"It is not then--the repetition is impor. tant-it is not his Holiness who seeks the rupture. A pacific Prince, notwithstand ing he was obliged to witness the spoliation, in defiance of all right, of his states of Benevento and Ponte Corvo; notwith standing his enormous expence of maintain ing French troops; notwithstanding the usurpation of his capital, the usurpation of almost all his sovereign rights; notwith standing the violent dismissal of so many spiritual persons, composing the Holy Se nate; and notwithstanding all the other acts, by which his dignity has been degra ded, all that his Holiness did, was to com mand his people, when the French army entered Rome, to shew it respect; all that his Holiness did was to receive it in the most hospitable manner, and implore of his Majesty, in the mean time, relief from so many aggravated evils; and all that his Holiness now does in this extremity is, to mourn between the vestibule and the altar, invoking the pity of Heaven upon his people, and that by a return to better counsels, the most potent Emperor Napoleon will not suffer the inheritance of the Roman See, given by Providence to the head of the Catholic Church in full enjoyment, to be lost and routed out.

"Thus has his Holiness made war! Thus has he conducted himself to the present hour towards his Majesty, however distressing has been the result. Still his Holiness will cherish the hope that his Majes ty, rejecting the counsels of the enemies of the Holy See, who have had recourse to every art to change his disposition, will revert to their former friendly correspondence, and be satisfied with the concessions made in the note of the 28th January. If, by the hidden purposes of the Most High, this should not take place, and his Majesty, regardless of his own glory, and deaf to the calls of justice, should put his threats in execution, and take possession of the States of the Church by right of conquest, overturning the Government in consequence, his Holiness will be unable to remedy such fa tal occurrences; but he solemnly declares, that the first will not be a conquest, as his Holiness is in peace with all the world, but will be an usurpation more violent than his tory can furnish; and the second will not be the result of conquest, but of that usur. pation, He declares at the same time that it will not be the work of political genius and illumination, but an awful visitation of that God from whom all Sovereignty is derived, and especially that given to the Head of the Church.

"Bowing, in that event, with profound adoration to the decrees of Heaven, his Ho liness will find consolation in reflecting, that

the Creator and Redeenier willed these things, and that all concur to accomplish his purposes when his appointed time ar rives.

"This is the answer which the Undersigned is commanded by his Holiness to give to the note of M. Champagny, and to com municate to your Excellency.

"Cardinal GABRIELLI."

SPAIN.

EXPOSITION

Of the Practices and Machinations which led to the Usurpation of the Crown of Spain, and the means adopted by the Emperor of the French to carry it into ex cution, by Don Pedro Cevallos, First Secretary of State and of Dispatches to his Catholic Majesty Ferdinand VII

"At a period when the nation has made and continues to make the most heroic ef forts to shake off the yoke of slavery attempted to be imposed upon it, it is the du ty of all good citizens to contribute, by every means in their power, to enlighten it with respect to the real causes that have brought it into its present situation, and to keep up the noble spirit by which it is animated.

"To make known to Spain and to the whole world the base means resorted to by the Emperor of the French to seize the per son of our king, Ferdinand VII. and to subjugate this great and generous nation, is a duty well worthy of one who, like myself, is in a condition to discharge it; inasmuch as circumstances placed me in a situation to be an eye-witness of the events which preceded the catastrophe of Bayonne, and in which bore a part. It was not in my power to do this before, in consequence of personal restraints, and from not having collected the documents necessary to accre dit my statement. Some are still wanting, which it was necessary to burn, in conse quence of dangerous circumstances, in which every thing was to be feared; others have disappeared through the various incidents connected with that unhappy period; but those which I now present are sufficient to prove the atrocious violence committed a gainst our beloved King Ferdinand VII, and the whole nation.

"Though the conduct of Spain towards France since the peace of Basle, a very interesting portion of its political history in these latter times, is intimately connected with the important events which form the subject of this exposition, it is not necessary to dweil even upon its principal periods. It will be sufficient to state what the whole nation, and all Europe, know, that the po litical system of Spain has constantly been

during

during this time to preserve friendship and the best understanding with France, and to maintain at all hazards the ruinous alliance concluded in 1796.

"To attain this end, there is no sacrifice which Spain has not made, and as the preservation of the Prince of the Peace in the high decree of favour he enjoyed with Charles IV. depended in a great measure upon the continuance of this system, it was maintained with the greatest constancy and de fatigable attention.

"Fleets, armies, treasure, every thing was sacrificed to France; humiliations, submissions, every thing was suffered, every thing was done to satisfy, as far as possible, the insatiable demands of the French government; but the idea never once occurred of preserving the nation against the machinations of an ally, who was over-running Europe.

