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The differences with Portugal in 1801 afforded him a safe opportunity to indulge his newborn ambition for military honours and exploits. Accordingly, at the commencement of the campaign, he boldly took the command, well informed that the Portuguese had no means of resistance against the forces with which they were assailed by France and Spain at the same time. This generalissimo had never even witnessed an engagement; and, from the nature of his education, could have but a slight idea, if any, of the theory of military tactics.

Perhaps there is not to be found, among the many incapable members of the cabinets of most Princes of Europe, a person inferior in talent, or any mental acquirements, to the Prince of Peace. But the exclusive favour of the Queen, who has procured him the favour of the King, supplies all defects, overlooks all errors, and bestows all advancements. His abilities are the object of universal ridicule among the enlightened men of Spain, and his character is very much despised by the ancient and more respectable part of the nobility. In opposition to their wishes, and to counteract their jealousy, he has made a vast addition of upstarts, like himself, to the noblesse of Spain. No man of learning has ever experienced his patronage, no merit has ever obtained his rewards, and no patriotism his protection. He is entirely surrounded by his own creatures, among whom there is not one of reputed or even common capacity.

In providing for his relations, however, he has been nearly as extravagant as Napoleon Bonaparte. Every person who can claim the least affinity to him, either direct or indirect, lineal or collateral, is sure of a good place, whatever his abilities may be. The first offices in the country are occupied by his relations. His father, who has scarcely learnt the first elements of education, now fills one of the highest situations in Spain. His elder brother is Viceroy of Mexico and the West Indies, and his younger brother, Diego, who is almost literally an ideot, has been promoted to the rank of a captain-general in the army, with large pensions.

It has surprised many that the Prince of Peace, with all his numerous deficiencies, has been able to preserve himself so long in favour at a court, which for centuries has furnished, by the capricious inconstancy of its choice with regard to favourites, materials both for romances and tales, for history, and for the drama. But during the first warmth of the friendship of the King, and of the attachment of the Queen, he took care to clear the court, from the first lord in waiting down to the lowest valet, of every person whom he suspected of envy at his elevation, or whose fidelity he doubted. Those he could or dared

not dismiss or disgrace, he removed by advancement into distant provinces, or sent them with liberal pensions to reside in the country. He observed the same conduct with regard to the offices of the ministers of state; where the most inferior clerks, messengers, and attendants, as well as the chief secretaries, all are indebted to him for their places. Such is his jealousy and precaution, that nobody is admitted to the presence of their Spanish Majesties, who has not previously asked and received his approbation and consent. Like all other ignoran. people he is governed by prejudices, and tormented by illiberal and superstitious notions. Every body who is not born a Spaniard he despises; and those who are not members of the Church of Rome, he hates under pretence of pitying them. He thinks that all valour, honour, and virtue, on the other side of the Pyrennean Mountains are arti ficial; and that all religion, not acknowledging a Roman Pontiff for its visible chief, and the Vicar of Christ upon earth, is not only condemnable and dangerous, but false. He makes no distinction between the faith of the Protestant, or the creed of the Mussulman. In his opinion they are both infidels, and as such, undeserving confidence in this world, and certain of damna tion in the next.

The confessor of the King and of the Queen is also the confessor of the Prince of Peace, who generally every Saturday (but never less than twice a month) eases the burden of his mind before the reverend father, and receives his absolution. All persons who desire to continue in his good graces must imitate his devout example.

His nurse, on whom he bestows a pension of four thousand dollars, resides with him at Madrid, as well as in the royal palaces in the country. Her sole occupation is to interpret his dreams, she having, when he was a baby, from one of hers, predicted that he should become a great man! His first occupation every morning is to write down what he has dreamt in the night, and to give it to her, that he may have an explication before he goes to bed again. In his day dreams, during his nap after dinner, in the afternoon, he has no confidence nor she any power to comprehend them. He is so jealous of this precious talent, that he was near turning her off for having once gratified the curiosity of the Prin cess of Peace on this interesting subject.

