narchy, which conquest and national opinion had eradicated, was planted with open violence in its stead. It was a transaction which had every character of manifest usurpation; and it must be deemed to be so by all who do not hold, that usurpation can be committed only against a King; a doctrine which, however it may be professed by those who have the fear of Siberia before their eyes, must be reprobated, not only in all free states, but in all those civilised monarchies which observe fixed laws. In such countries, the best security of hereditary royalty is, to place it on the same footing with the other establishments and institutions which are created by the fundamental laws. The Spanish army, who appeared to have caught the spirit of liberty in their struggle for independence, early repented their fatal and criminal participation in the destruction of the constitution, and the dispersion of the Cortes. Between 1814 and 1820, several partial revolts of the soldiery showed that the remedy was likely to arise in the same quarter with the disease. In the beginning of the year 1820, the constitution was restored by the army assembled at Cadiz to be embarked against America. Their example was followed by the people, as well as the soldiers, throughout Spain; and the constitution was soon after adopted by the King, with as much appearance of sincerity as usually attends the consent of an absolute monarch to limitations on his power. The friends of liberty might no doubt lament, that even the restoration of a constitution should have originated with the army, though they listened with the utmost indignation to the same objection when it came from the mouths of those who prompted, or vindicated, or abetted the employment of military force for the subversion of the same constitution. The advantage of a regular and legal system was so great and obvious, that all discussion of the faults of the constitution, and all attempts to reform them, would have been imprudent and unreasonable at the moment of the restoration. Even the United States of America, for several years after the peace, preserved that rude scheme of association which they had hastily formed at the beginning of the war, and at a proper season found no difficulty in strengthening their executive government, and fastening the bands of their union. Men of all opinions must agree with Lord Liverpool, that there never was an extensive political change attended with less violence or bloodshed than the Spanish revolution, during the last three years. Whoever recurs to the unsuspected testimony of Mr. Southey, will find, that the popular excesses committed by the Spaniards on the occasion of the French usurpation in 1808, were at least tenfold more than those which have occurred since March, 1820.

The example of Spain was naturally followed by Portugal, where nearly the same system of misgovernment had formerly existed, and where a great part of the people had learned to love, if not yet to understand liberty, in that glorious war of independence which raised so high the character of the Portuguese army and nation. In the unfortunate attempt of Italy to recover her liberties, Naples and Piedmont took the Spanish constitution as their bond of union, for want of any other fixed system or popular name. Assuredly their choice was not influenced by Spanish intrigues or correspondence with Spain; since, if we may believe their enemies, it was scarcely possible, at the moment of the revolution, to find a copy of the Spanish constitution at Naples. The French constitution could have no popularity; for the restoration, which might have freed France, had enslaved Italy. The name and constitution of England, once the object of enthusiastic admiration, were discredited by the faults of its administration. The

Italians could not hope for liberty from a country which was a party to the Congress of Vienna,-which had betrayed the people of Genoa, and which had sacrificed even Sicily herself, after her adoption of a form of government as near as she could make it to the English constitution. merous prosecutions for treason which occurred in France, where we find In the nuperpetual allusion to Italy, and great importance ascribed to the Association of the Carbonari, not a vestige is discoverable of any connexion with Spain.* But there is still more decisive proof that no Spanish intrigues were carried on in France. Louis XVIII., in his speech at the close of the Session in June 1822, declared that "malevolence alone has been able to find, iu the measures which I have adopted against contagion, a pretext for misconstruing my intentions."-" Intentions so pure," he continued, *** could not be misconstrued by any but the malevolent, who seek, on all occasions, means to set fire again to the still smoking brands of Discord and War." Presuming, as we are bound to do, that this declaration is true, we must conclude, that in June no practices had been attempted by Spaniards against the quiet of France; and that no danger was then apprehended by the French monarch from the Spanish revolution; for, in either of these cases, there was no need of so indignant a disavowal of political motives for keeping up an army on the Spanish frontier.

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On the whole, it may be safely affirmed that Spain gave as little disturbance, or cause of just alarm, to her neighbours, as any country engaged in political reformation ever did.

