4.1/. i 1 ' i Ills \i.3b7,
against ti>e Government, and avert ^^f^. ^^„
the much dreaded departure for Reg'. ibiQ,
South America.' '"'•'•
The CoxDE d'Abisb.al, formerly General
O'Donnell, of Irish extraction, who
had distinguished himself in Catalo- insu^!'
nia during the late war, was at the rcciion at
head of the expedition. He was a Cadiz,
man of a bold and enterprising char- •'">''•
actcr, and possessed of such powers of dissimu-
lation that those most entirely, as they thought,
in his confidence, were not in the slightest de-
gree aware of what he really intended. He
had at first entered cordially into the designs
of the conspirators, and their principal hopes of
success were founded on his heading the enter-
prise. For a long time he adopted the views
of the disaffected, and from the knowledge
which they had of this, he gained unlimited
influence over the minds of the soldiers. But
when the decisive moment arrived, the deep
dissimulation of the man became apparent.
In the night of the 7th Julv, when the con-
spiracy was on the point of breaking out, the
Conde d'Abisbal assembled the garrison of
Cadiz, six thousand strong, which was entirely
at his devotion, and witliout revealing to them
•v^hat he intended to do, informed them that he
was about to lead them on a short ex'pedition,
of which the success was certain, and which
would entitle them to the highest rewards
from their sovereign and country ; but he re-
quired them to bind themselves by an oath to
obey his orders, whatever they were. The
soldiers, ignorant of his design, but having con-
fidence in his intention, at once took
the oath, and as soon as this was ii.3"8'3t.'^!
done he led them into the camp Ann. Reg.'
" des Yictoires," where seven thou- 1^19,179;
sand men, destined to be first em- ,.'^go^"|f
barked, were assembled.^
These troops were ordered to assemble in
parade order, and no sooner was this sg,
done than d'Abisbal stationed his The con-
men round them in such positions as spiracy is
torender escape impossible, and then, nested hy
ordering the soldiers to load their d'Abisbal.
muskets and the artillerjmen their ^^^i' ^â–
pieces, he summoned the men to lay down
their arms, and deliver up the officers contained
in a list which he had prepared. Resistance
was impossible, as the men who were surround-
ed had no ammunition, and they were com-
pelled to submit. A hundred and twenty-three
officers, comprising the chiefs of the army,
were put under arrest, a part of the troops
sent out of the camp, and dispersed through
villages of Andalusia, and three thousand com-
pelled to embark and set sail the}' knew not
whither. In fact, their destination was the
Havana, where they arrived iu safety six
1819.]
weeks afterward. Having by tliese extraor-
dinary means gained tliis great success, suc-
ceeded in arresting his comrades, and crushing
a conspiracy of whicli he himself had been tlic
chief, D'Abisbal hastened to Madrid, where he
took credit to himself for having at once de-
feated a dangerous conspiracy, and compelled
a mutinous body of soldiers to obey orders,'
andproceedon their destination. He
riacT'fso ; '"^as received with the greatest dis-
Ann. ilist.' tinction at Court, decorated with the
389 ; Ann. great ribbon of the order of Charles
179°"l80^^' ^^^■'' ^^'^ '^'^ second in command,
' ' General Saarsfield, who had power-
fully seconded him in his enterprise, promoted
to the rank of lieutenant-general.
But these flattering appearances were of
59. short duration, and the discovery of
D'Abisbal the conspiracy proved entirely fatal
is deprived ^q ^j^g expedition, with tlie exception
mand of ^^ ^^^ three thousand who, in the
the expedi- first stupor of astonishment, had been
tion. hurried on board, and sent off to the
Havana. The Government had become, with
reason, so distrustful of the troops that they
no longer ventured to keep them together, or
in the neighborhood of Cadiz; and sinister
rumors ere long reached Madrid as to the share
which the Conde d'Abisbal had had, as well as
his second in command, in the conspiracy.