His annual revenue, from his numerous places and pensions, and from the many estates given him by royal bounty, amounts to five hundred and fifty thousand dollars, about one hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds. But as he is the master of the royal treasury, no other boundary is set to his expences or cupidity, but his own discretion. He is supposed to have placed

several considerable sums in the public funds of England, France, and Holland, in his own name or in that of his wife. This lady is a daughter of an uncle of the King, whose marriage with a subject was regarded as a mésalliance, and never confirmed by the late or present King. So great, however, is his authority, that she is how admitted at court with all the honours and distinctions due to a Princess of the blood.

believed in most other countries. The fanatics at Rome alone do the Prince of Peace the honour of accusing him of impiety for this act, not of philanthropy but of justice.

Both when at Madrid, and in the royal palaces in the provinces, the King and Queen always sleep in the same room in different beds, and often the Prince of Peace obtains the honour of having his bed placed by the side or between the beds of his royal master and mistress. During the journey to the frontiers of the kingdom in 1796, where the King and Queen went to meet their daughter and son-in-law, the Princess and Prince of Brazils, the bed of the Prince of Peace was every night, in every house where they rested, placed between those of his royal Sovereigns, having the Queen on his right and the King on his left hand. From the known reli

and their mutual affection and regard, what in other countries would have excited ridicule, if not scandal, was in Spain merely considered as a proof of their reciprocal confidence and friendship for their favourite.*

Such are some of the traits and particulars of a person, who, by his shameful power over the Queen, has reduced the Spanish monarchy to a tributary state of France. By his dangerous incapacity and impolitic conduct, the throne of Madrid is suspended between a revolution daily dreaded, and the burden of a disgraceful war, which has neither object nor motive, in which success would hasten the ruin of the King, and in which every defeat deserves to be celebratedgious and moral sentiments of the royal couple, with a Te Deum. Thanks to the Prince of Peace, it is in this deceitful position, it is in the arms of the assassins of his family, that the King of Spain drags his existence, a prey to the perturbation of his mind, the ignorance and indecisions of his ministers, the complaints, the misery of his subjets; to anxiety for the present and to terror for the future. Slumbering beneath a roof of poignards, this monarch, bound by the ties of an unnatural alliance, can neither break them, nor suffer them to remain unbroken without danger; can neither make peace nor support war. His allies are his scourges, his enemies are his protectors. He would cease to be a King were the English to cease being victorious. Long ago would Bonaparte and Talleyrand have struck off the King of Spain from among the number of crowned heads; long ago would their regicide || and liberticide politics have disposed of the states of this monarch, had not the imposing force of Great Britain, the fear of a new coalition, and the temporary necessity of recurring to artifices, postponed this event.

The weakness of the Queen of Spain, in the choice of her favourite, is the only error with which she is reproached. She is an affectionate wife, a tender mother, a faithful friend, and a generous and good sovereign. Not entirely free from the Italian superstition imbibed in her youth, nor from the Spanish bigotry, which a long residence in Spain has almost naturalized; she is, however, tolerant and endearing, more so than either her royal consort or her princely favourite. That her liberal principles and sound judgment have restrained the inhuman authority and cruel and persecuting spirit of the so much dreaded Spanish inquisition, suspended if not abolished its judicial murders, is reported in Spain, and

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The Prince of Peace, though the real, is no longer the nominal prime minister of Spain. In critical affairs, or when transactions of great consequence are upon the eve of being decided, he however always condescends to entertain foreign ambassadors with his dulness, in his private audiences. Don Pedro Cevallos is the first secretary of state for the foreign department. Don Joseph Antonio Caballero is the minister of justice, and has ad interim the portfolio of the war department. Don Domingo de Grandallana is the chief minister of the navy, and Don Miguel Cayetan Soler is the minister of the finances. Alb these ministers are obliged to communicate their reports, plans, or proposals, to the Prince of Peace and the Queen, before they lay them before the King; who approves of them and signs them as soon as he hears that they have not been objected to by his royal consort. It is impossible to pay a greater compliment to the superior genius of the Queen of Spain.