The powers of the north, however, who arrogate to themselves the guardianship of Europe, early treated the Spanish revolution as a criminal enterprise, which called for the exertion of their paramount jurisdiction. In May, 1820, Count Nesselrode declared, in notes which were immediately made public, that "the Spanish nation now owes the example of an expiatory act to the people of the two hemispheres." Be it observed, in passing, that this atonement was required for no greater crime than the restoration of a constitution which the Emperor of Russia had, by a solemn treaty, recognised as legitimate. When these sovereigns assembled at Troppau, they expressly included the Spanish revolution among the objects of their condemnation. They declared their right to interfere in every case where a government had been changed by violence, or where new insitutions were established not consistent with the monarchical principle, which recognises no institution as legitimate that does not flow spontaneously from the monarch. Naples they selected as the object of attack. because no other can be so immediately and certainly opposed." To leave no doubt of their opinion of the extent of their right, they disavowed any intention, at the time, to invade the western territory of Europe." After the conquest of Naples and the dissolution of the Congress of Laybach, a circular despatch of the Prussian government, dated on the 5th June, 1821, stated, with a distinctness unusual in such compositions, the perseverance of the allies in their claims of universal jurisdiction in all changes of governThey will always mark rebellion, under whatever form or name

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Plaidoyer de M. de Marchangy, avocat général à la cour royale de Paris-29 Août et 7 Septembre, 1822. That this attorney general was not withheld, by extreme scruples, from adverting to Spain, we may judge pretty certainly from some of his opinions. He lays it down positively. that the confession of a person accused, even though it should be retracted, is evidence agains other men; and that the accused have no right to require the attendance of officers in high command at a distance, as witnesses to prove their defence.

Circular from Troppau, 8th December, 1820.

it may appear, with the stamp of their disapproval. Wherever it appears, and they can reach it, they will repress, condemn, and combat its work." It seemed still too early to proceed against Spain and Portugal. France was then governed by ministers of some prudence and moderation. England, in 1820, had resisted the attempt to suppress the Spanish revolution, and was at length so alarmed by the language held at Troppau and Laybach, as to publish the circular despatch of January, 1821, which, tardy, feeble, and ambiguous as it was, must be owned to be, in substance, a protest against the pretensions of the allied powers.

In the mean time, France fell into the hands of a fanatical faction, who, like the republican enthusiasts of 1793, aimed at the universal establishment of governments suitable to their own narrow opinions. An attempt of the King of Spain's guards to re-establish the absolute monarchy, undoubtedly instigated by foreign intrigues, was defeated in July, 1822. A few bands of peasants were easily excited to revolt, prepared to listen to foreign missionaries, by some impolitic as well as unjust decrees of the Cortes on ecclesiastical property, and by those physical, as well as political circumstances, which have always rendered the authority of the law very loose and unequal in some provinces of the kingdom, The French administration availed themselves of these pretexts, of which they had in a great measure contrived the very slight foundation. They exulted in discovering, in a Spanish party in arms against the government, the same advantage which Catharine had obtained, in 1792, from those infamous Poles who formed the Confederacy of Bar. They changed their sanitary cordon into an army of observation; they suffered the chiefs of the Spanish insurgents to assemble, with forms of public authority, on the French territory; they countenanced loans for these insurgents; they not only received them as fugitives after defeat, which was a common office of humanity, but they allowed them to march back into Spain for the purpose of new hostility; and, in the midst of all this instigation, support, and countenance, they had the meanness and bad faith to complain of the Spanish troops for having pursued their enemies twice or thrice into valleys, which, in the intermingled territory and uncertainty of a doubtful frontier, are asserted by France to be part of her dominions.

Such was the state of things, when the Sovereigns, who call themselves, by way of eminence, "The Powers," assembled at Verona, according to their declarations, in the preceding year, at Laybach.* We say nothing of the intrigues and divisions which followed, both at Verona and at Paris. Our present business is only to discuss and avow the reasons alleged for and against the war. On the 25th December, 1822, M. de Villèle sent a very ambiguous note to the French ambassador at Madrid, which contained the important intimation, that "the Continental Powers had adopted the resolution of uniting with France (if there ever should be occasion), in maintaining her dignity and tranquillity!" or, in plain English, of supporting the French ministers against all opposition, either in France or Spain. On the 28th of January, the King of France announced, in his speech to the legislature, that he had ordered the recall of his minister from Madrid, and that he had directed an army to advance, but that hostilities should cease as soon as Ferdinand VII. was free to give his people institutions which they cannot hold but from him;" thus adopting, in its fullest extent, "the

* Circular of Austria, Russia, and Prussia, 12th May, 1821.

monarchical principle" of the confederates or conspirators of Laybach. On the 25th of February, the violent Chateaubriand read a speech, which may be considered as the manifesto of the French government, and with a short examination of which we shall conclude this statement.

