king to hang, wherever he may find him, any priest or religious, without examination of cause, or the observance of the forms of law and justice.

"They are busily employed in planting their colonies, as they call them, depriving the natives and rightful owners of their lands and possessions which they inherited from their ancestors from time immemorial to the present, and giving them to strangers and heretics without law or reason. Feeling these and other grievances, some inhabitants of the town and neighbourhood of Wexford, who are regarded as the most warlike people of the kingdom, and are skilful mariners, have put to sea in a well-found ship, to lead the life of pirates, and harass the heretics.

"Come what may-let our adversaries plot as they will-we are determined to labour as God helps us, instructing our Catholics, and exhorting them never to consent to anything prejudicial to the liberty of the Catholic religion. In other secular affairs we do not mingle, but leave to God to employ His divine providence in behalf of the church when we do what

we can.

"This year has been one of prodigies here, for the summer has been very dry and hot, and it has twice rained blood in two different parts of the west of Munster. In the cathedral church of this diocese a great fall of snow occurred on the day of the Holy Ghost, though it was then exceedingly hot, and it fell only within the cemetery. May God grant it be of as happy omen as what fell in Rome when the church of Our Lady, St. Mary Major, was founded.

"From Ireland, the 18th July, 1612.

"DAVID, Archbishop of Cashel."

W. M'D.

CHRONICLE.

SPAIN.

OUR Spanish Chronicle has suffered a long interruption,

and that, too, at a time when events in that sadly-disturbed Peninsula were becoming deeply interesting. But matters of more immediate interest to the readers of the RECORD crushed us out, and we trust we may be excused for going back a little, the better to understand the actual position of affairs, and, as far as possible, record the events in regular historical order.

2. The double failure to relieve Bilbao, under Moriones and Serrano, early in the spring, induced the military authorities on the Republican side to entrust the direction of the campaign to Marshal Concha-by no means a friend of the actual regime -an ardent Alphonsist, but equally ardent in his hostility to Don Carlos. He displayed no mean knowledge of strategy. in his plan of relief. But even his acknowledged superiority on this head would not have availed him more than his predecessors in command against the dauntless battalions of the King, if the army at his disposal had not been strongly reinforced, principally by gendarmes and excise officers, who were brought up from every city and town in the Peninsula, and on whom every reliance might be placed; and by a considerable accession of strength in the matter of artillery, in which the Carlists were already at a vast disadvantage.

Concha's plan was to take a select body of troops in the direction of Balmaseda-a good deal to the south-east of Somorrostro-and leave Serrano with the remainder to attack the entrenchments' constructed above the latter valley. The Royalists by this move were compelled to extend their line towards Balmaseda, and consequently weakened it very much; and at the very point menaced by Concha, they could only place 3,000 men and a couple of mountain pieces; whilst Concha marched with 15,000 men, supported by a numerous artillery, and divided into three brigades, to debouch at the same moment by different roads, all which could not be defended by the Carlists. What followed was foreseen, and the relief of Bilbao is due to the prudent and masterly retreat of the Carlists, and not to any brilliant feat of arms performed by the Republicans. A short extract from the despatch of Vinale, Minister of State to Don Carlos, will best describe the manœuvre. "On the 29th the column of General Echague feigned several movements on our left flank, without determining the point of attack until the evening of the 30th, when it advanced towards the heights of Galdames. Echague was immediately driven back on several points by the 1st battalion of Alava, two of Castille, and one of Aragon, who took several prisoners, and mules laden with ammunition. But night coming on, the enemy renewed his attack on one point. defended only by a single battalion, which fought desperately, but was ultimately forced to yield to vastly superior numbers. Master of the heights of Galdames, the enemy had attained the first point of his object, which was to break our lines, in order to envelop our two isolated wings and advance towards Bilbao. The situation of our forces, above all, of the right wing, was extremely dangerous, so that Dorregaray resolved

to abandon the line of Somorrostro on the 1st of May at three o'clock in the morning. This retreat was carried out in the most perfect order to positions on the right bank of the Cadagna, whither later on General Elio marched the left wing. Our new line of battle extended from the hills commanding the bridge of Castrejana, passing by Mount Banderas to the hill in front of Desierto. However, it was manifest that these positions, exposed to the enemy's fire and well within range of their new guns, and also exposed to the fire of the garrison from within Bilbao, could not be held as they were in 1836 by General Villareal against Espartero. These cogent reasons determined Generals Elio, Dorregaray, Mendiri, Larramendi, Velasco, and Lizzaraga, assembled in council of war, to advise the abandonment of this line, and to raise the siege. A second council was held during the night, at which the King presided, and it was in furtherance of the resolution come to at this second council that the siege was raised and the retreat ordered. The retreat was effected in the most perfect order, not even a musket or a cartridge falling into the hands of the enemy."

In this whole affair Serrano contented himself with playing a secondary part; and having ascertained the retreat of the Royalists, first on Zornosa and then on Durango, he gave Concha a proof of his confidence in him, by appointing him Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the North. He then betook himself to Madrid to take part in another species of warfare-political intriguing-in which he generally proves more successful than in the field.