* Le Voyageur Italien, vol. iii. p. 123. In the summer of 1797, the author met with Count de L at Paris, who is a Brabant nobleman by birth, but a superior officer of the Walloon guard of the King of Spain. He confirmed what has been said ef the etiquette of placing the bed of the favourite in the middle. He was one of the officers on duty during this journey, and spoke of it as nothing extraordinary, or rather as an ordinary occurrence.

not dismiss or disgrace, he removed by advancement into distant provinces, or sent them with

observed the same conduct with regard to the

The differences with Portugal in 1801 afforded him a safe opportunity to indulge his newborn ambition for military honours and exploits.liberal pensions to reside in the country. He Accordingly, at the commencement of the campaign, he boldly took the command, well in-offices of the ministers of state; where the most formed that the Portuguese had no means of resistance against the forces with which they were assailed by France and Spain at the same time. This generalissimo had never even witnessed an engagement; and, from the nature of his education, could have but a slight idea, if any, of the theory of military tactics.

inferior clerks, messengers, and attendants, as well as the chief secretaries, all are indebted to him for their places. Such is his jealousy and precaution, that nobody is admitted to the presence of their Spanish Majesties, who has not previously asked and received his approbation and consent. Like all other ignorant people he is governed by prejudices, and tormented by illiberal and superstitious notions. Every body who is not born a Spaniard he despises; and those who are not members of the Church of Rome, he hates under pretence of pitying them. He thinks that all valour, honour, and virtue, on the other side of the Pyrennean Mountains are arti

Perhaps there is not to be found, among the many incapable members of the cabinets of most Princes of Europe, a person inferior in talent, or any mental acquirements, to the Prince of Peace. But the exclusive favour of the Queen, who has procured him the favour of the King, supplies all defects, overlooks all errors, and bestows all advancements. His abilities are the object official; and that all religion, not acknowledging universal ridicule among the enlightened men of Spain, and his character is very much despised by the ancient and more respectable part of the nobility. In opposition to their wishes, and to counteract their jealousy, he has made a vast addition of upstarts, like himself, to the noblesse of Spain. No man of learning has ever experienced his patronage, no merit has ever obtained his rewards, and no patriotism his protection. He is entirely surrounded by his own creatures, among whom there is not one of reputed or even common capacity.

In providing for his relations, however, he has been nearly as extravagant as Napoleon Bonaparte. Every person who can claim the least affinity to him, either direct or indirect, lineal or collateral, is sure of a good place, whatever his abilities may be. The first offices in the country are occupied by his relations. His father, who has scarcely learnt the first elements of education, now fills one of the highest situations in Spain. His elder brother is Viceroy of Mexico and the West Indies, and his younger brother, Diego, who is almost literally an ideot, has been promoted to the rank of a captain-general in the army, with large pensions.

It has surprised many that the Prince of Peace, with all his numerous deficiencies, has been able to preserve himself so long in favour at a court, which for centuries has furnished, by the capricious inconstancy of its choice with regard to favourites, materials both for romances and tales, for history, and for the drama. But during the first warmth of the friendship of the King, and of the attachment of the Queen, he took care to clear the court, from the first lord in waiting down to the lowest valet, of every person whom he suspected of envy at his elevation, or whose fidelity he doubted. Those he could or dared

a Roman Pontiff for its visible chief, and the Vicar of Christ upon earth, is not only condemnable and dangerous, but false. He makes no distinction between the faith of the Protestant, or the creed of the Mussulman. In his opinion they are both infidels, and as such, undeserving confidence in this world, and certain of damna. tion in the next.

The confessor of the King and of the Queen is also the confessor of the Prince of Peace, who generally every Saturday (but never less than twice a month) eases the burden of his mind before the reverend father, and receives his absolution.

--

All persons who desire to continue in his good graces must imitate his devout example. His nurse, on whom he bestows a pension of four thousand dollars, resides with him at Madrid, as well as in the royal palaces in the country. Her sole occupation is to interpret his dreams, she having, when he was a baby, from one of hers, predicted that he should become a great man! His first occupation every morning is to write down what he has dreamt in the night, and to give it to her, that he may have an explication before he goes to bed again. In his day dreams, during his nap after dinner, in the afternoon, he has no confidence nor she any power to comprehend them. He is so jealous of this precious talent, that he was near turning her off for having once gratified the curiosity of the Prin cess of Peace on this interesting subject.

