be declared null and void. Arguelles supported the motion. "It was necessary," he said, "to take this subject into the fullest consideration. Buonaparte had preserved the lives of Ferdinand and his brother and uncle for purposes which were not, perhaps, generally perceived, thinking by their means to introduce dissentions among the Spaniards, and obtain by intrigue what he had not been able to effect by arms. From the moment of Baron Kelly's failure, the public ought to have been prepared for the most extraordinary events. Let us suppose," he continued, "that the innocent and ingenuous Ferdinand, who, young as he is, and educated as he has been, is little able to withstand the artifices of the tyrant, should be compelled to contract one of those marriages which have proved the source of inexhaustible calamities to Spain. May not the tyrant send him into Spain, surrounded by his satellites and advisers, many of whom to our sorrow are Spaniards, accompanied with an army apparently national, composed of Spanish prisoners, and augmented by weak, and indolent, and selfish men: ought we in such a case to hesitate a moment how to act? The cortes are bound by oath to preserve the independence and integrity of the nation; they must keep that oath, or be buried under its ruins. The usurper may attempt to treat with us, promising to restore the king, to make improvements and reforms in the nation, and to evacuate the peninsula; but what security will he offer? Let us reply as the Roman senate did to Hannibal, when at the gates of Rome he offered to treat for peace:-Let him quit the territory of the republic, and we will listen to his proposal." Arguelles spoke to willing auditors. Gallego moved, that in

case Ferdinand should cede any of the Spanish provinces to France, all persons obeying his proclamations should be declared traitors. Quintana said, that if he entered Spain with arms in his hands, and with the aid of Busnaparte, he must be treated as an ene my; to which D. Andres de Llano, member for Guatemala added, that if he came under Napoleon's direc tions, war should be carried on against him under the black flag. In con formity to this universal feeling of the cortes and the nation, a decree was issued on the first day of the ensuing year, declaring, that, having already declared null and of no effect the renunciation which Ferdinand had made at Bayonne, not only because of his want of liberty, but for wast of the essential and indispensible consent of the nation, they now declared null and of no effect, in like manner, all acts, treaties, conventions, or transactions of every kind which the king might authorize while he remained in his present state of duresse, whether in the country of the enemy or in Spain, so long as he was surrounded by the arms, and under the direct or indirect influence of the usurper. The nation would never consider him as free, nor render him obedience, till they should see him in the midst of his faithful subjects, and in the bosom of the national congress. They declared, that every contravention of this decree should be considered as an act of hostility against the country, and that the Spaniards would never lay down their arms, nor listea toany proposition for accommodation of any kind, till Spain had been completely evacuated by the troops which had so injustly invaded it.

Cadiz presented at this time one of the most extraordinary spectacles in history. The enemy surrounded

the bay, and possessed all the adjoining country, wherever they could cover it with their troops, or scour it with their cavalry. From this neck at of land the cortes legislated for all the 21 kingdoms of Spain. The tyrant, and the intruder, and their sycophants, affected to regard it with contempt; but their inward fear could not be disguised, and the proceedings of this assembly, the first free parliament it which had ever met together in the peninsula, were regarded with the deepest anxiety wherever the Spanish language extends. Many of the members of this illustrious body, having lost their whole property in the general wreck, were dependent upon friendship even for their necessary food. A stipend was allowed them; but some of those provinces which were occupied by the enemy could not find means of paying this stipend, and no provision for remedying this evil had been yet devised; they who had professions could not support themselves by them, because the business of the cortes engrossed their whole attention; their self-denying ordinance excluded them from all of fices of emolument; and cases are said to have occured, in which some of the deputies had not wherewith to buy oil for a lamp to give them light. Under these circumstances these men respected themselves, and were respected by the nation whom they represented, according to the true standard of their worth. In the bay, the English squadron, part of that fleet which had so long blockaded this very port, was riding at anchor side by side with those ships, which for so many years had borne a hostile flag, but which were now under that same flag, engaged in a cause as vitally dear to England as to Spain. For three centuries, Cadiz had been

one of the most important ports in the world: it was now crowded with vessels more than at any former time; for its increased population drew thither traders from all parts of the commercial world. The re-appearance of the yellow fever in the autumn, threatened it with a danger far more dreadful than the enemy; providentially it was far less prevalent than on any former visitation, though there was so much reason to apprehend that it would prove more destructive. It was more fatal at Alicant and Carthagena; but the whole mortality was as nothing compared to its former ravages.