It is somewhat remarkable, that the argument of M. de Chateaubriand should set out from " the right of one government to interfere in the internal affairs of another; -as if that were a first principle of the law of nations, which would, in truth, be destructive of all its principles, and which has never before been represented by its most zealous advocates otherwise than as an exception from all other principles, admissible only in those extremely rare cases of stern and dire necessity which suspend all the ordinary rules of human action. It is very plain, that this intervention is directly at variance with international law; that no community, which is not independent, can be called a nation; and that the very definition of independence excludes such intervention. The justice of the French aggression, therefore, must solely depend on the answer to the question, Whether it can be brought within the case of exception? Now, what is that case? Has it hitherto ever been carried farther, in any example that even divides the opinion of mankind, than this position, that if a state avows the intention of propagating its own institutions in neighbouring countries, and actually attempts so to propagate them by intrigue or by force, the powers who are insulted and assailed in this manner have a right to destroy the government which had attempted to destroy them? Perhaps this case is improperly termed an exception. A war made on such a ground is not so much an interference in the internal affairs of a foreign country, as a resistance to such an interference. The state which first attempts so excite revolt in its neighbourhood is the real offender against the principle of national independence. Now, the King of France's speech in June, 1822, demonstrates that, before that period, Spain was guilty of no such offence. His speech in January, 1823, seems, by its silence on matters which, if they were real, would have been so important, to be an admission that Spain had then violated no duty of good neighbourhood towards France. The silence of M. de Chateaubriand on this important particular carries the admission down to the very eve of hostilities. The violation of French territory, and the capture of French ships by pirates under the Spanish flag, are not honestly urged; and it is not even alleged that reparation for these casual or frivolous wrongs has been demanded and refused. The reduced sale of French mules in Spain has much the appearance of being inserted by an opponent in M. de C.'s MSS. to bring ridicule on the speaker and speech. He is reduced, therefore, to the bare and naked allegation, that the example of the Spanish revolution, though unattended by any words or acts of the Spanish government or people of Spain hostile to the tranquillity of other countries, is dangerous to the quiet of France and therefore a just cause of war against Spain.

It cannot be too often repeated, that no overt act, no incendiary decree, no encouragement to revolt, no correspondence with the disaffected, is laid to the charge of Spain. She has no need of disavowing them. She is so innocent as not even to be accused by enemies who plot her destruction. Nothing, therefore, remains but the doctrine, that whenever a state thinks or says that her quiet is endangered by the mere example of the form of government of another nation, she may make war to destroy that government! Such a doctrine would leave no independence; for every weaker

nation would in that case be bound to change its government at the pleasure of a stronger neighbour. As it would leave no independence, it could leave no international law, of which the sole object is the protection of independence. It would establish universal and eternal war; for such a right of intervention must belong to all nations or to none and if to all, it is evident that there could be no peace till one had established its favourite government, and secured it over all countries. The worst governments would possess this right more clearly than the best; for it is surely to bad governments that the example of good is most dangerous. Morocco might make a war against England for setting the example of a pure administration of justice at Gibraltar, which would excite the Africans to revolt against their masters. As despotism prevails over a far greater number of men than liberty, and barbarism than civilisation, the practical effect of this doctrine, if universally adopted, would be to reduce all mankind to be at once barbarians and slaves.

It is difficult to conjecture what part of Lord Bacon's writings could have been so misunderstood, as to tempt M. de C. to an unfortunate appeal to the authority of that great lawyer, as well as philosopher. Nothing can be more decisive than the condemnation pronounced by Lord Bacon against such wars as the present. In his "Essay on the Greatness of Kingdoms,' find the following passage, which is the more remarkable, because the doctrine of the Essay is, that a nation which would be great must be well armed with pretexts for wars ;

we

"As for the wars which we anciently waged on behalf of a sort of parity or conformity of estate, I do not see how they can be justified; as when the Lacedæmonians or Athenians made war to set up or pull down domocracies and oligarchies."-Bacon's Essay on the Greatness of Kingdoms.

If such wars can be justified, we must no longer condemn religious warɛ. A pious monarch might well think that the orthodoxy of his own subjects, a still higher object of his care than their security or quiet, could be effectually secured only by the destruction of heresy in all surrounding countries. As long as this principle prevailed in Europe, irreconcilable and perpetual war was the inevitable consequence of it. Peace was unknown till nations learned to tolerate each other's religion. Wars of political opinion will produce the same fatal effect; and permanent peace will again be a stranger to Europe, till nations learn to tolerate each other's governments, however various and unlike. If mere danger from the form of a government be a justification of war, it is obvious that we must at once acknowledge the justice of all the Revolutionary and Imperial wars of France. The National Convention knew that the monarchies of Europe were, from the very necessity of their nature, adverse to the French Revolution. Napoleon knew that the Bourbons of Spain were the irreconcilable, though secret, enemies of his family, and would embrace the first opportunity of subverting it. The reasoning, in sort, of M. de Chateaubriand, would legitimate all those acts which the voice of Europe has most loudly condemned.

The most celebrated exception to the general priciple of national independence is the war of the Coalesced Powers against France in 1793. It excited a division of opinion at the moment, which will probably long continue. Without now enquiring which of the English parties who differed from each other so widely on that occasion were right, it is of some importance to show, that on the principles of the party who approved and conducted the