The consequence was that they were both
called to the capital, under pretense of giving
personal information on so dangerous an affair;
and while there they were deprived of their
commands, and the direction of the expedition
intrusted to the Conde de Calderon, a veteran
of seventy years of age. D'Abisbal was too
powerful a man, however, to be brought to
judgment; and, to the surprise of every one,
this scene of dissimulation and hypocrisy on
both sides was brought to a close by a decree,
A ^ f. which, after reciting the great serv-
2 Ann. His. i^^s ^^^ had rendered to his country,
ii. 389, 390; appointed him Captain-general of
*^'^8i'^"^°' -A^''^*!!"*'^ President of the Audience
of Seville, and Governor of Cadiz.^
But although every thing was thus smootli on
60. the surface, D'Abisbal was far from
Additional having really regained the confidence
measures ^f t|,g Government, and thev were
of seventy , -i ,1 . , . * ,
on the part daily tlirown into greater constorna-
ofttieGov- tion by the discoveries made as to
ernmeut. tlig extent of the conspirac}^ and flic
share which the new captain-general had had in
fomenting it. Great numbers of officers were
arrested ; but the Government did not venture
on the hazardous step of bringing them to jus-
tice. They took the opportunit}-, however, of
acting with extreme severity in other quarter.s.
Ten officers who had been arrested for their ac-
cession to Porlier'a conspiracy in Galicia in
1815, and had remained in prison ever since,
were ordered to be executed par contumace,
twenty were sent to the galleys, and twenty-
five iinj)risoned for various periods?. Additional
levies of troops were ordered in Galicia and
Catalonia, the mountaineers of whicli provinces
were deemed attached to the royal cause.
General Elio adojited the most rigorous mcns-
tire.s, and even made use of torture, to discover
the traces of a conspiracy which was suspected
to exist in Valencia, and to implicate a large
HISTORY OF EUROPE.
215
number of the most respectable citizens-, and
every effort was made to prevent the introduc-
tion of French books across the Pyrenees, by
which it was suspected the minds of the soldiers
and people had been chiefly corrupted. But
these measures of precaution proved ineffec-
tual : the importation of foreign revolutionary
books continued, and the concentration of'
the troops in the great towns, where the
principal danger was apprehended, ^ „.
left the provinces open to the incur- jj 3y'] 3^2 .'
sions of armed bands which infested Ann. keg.'
the roads, and, in some instances, '^l^> 1*''^'
openly proclaimed the constitution.'
Still, however, the preparations for the ex-
pedition continued at Cadiz; but in gj
the course of the autumn a fresh dif- Yellow fe-
ficulty arose, which proved insur- ver at Ca-
mountable. Intheendof July, adan- ^I- ^"°'
gerous epidemic broke out at Cadiz,
which soon spread from the hospitals to the
crews of the ships, and the troops in garrison,
or in the adjoining camps in the Isle of Leon ;
and though the punishment of the galleys was,
in the first instance, threatened to the physician
who gave it its true appellation, on the 20th of
August a proclamation of the commander ad in-
terim of the expedition, Don Blaise-Foumas, an-
nounced the true character of the disease, wliicli
was the yellow fever, though it was disguised
under the name of the (i/plnis iterodis. In spile
of all the precautions which could be taken, the
progress of the malady was very rapid, espe-
cially among the indigent and crowded popula-
tion of that great seaport. Ten thousand were
soon seized with the disorder — the hospitals
were full — the deaths I'ose to a hundred a day ;
and the soldiers, seized with a sudden panic,
mutinied against their officers, burst through
the barriers of the quarantine which had been
established round the island of Leon, and,
spreading to the number of nine thousand over
the adjoining villages of Andalusia, carried the
seeds of real contagion and the terrors of imag-
inary danger wherever they went. So far did
the alarm s^pread that the most rigorous meas-
ures were adopted, to prevent any communica-
tion between Andalusia and New Castile ; a
sanitary junta of eighty persons was established
at Madrid to prevent the contagion spreading
to the capital ; and a decree published, de-
nouncing tlij punishment of death 2 An. Hist,
against any person who should enter ii. 391, 392,
the capital, without a certificate of Ann. Reg.
health, from the infected province.^ '
While these events, fraught with incalculable,
and then unforeseen, conpe(pi('nce3 to ^g
both hemispheres, wore in progress SaleofFlo
in Spain, its Government was actively ri'la ''> tbe
engaged in diplomatic negotiations of p'JL'^'^o'!""''