The siege of Cadiz was protracted, on the part of the enemy, because the place was impregnable by any land force; and on the part of the besieged, because the people of Cadiz were not like the Zaragozans. The most remarkable event which occurred during the latter half of the year was, that a shell, thrown from one of the ships, killed the French General Sernamont, the commander-in-chief of the artillery; Col. Degennes, the director of the park; and Capt. Pinondelle, another very distinguished officer. Sernamont was an officer in such esteem, that his heart was embalmed to be sent to France, and placed at the disposal of the emperor. An expedition, undertaken, by Lord Blaney, from Gibraltar, for the purpose of destroying some privateers and gun-boats which the enemy had fitted out at Malaga, failed in consequence of a stratagem. A party of French cavalry were mistaken for Spaniards, though it is said the German deserters in the expedition declared them to be French; their warning was disregarded, and the consequences proved fatal. Lord Blaney and about 200 men were made prisoners; Major Grant and some thirty

2

or forty killed. A far more important enterprize met with a still more lamentable termination. An expedition sailed from Coruna to occupy and fortify Santona, a position of prime importance in the north of Spain. It was under the command of Renovales, whose exploits in the vallies of Roncal are among the many heroic actions which the limits of a work like this compel the annalist reluctantly to pass over. A tremendous gale frustrated a plan which otherwise could not have failed of success. The squadron was dispersed, and a Spanish frigate and brig foundered in the bay of Santona, and all on board perished. This failure is perhaps more to be regretted than any other single event during the war. In the course of the year the enemy had obtained many great and important advantages. They had occupied the kingdoms of Andalusia; they had reduced all the fortresses in Catalonia, Tarragona excepted; and they had gained possession of Ciudad Rodrigo and Almeida. Still the aspect of affairs was less unfavourable than

it had been at the close of 1809. At that time, Andalusia was laid open to the French; the Spaniards were under an unpopular government, and had no cortes to which they looked with confidence; the submission of Austria left Buonaparte at liberty to direct his whole attention and his whole force to the conquest of the peninsula; the difficulty of co-operation with the Spaniards on our part had been grievously proved; and our army, after a victory more brilliant than any of modern times, seemed to be mouldering away in sickness and inaction. Now, that army, acting in conjunction with Romana, and with a Portugueze force raised and disciplined by Great Britain, was baffling and defying the utmost force which Buonaparte could send against it; the Spanish people, after the defeat and dispersion of their armies, were displaying a spirit of patriotism which no military power could subdue; and the Spanish government was beginning to adopt those measures which were best calculated to strengthen that spirit and support it.

PARLIAMENT was prorogued by commission before the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo: the king, in his speech, repeat ed the assurance of his "firm and unaltered conviction, that June 21. not only the honour of his throne, but the best interests of his dominions, required his most strenuous and persevering assistance to the glorious efforts of the Spaniards and Portugueze." He congratulated the country upon the conquest of Guadaloupe, which, with the capture of the only colonies in the West Indies that had remained in the possession of the Dutch, had deprived the enemy of every port in those seas, from whence our islands or our commerce could be molested. He expressed also his satisfaction, that the resources of the country, "manifesting themselves by every mark of prosperity, by a revenue in creasing in almost all its branches, and by a commerce extending itself in new channels, and with an increased vigour, in proportion as the enemy had in vain attempted to destroy it, had enabled parliament to provide for the expences of the year, without imposing the burden of any new taxa

tion in Great Britain; and that, while the taxes which had been necessarily resorted to for Ireland, had been imposed upon articles which would not interfere with the growing prosperity of that country, they had found it consistent, with a due regard to its finances, to diminish some of those burdens, and relax some of those regulations of revenue, which had been found most inconvenient in that part of the united kingdom." The speech concluded with a reference to that spirit of insubordination which Sir Francis Burdett's conduct had called into action. "His majesty," it said, "has commanded us to recommend to you, upon your return to your respective counties, to use your best exertions to promote that spirit of order and obedience to the laws, and that general concord amongst all classes of his majesty's subjects, which can alone give full effect to his majesty's paternal care for the welfare and happiness of his people. His majesty has the fullest reliance upon the affections of his subjects, whose loyalty and attachment have hitherto supported him through that long and eventful period, during which it has