3. Matters were not proceeding very quietly in governmental quarters at Madrid. The exultation with which the news of the relief of Bilbao was received soon gave place to the usual discord that has characterized every Spanish Cabinet for the last forty years. The different phases of Republicanism represented in the Ministry became more marked and less harmonious. Some of the Federalists demanded the immediate proclamation of their panacea for the evils of the Peninsula, and feelings became so excited that the ex-Federalist Deputy, Santa Maria, could not be restrained from sending Martos down stairs with an expedition not very dignified for a Cabinet Minister, and drawing down the censure of his colleagues on himself. Concha was suspected of preparing a pronunciamento in the Alphonsist sense, and Serrano, by the great deference exhibited towards the veteran strategist, was supposed to be in the plot. Many clamoured for the re-assembling of the Cortes, but Sagasta would not entertain the proposition. This omnipotence of Sagasta made Martos, Echegaray, Garcia

Ruiz, Topete, and Balaguer his declared enemies. In the midst of such conflicting counsels, Zabala, the Minister of War, on whose shoulders the heaviest responsibility pressed, was in a state of the greatest anxiety, and earnestly prayed for the return of Serrano. This latter availed himself of his position as Chief of the State, and seeing the impossibility of any results from such discordant elements, he persuaded the ministers to resign, and thus got rid of all the Republicans. In reconstructing the Cabinet, besides the portfolio of War, he entrusted Zabala with the Presidency of the Ministerial Council; and Ulloa succeeded Sagasta in the Ministry of State and Foreign Affairs. Sagasta, anxious to be in the way of manipulating the elections to the Cortes, and ruling the executive at the same time, accepted the portfolio of the Interior taken from the Republican Garcia Ruiz; Romero Ortiz, Conservative, succeeded Balaguer in the Colonial office, and an unknown Rodriguez Arias took Topete's place in the Marine. Finally, Camacho took up the Finances from Echegaray; Martinez replaced Martos in the Ministry of Justice, and Alonso Colmenares Mosquera in Commerce and Public Works. On the morning of the 13th of May the new Ministers went through the ceremony of taking some form of oath to defend a constitution which has no existence, and to observe laws which Serrano, as dictator, may alter or abolish. They then published a long rhapsodical manifesto in the Gazzetta of the 15th, deploring the civil war, but congratulating the nation on the recent successes, and promising, of course, immediate peace and prosperity, as the inevitable result of their wise administration. This manifesto implied also a decided leaning to the constitutional monarchy, with Isabella's son for king; in no other sense can we interpret the words: “From 1868 the character of the revolution has been weakened and corrupted." General Pavia, who swept away the Cortes in January last, understood them in this sense, and sent in his resignation. His example was followed by several Captains-General of Provinces, and not a few general officers in high command were quietly relieved of their duties, and replaced by others known as anti-Republican and strong supporters of the Alphonsist

movement.

A good many partisans of the Monarchy, fearing that the party that ruled under Isabella would also command under Don Alfonso, offered the crown to the Duke or Duchess of Montpensier. But the Duke and Duchess replied to the offer with an absolute refusal. Then was the design conceived of bringing in the Hohenzollern family; holding out as an inducement a political and military alliance between Germany and Spain against France and Catholicity, and which

would be more than sufficient to crush every hope of the Legitimist party. It was reported that three of the new ministers, including Sagasta, were in favour of this project. But as soon as it was divulged, it created such emotion in France and England, and above all in Spain, that it was abandoned immediately, and emphatically denied in the Berlin official journals.

These manoeuvres served to advance the cause of Don Alphonso. For most political men placed in the alternative of choosing between the Republic and a foreign prince, saw no salvation for Spain except in the accession of the Prince of the Asturias, whom all knew to be acceptable to the army, and especially to Concha. Some few hesitated, partly through fear that under the name of Don Alphonso it would be Serrano and Sagasta actually reigning; partly because of the manifest danger of party struggles for court influence; and lastly, because they feared the influence of Isabella and her courtiers on the young king. But thanks to the favourable offices of the Berlin government, these difficulties seem to be vanishing, and Bismarck is content to have the Prince of the Asturias for his vassal when he cannot have a Hohenzollern; since with either, owing to the useful complicity of Serrano and Sagasta, he can succeed in creating a new enemy for France, and have a new ally in the war undertaken against the Papacy and Catholicity.

In furtherance of this entente cordiale between Serrano and Berlin, on the 24th of May, the Count Hatzfeld, a confidential agent of Bismarck, was sent in all haste to Madrid. The Memorial Diplomatique of the 6th of June published a correspondence from Berlin, intended as an apology for Prussian tactics, in which the determination is clearly announced to fight the Papacy as long as it professes to resist civil power; which is, in other words, as long as the Papacy will not consent to become the obedient servant of the civil power. This apology continues:-"The German government is interested in the pacification of Spain, and is hostile to the enterprise of Don Carlos. .. Germany has need of an outlet for her She wishes to establish useful commercial treaties, above all with countries having large colonial possessions. And this is the whole secret of Count Hatzfeld's mission." In the very same issue of the Memorial, at page 356, we have another authentic letter, dated from Madrid, in which we read as follows:-" Concerning Count Hatzfeld, he has been received by the Ministry assembled in Council. I don't pretend to know State secrets, but I can assure you that the confidential envoy of Prince Bismarck made fully known to the Spanish government the object of his mission. The

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