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ON THE

PRINCIPAL EVENTS

WHICH TOOK PLACE IN THE

GOVERNMENT OF SPAIN,

FROM THE

COMMENCEMENT OF THE INSURRECTION, IN 1808,

TO THE

DISSOLUTION OF THE ORDINARY CORTES, IN 1814;

INTENDED TO EXPLAIN THE CAUSES WHICH LED TO

THE LATE REVOLUTION,

AND

MORE PARTICULARLY TO REPEL THE CALUMNIES OF
THE FRENCH PRESS,

RESPECTING THAT GLORIOUS AND MEMORABLE
OCCURRENCE.

BY COUNT TORENO,

THE LEADER OF THE PRESENT CORTES, AND LATE AN EXILE
IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE.

TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL SPANISH,
BY WILLIAM WALTON, Esq.
Exclusively for the Pamphleteer.

LONDON:

VOL. XVII.

Pam.

NO. XXXIÍÍ,

A

SPANISH AFFAIRS,

&c. &c.

SPAIN in 1820, is no longer what she was in and subsequent to 1808. Such is the language used by some persons, as they contemplate the universal, and almost simultaneous, impulse of the Spanish nation, to recover its lost liberties; an effort that has filled with astonishment and admiration-not only foreigners, who, in general, have no other means of judging of the state of an oppressed and speechless nation, than the acts and operations of its government-but, what is more remarkable, many Spaniards also; in whose eyes this even has appeared no less extraordinary and wonderful, than it did to natives of another land. Those, however, who thus express themselves, are not better acquainted with Spain, as she was in and subsequent to 1808, than as she lately stood at the commencement of 1820, previous to the revolution that has excited in them so much interest and surprise. Buonaparte, though perhaps more excusable, did not know Spain better than they do; and hence his fatal invasion, together with all the misfortunes which followed in its train. The sentiments of freedom in fact existed in the hearts of all classes of the Spanish community; liberal ideas were general in the more enlightened ones and these elements, compressed like the materials of a volcano, by the oppression of a despotic government, awaited only the agency of an imprudent man, who, deceived by the appearance of superstition and ignorance which covered the surface, unthinkingly rushes into the inner cavities, and by his movement puts all in a state of fermentation. Such was the real fact as it happened, and the explosion became immediate. It was not ignorance and superstition which opposed resistance to Buonaparte, but rather

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