not be tolerated by the English, consistently with good faith towards Spain. Of course,

Torrijos was under the necessity of selecting some other place for his head quarters; and he resolved to proceed to Algiers. He set sail from Gibraltar in November, with his companions, fifty three in all. Instead of proceeding to Africa, they suffered themselves to be decoyed into the bay of Malaga by false assurances of a disposition on the part of the garrison to raise the constitutional flag, and were compelled, after they had disembarked, to surrender, tried by a court martial, and condemned to be shot,-without having struck a blow, or produced the slightest movement among the people. These misguided and unfortunate men were many of them patriots deserving of a better destiny. Beside Torrijos, himself a general officer of the highest distinction, there were Don Manuel Flores Calderon, President of the Cortes in 1823, Don Francisco Fernandez Golfin, also an eminent member of the Cortes, Don Juan Lopez Pinto, a colonel of artillery, and Robert Boyd, a young Irish gentleman of good family. Their lives were idly sacrificed in a wild and hopeless undertaking.

As in Catalonia, Navarre, and Biscay, so also in Andalusia, whatever dissatisfaction the people might feel towards Ferdinand, they were evidently determined not to rush into the hazards of a new revolution, without more certain grounds of success, than the existing state of affairs in the Kingdom afforded. The emigrants appear to have been strangely ignorant of the fact, that there was no revolutionary party in Spain. Miscalculating the effect, which the French Revolution was to have in the Peninsula, Torrijos and Valdez seem to have imagined that they had only to show themselves, and patriot armies were to rise up at their 18 *

VOL. II.

and desolation into the more civilized states of central and western Europe. But in the total prostration of the Poles, there is one human ground of consolation, so beautifully expressed by the poet:

They never fail, who die

In a good cause : the block may soak their gore;
Their heads may sodden in the sun; their limbs

Be strung to city gates and castle walls;

But still their spirit walks abroad. Though years
Elapse, and others share as dark a doom,

They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts,
Which overpower all others and conduct
The world at last to freedom.

CHAPTER VII.

Spain.-Queen's Death.-Maria Cristina.-Public Expec tations.-Law of Succession.-The Spanish Exiles.--Valdez and Mina.-Torrijos.--Remarks.

THERE is no country, of which the domestic condition and internal affairs are more misrepresented, than those of Spain. It is not merely that most of the information, which we derive from the journals of Spain itself, is of a suspicious nature, as having been subjected to the examination of the local authorities before publication and having been so qualified as to meet their views, or at any rate prepared and printed by the journalist with the terrors of the Police continually before his eyes. This cause of distrust attaches to intelligence derived from the Spanish gazettes, in common with those of other nations, which enjoy the blessing of an absolute government and a shack

THE SWISS CONFEDERACY.

203

peculiarly deserving of attention in America, from the analogy, in many points, between the institutions of the two countries. To understand the nature of the changes lately effected in the heart of the Helvetian mountains, it is necessary to take a political retrospect of the origin, and successive combinations, of the political rights of the confederated Cantons.

The primitive confederation was composed of the three Forest Cantons so called, Schwytz, Uri, and Unterwalden, which possess, even in our day, only a population of seventy thousand inhabitants. It was this handful of heroic mountaineers, which undertook to resist the powerful House of Austria, and which for twenty years maintained the contest for independence unaided and alone. Fif teen years after the great victory of Mongarten elapsed, before Lucerne was received into the confederacy. Zurich, Glaris, Zug, and finally Berne followed. These eight cantons, by their persevering love of liberty, and by a succession of splendid victories, signalized the name of Switzerland during the fourteenth century, and at last compelled Austria to desist from asserting her pretensions by force of arms, although it was not until the peace of Westphalia, three centuries later, that she formally recognized the national independence of the Cantons.

Thus passed the fourteenth century. During the fifteenth, the new Republic acquired strength, consistency, and allies, and began to act upon the affairs of Europe. It was at this period that the Swiss sustained their memorable contest with Charles the Rash, terminated by the battle of Morat, so fatal to the chivalry of Burgundy and Flanders. After this, Soleure, breaking loose from the German Empire, and Friburg shaking off the authority of the Dukes of Savoy, entered

company so auspicious an event, and as being, in fact, a natural ingredient of the rejoicings and public hilarity of the nation. They conceived, also, that they had some reason to expect this from the lively and amiable character of the new Queen, and her supposed indisposition to submit to the influence of the priesthood to the same extent with her predecessor, whose life was wholly given up to rigid ascetic observance.

In another important point of view, the anticipated marriage was connected with political subjects. The Infanta Don Carlos, the eldest brother of Ferdinand and presumptive heir of the crown, was, either in reality or in supposition, the rallying point of the apostolical party. Whatever defects of character Ferdinand may possess, are traits of weakness rather than of cruelty. The bitterness of political hostility has diffused very erroneous impressions in regard to this prince. Instead of being the fierce, bigoted, brutal tyrant, which some publications have represented him to be, he is unquestionably disposed to pursue as gentle a policy, in the management of his Kingdom, as the maintenance of his authority will admit. Nothing but the opposition of the Sovereign himself has prevented the reestablishment of the Holy Office in Spain. Since the occupation of the country by the French armies in the reign of Louis XVIII, more disturbances and insurrections have arisen from the absolutists, eager to push the government on to greater violence and intolerance, than from the persecuted friends of the Constitution. At the present time, it can hardly be affirmed that a liberal party exists among the Spaniards. The sword, the scaffold, exile, the dungeon, have done their work upon the unhappy constitutionalists, until few remain upon their native soil, bold enough to move in any

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scarcely better established and understood in the land of William Tell than among the neighboring monarchies.

Switzerland, at the close of the eighteenth century, consisted of the thirteen sovereign Cantons, and of various other political bodies connected in different ways with the Republic. Some were in alliance with it or its members, others were its subjects. The Valais was the only ally of the whole thirteen Cantons. Geneva, on the other hand, was the ally only of Berne and Zurich, to which it was attached by community of religious faith. The allied cities or communities had the right of sending deputies to the Diet; but they had no voice except in what concerned their particular alliances. As for the subjects of the Republic, they were ruled with a sterner authority than individual princes would have ventured to exercise over the people of their hereditary domains. The Italian bailiwicks, so called, were especially the objects of extreme tyranny and misrule. And while the connexion of the allied communities with the Republic partook so little of the nature of a national federative union, and the situation of the dependencies of the Republic was so abhorrent to all the doctrines of liberty, the picture presented by the sovereign Cantons themselves did no credit to their form of govern

ment.

Viewing the great members of the Republic with reference to each other, it would be seen that they lived in a state of hostility among themselves, almost of anarchy. Separated by their religious opinions, by diversity of interests, by variance in political principles, they presented a favorable theatre for foreign diplomacy, while the Diets had little power, and scarcely the will, to draw closer the bands of confederacy. Discon