"The treaty of Tilsit, in which the destiny of the world seemed to be decided in his favour, was hardly concluded, when he turned his eyes towards the west, and resolved on the ruin of Portugal and Spain; or what comes to the same purpose, to make himself master of this vast peninsula, with a view of making its inhabitants as happy as those of Italy, Holland, Switzerland, and the League of the Rhine.

"At this very time the emperor was revolving in his mind some designs fatal to Spain (for he began to disarm her), by demanding a respectable body of our troops to exert their valour in remote regions, and for foreign interests. This he effected withat difficulty, and there was placed at his sposal a gallant and picked force of 16,000 men of all descriptions.

"The enterprise of making himself master of Spain was not so easy as Napoleon imagined. It was, above all, necessary to find out some pretext for carrying into execution the daring and gigantic plan of subjugating a friendly and allied nation, that had made so many sacrifices for France, and which this very emperor had praised for its fidelity and nobleness of character.

"Nevertheless, being accustomed to act with that disregard to delicacy in the choice of his means, which is characteristic of the man who imagines that the conquest of the whole world, the destruction of the human species, and the havoc of war, are conducive to true glory, he resolved to excite and foment discord in the royal family of Spain, through his ambassador at this court.

"The latter, though perhaps not initia ted in the grand secret of his master, succeeded in seducing the Prince of Asturias, our present king and master, and suggest ed to him the idea of intermarrying with a princess related to the emperor. The af

fliction which his highness laboured under from a conjunction of circumstances, as lamentable as notorious, and his anxiety to avoid another connection into which it was attempted to force him, with a lady selected for him by his greatest enemy, and on that account alone the object of his aversion, induced him to acquiesce in the suggestions of the ambassador, but with the stipulation that it was to meet the approbation of his august parents, and under the impression that it would strengthen the friendship and alliance then subsisting between the two crowns. His highness, actuated by motives so cogent in a political point of view, and yielding to the solicitations of the ambassador, wrote accordingly to his imperial majesty.

"A few days after our beloved prince wrote this letter, occurred the scandalous imprisonment of his august person in the royal monastry of St. Laurence, and the still more scandalous decree which was issued in the name of the King, and addressed to the Council of Castile. There are very strong reasons to believe, that the unknown hand that frustrated this feigned conspiracy was some French agent employed to forward the plan which Napoleon had formed.

"Fortunately the Spanish nation was deeply impressed with its situation, entertained a just opinion of the good disposition and religious principles of their prince of Asturias, and suspected instantaneously that the whole was a calumny fabricated by the favourite, as absurd as it was audacious, in order to remove the only obstacle which then opposed his views.

"It is already known, that on the impri sonment of the prince of Asturias, his royal father wrote to the emperor, no doubt, at the suggession of the favourite, complaining of the conduct of the ambassador Beauharnois, in his clandestine communications with the prince of Asturias, and expressing his surprise that the emperor had not come to a previous understanding with his Ma. jesty on a subject of such pre-eminent importance to sovereigns.

"As the imprisonment of the prince of Asturias, and, above all, the most scandalous decree fulminated against his royal per son, produced an effect completely contrary to the expectations of the favourite, he began to be afraid, thought proper to recede, and to meditate a reconciliation between the royal parents and their son. With this view, as is stated in the abstract of the Es curial cause, circulated by the council in consequence of his majesty's orders of the 8th of April, he forged certain letters, and made the prince of Asturias sign them while a prisoner, which being delivered in

to

to the hands of the royal parents, were supposed to have softened their hearts; and by these singular means did this innocent prince obtain a nominal liberty.

"This was the state of affairs when a French courier arrived at the Royal Palace of St. Laurence, with a treaty concluded and signed at Fountainbleau on the 27th of October, by Don Eugenio Izquierdo, as Plenipotentiary of his Catholic Majesty, and Marshal Duroc, in the name of the Emperor of the French. Its contents, as well as those of the separate Convention, constitute Nos. 1. 2. of the documents annexed to this Exposition.

It is worthy of observation, that the department of the Ministry, of which I was at the head, was totally unacquainted with the measures taken by Don E. Izquierdo, at Paris, as well as with his appointment, his instructions, his correspondence, and every part of his proceedings.

"The result of this treaty was to ren der the Emperor master of Portugal with very little expence; to furnish him with a plausible pretext for introducing his armies into our peninsula, with the intent of subjugating it at a proper opportunity, and to put him in immediate possession of Tus

cany.