His annual revenue, from his numerous places and pensions, and from the many estates given him by royal bounty, amounts to five hundred and fifty thousand dollars, about one hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds. But as he is the master of the royal treasury, no other boundary is set to his expences or cupidity, but his own discretion. He is supposed to have placed

several considerable sums in the public funds of England, France, and Holland, in his own name or in that of his wife. This lady is a daughter of an uncle of the King, whose marriage with a subject was regarded as a mésalliance, and never confirmed by the late or present King. So great, however, is his authority, that she is how admitted at court with all the honours and distinctions due to a Princess of the blood.

Such are some of the traits and particulars of a person, who, by his shameful power over the Queen, has reduced the Spanish monarchy to a tributary state of France. By his dangerous incapacity and impolitic conduct, the throne of Madrid is suspended between a revolution daily dreaded, and the burden of a disgraceful war, which has neither object nor motive, in which success would hasten the ruin of the King, and in which every defeat deserves to be celebrated with a Te Deum. Thanks to the Prince of Peace, it is in this deceitful position, it is in the arms of the assassins of his family, that the King of Spain drags his existence, a prey to the perturbation of his mind, the ignorance and indecisions of his ministers, the complaints, the misery of his subjets; to anxiety for the present and to terror for the future. Slumbering beneath a roof of poignards, this monarch, bound by the ties of an unnatural alliance, can neither break them, nor suffer them to remain unbroken without danger; can neither make peace nor support

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believed in most other countries. The fanatics at Rome alone do the Prince of Peace the honour of accusing him of impiety for this act, not of philanthropy but of justice.

Both when at Madrid, and in the royal palaces in the provinces, the King and Queen always sleep in the same room in different beds, and often the Prince of Peace obtains the honour of having his bed placed by the side or between the beds of his royal master and mistress. During the journey to the frontiers of the kingdom in 1796, where the King and Queen went to meet their daughter and son-in-law, the Princess and Prince of Brazils, the bed of the Prince of Peace was every night, in every house where they rested, placed between those of his royal Sovereigns, having the Queen on his right and the King on his left hand. From the known religious and moral sentiments of the royal couple, and their mutual affection and regard, what in other countries would have excited ridicule, if not scandal, was in Spain merely considered as a proof of their reciprocal confidence and friendship for their favourite.*

The Prince of Peace, though the real, is no longer the nominal prime minister of Spain. In critical affairs, or when transactions of great consequence are upon the eve of being de cided, he however always condescends to entertain foreign ambassadors with his dulness, in his private audiences. Don Pedro Cevallos is the first secretary of state for the foreign department. Don Joseph Antonio Caballero is the minister of justice, and has ad interim the portfolio of the war department. Don Domingo de Grandallana is the chief minister of the navy, and Don Miguel Cayetan Soler is the minister of the finances. Alb these ministers are obliged to communicate their reports, plans, or proposals, to the Prince of Peace and the Queen, before they lay them before the King; who approves of them and signs them as soon as he hears that they have not been objected to by his royal consort. It is impossible to pay a greater compliment to the superior genius of the Queen of Spain.

The weakness of the Queen of Spain, in the choice of her favourite, is the only error with which she is reproached. She is an affectionate wife, a tender mother, a faithful friend, and a generous and good sovereign. Not entirely free from the Italian superstition imbibed in her youth, nor from the Spanish bigotry, which a long residence in Spain has almost naturalized; she is, || however, tolerant and endearing, more so than either her royal consort or her princely favourite. That her liberal principles and sound judgment have restrained the inhuman authority and cruel and persecuting spirit of the so much dreaded Spanish inquisition, suspended if not abolished || ordinary occurrence. its judicial murders, is reported in Spain, and

* Le Voyageur Italien, vol. iii. p. 123. In the summer of 1797, the author met with Count de L at Paris, who is a Brabant nobleman by birth, but a superior officer of the Walloon guard of the King of Spain. He confirmed what has been said ef the etiquette of placing the bed of the favourite in the middle. He was one of the officers on duty during this journey, and spoke of it as nothing extraordinary, or rather as an

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS.