the most important character. The
extreme penury of the exchequer compelled
them to liave recourse to every imaginable de-
vice to rcjilenish it: one thought of was the
sale of tlie Floridas to tlic Americans, whicli
was elfccfed, under color of determining (he
limits of the two counlries, by a treaty signed
at "Washington on 22d February. By this treaty
the Americans acquired the whole territories
known liythe name of the Floridas, between thu
Mississip|)i and the Gulf of Mexico — a territory
of vast extent, and in great part of surpassing
21o
HISTORY OF EUROTE.
fortility. The price, (.lisi^uisinl uiuler tlio iiiiino
of dijcluirgiiig claims on the Simiiish (iovcrii-
iiu'tit. was to he 5,U00.0O0 »ioUars (£1, 200,0*10).
Si>inc ^lilHciiltics arose about tiie ratilicatiou of
this treaty hy tlic Spanisli ijoverniucnt, on tiie
groiuul of a prcilatory cxpe*lition, alleged by the
>paniarvls to have been oonniveil at by the
American government, into the pi'ovinco of
Texas. At length, however, these (.liliicultics
Were ailjusted, and the cession took place. Thus
v.hile 8pain, in the last stage of decrcptitutle,
was losing some of its colonics b}^ domestic
revolt, and others b}' sales to foreign states, the
creat and rising republic of America was ac-
(piiring the fragments of its once boundless do-
minions, and spreading its mighty arms into
further provinces, the scene of war and appro-
priation in future times. One of the most in-
' Treaty tercsting things iu history' is the un-
Fcb. ii' broken succession of events which
1819; Mes- obtains iu human affairs, and the
sage to manner in which the occurrences,
Congress, ^^ j. â– â– ^ e
Dec. 7 apparently trivial, ot one age, are
lS19;Ann. linked iu indissoluble connection
Hist. ii. with changes the most important in
" '' â– another.'
Anxious, if possible, to continue the direct line
P3 of succession, the king, after the death
Marriage of his former queen, did not long re-
of the king, main a widower. On 12th of August
Aug. 12. jj pi-oclamation announced to the as-
tonished inhabitants of Madrid that the king
had .solicited in marriage the hand of the Prin-
cess Maria Josephine Amelia, niece of the Elector
of Saxonv, and been accepted. The marriage
was solemnized by prox^- at Dresden on the
same day, and the young queen set out imme-
diately lor Spain. She arrived at the Bidassoa
on 2d October, and at Madrid on the 19th of the
same month, when she made her public entry
into Madrid on the daj' following, amidst the
discharges of artiller\-, rolling of drums, clang
of trumpets, and every demonstration of public
joy. But it was of bad augury for the married
Oct 19 *^°"P^® ^^^^^ *'^^ ^'*^''y *^^y Ijtfore an edict
had been published, denouncing the pen-
alty of death against any one coming in from
the infected districts in the south. An amnesty
was published on occasion of the marriage ; but
2 *„ TTiot as, like the former, it excluded all
* An. liist. ' ^ . , ... , rt.
ii.3
Ann. Reg. ses, it had no effect in allaying the
1619, ibl. anxiety of the public mind.=
But the time had now arrived when an entire
revolution was to take place in the
Revolution affairs of the Peninsula, and those
attempted changes were to commence which
by Riego. have changed the dynasty on the
1620.'''^ '' throne, altered the constitution of the
country,and tinallyseveredher Amer-
ican colonies from Spain. The malcontents in the
army, so far from being deterred by the manner
in which the former conspiracy had been baffled
by the douVjle and treacherous dealing of the
Conde d'Abisbal, continued their designs, and,
distrusting now the chiefs of the armj', chose
their leaders among the subordinate officers.
Every thing was speedily arranged, and with
the concurrence of nearly the whole officers of
the army. The day of rising was repeatedly
adjourned, and at length definitely fixed for the
1st January, 1820. At its bead was FvIego,
[Cii.vr. VII.
whose groat nchieveiiienfs and nielaucholy fate
haverendered his name iiiiperisliabie in hi.storv.*
C)n that day he assembled a battalion in the