CAMIRE.

AN AMERICAN TALE.

I WAS one day reproaching a Spaniard, lately arrived from Buenos-Ayres, with the cruelties which his countrymen had committed on their first conquests in America. I recalled to mind, with horror, the crimes which had tarnished the glory of a Cortez, a Pizarro, and many other heroes who have, perhaps, by their talents and valour, surpassed all that we admire in the ancients; and regretted, that so glorious an epocha in the Spanish history should be recorded on blood-stained pages.

My friend had hitherto listened to me with patience; a tear rolled down his cheek when 1 pronounced the name of Las-Casas. "He is our Fenelon," exclaimed he, "he did not compose Telemachus, but he explored America to save a few Indians; and traversed the seas to defend their cause at the council of Charles the Fifth, as the Archbishop of Cambray did that of the Protestants, whom the French also massacred in the Cevennes. They were still persecutors at the end of Louis the Fourteenth's reign and what were we? What was Europe in the 16th century ever to be commemorated by our great discoveries, by the flourishing state of the fine arts in Italy, by the new sects in Germany, and by the crimes of every country? Our neighbours, the Portuguese, put to the sword those they conquered on the coast of Malabar, on the borders of Ceylon, in the promontory of Malacca. The Dutch, who drove them away, were not less cruel. In Sweden, the Northern Nero, and the Archbishop of Upsal, were assassinating the senators and citizens of Stockholm. In London the pile was lighted for the Lutherans and Catholics; and the scaffold was already erected which was to be sprinkled with the blood of four Queens.* At Paris, you doubtless remember the name of the Guises, and the horrid sight of the 24th of August, 1572. I will say no more, let us not reproach each other: we have all been barbarians, but leave to history the melancholy employment of recording the crimes of our forefathers, and let us, if possible, only recall to our minds their good deeds, and endeavour to imitate them. You have repeated to me the

terrific detail of the conquest of Peru: I was but too well acquainted with it; allow me to relate to you, in my turn, the manner in which we aċquired Paraguay. This recital will be less irksome, and may, perhaps, inform you of some circumstances which are not related in history.

Not knowing well how to answer, I determined to listen; and the Spaniard commenced in the following words:

Travellers have made the world acquainted with that extensive and delightful country, situated between Chili, Peru, and the Brasils. The gold and silver mines which it contains are the least of its treasures. The mildness of its climate, the fertility of its lands, the majestic course of its rivers, its immense forests, the productions of Europe united with those of America, the abundance of its fruits and of every useful animal, make the inhabitants of Paraguay enjoy, almost without cultivation, all the gifts which nature has shared among the rest of the world. Sebastien Cabot was the first who explored it, in the year 1526, while sailing up the river which he called Rio de la Plata. The bars of silver, which the natives offered the Spaniards, soon attracted other navigators. Buenos-Ayres was built, some fortifications were erected in the interior of the country; and, at last, a settlement was formed at a place called the Assumption, on the borders of the river Paraguay.

The natives, at the sight of our soldiers, had abandoned their country, particularly the Guaranis, a numerous and powerful people, who Aed amidst inaccessible mountains, the roads to which were totally unknown to us. Several detachments had endeavoured to penetrate into them, but our warriors perished in the attempt, either through hunger or the arrows of the savages. Thus all communication was shut between the Spaniards and the Guanaris; the lands remained in their uncultivated state; and the colony, reduced to ask succour of Europe, could not prosper.

It was in this unhappy situation, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, when Don Fernando Pedreras was sent there as governor. A man of his character was not fit to recall the

Anna Bullen, Catherine Howard, Jane Grey, Guaranis; the haughty and tyranical Pedreras

and Mary Stuart.

wished that every one should bow beneath his

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