"The Favourite was to have for his portion the Algarves and Alantejo, in full property and sovereignty, but the Emperor's answer to the letters of the Royal Father had not yet arrived; it was completely uncertain what it would be, and this filled him with fear and anxiety.

"The intimate relations which the Favourite maintained at that period with the Grand Duke of Berg, through the medium of his confident Izquierdo, flattered him to a certain degree with the hope that every thing would be settled to his wishes, tho' the interposition of a few millions might be necessary. But neither the Favourite nor his confident knew the real intentions of the person they were treating with at Paris. In fact, the instant the Emperor found that the Favourite had committed himself, and the Royal Parents were brought into a discredit, he shewed no disposition to answer his Majesty's letters, for the purpose of keeping them in suspence, and inspiring them with dread, in the hope that they might form the resolution of withdrawing, though at that time he had not completed his plan for taking advantage of such an occurrence.

"The Grand Duke wrote to the Favourite, that he would employ every means to support him, but that the negociation was rendered very delicate, owing to the extraordinary attachment which prevailed in Spain towards the Prince of Asturias, and

the consideration due towards a Princes who was cousin to the Empress, and in-consequence of the part the ambassador Beauharnois, her relative, took in the business

"Now it was that the Favourite began clearly to discover how much his credit had sunk, and he gave himself up for les”, in consequence of being deprived of the support of his imaginary protector the Emperor of the French. There were no means now neglected by him to endeavour to ingratiate himself with the Grand Duke of Berg; every sort of expression, every kind of deference was employed for this purpose; and the more effectually to avert the impending storm, he prevailed upon the Royal Parents to write to the Emperor direct, and to request his consent to the marriage of one of his cousins to the Prince of Asturias.

"Meanwhile the Emperor of the French appeared to be very much dissatisfied with the conduct of Izquierdo, and kept him at a distance, in order to cut off this direct mode of communication, and to make himself more impenetrable.

"His Imperial Majesty set off on a journey to Italy, with that studied parade which all Europe has witnessed, giving it such an air of importance, that it was to be presu med he was going to fix the destinies of the world. But there is reason to surmise, that his real object was no other than to divert the general attention to that quarter, for the purpose of misleading the other States, whilst his real designs were directed to the invasion of Portugal and Spain.

"This artifice and dissimulation did not, however, prevent the discovery of one of the articles in the Secret Treaty of Fountainbleau, by his expelling, with the greatest precipitation, from Tuscany, the Queen Regent and her children, plundering the Royal Palace, and seizing all the public funds of a Court that was ignorant of the existence of such a Treaty, and had committed no act of forfeiture.

"Whilst the Emperor kept Europe in suspence by his journey to Malan and Venice, he thought fit to answer the letters, which he had some time before received from the Royal Father, assuring his Majesty that he never had the slightest information of the circumstances which he communicated respecting his son the Prince of Asturias, nor ever received any letter from

his

All this appears from the correspondence of the Favourite with the Grand Duke, which the latter carried off from the office of the Secretary of State during his lieutenancy.

his Royal Highness". Nevertheless his Majesty consented to the proposed intermarriage with a Princess of his family, undoubtedly with an intention of amusing the Royal Parents; whilst he was sending into Spain, under various pretexts, all the troops which he had then disposable, and was studiously propagating an idea that he was favourable to the cause of the Prince of Asturias, and thus endeavouring to captivate the good opinion of the Spanish na

tion.

"The Royal Parents, struck with the terror which this conduct of the Emperor naturally inspired, and the Favourite being still more astonished, opposed no obstacle to the entrance of the French troops into the Peninsula; on the contrary, they gave the most effectual orders that they should be received and treated even on a better footing than the Spanish troops.

"The Emperor, under the pretence of Consulting the security of these troops, ordered his Generals, by stratagem or force, to get possession of the fortresses of Pampeluna, St. Sebastian, Figuieras, and Barcelona, which alone could present any obstacle to an invasion. They were accordingly taken by fraud and surprize, to the indignation and sorrow of the whole nation, to which the French still affected to profess friendship and alliance.

"The Emperor conceiving himself already master of all Spain, and thinking the time had arrived for accelerating his mea sures, thought proper to write a letter to the Royal Father, complaining in the bitterest terms, that his Majesty had not renewed his application for an Imperial Princess for his son the Prince of Asturias. The King was pleased to return for answer, that he adhered to his former proposal, and was willing that the marriage should immediately take place.

"Some important proceeding was still necessary to carry the project to a proper degree of maturity, and the Emperor not willing to trust it to writing, thought he could not find a better instrument than Don Eugenio Izquierdo, whom he had detained in Paris in a state of great dejection and terror, that had been artfully impressed upon him for the purpose of his more effec. tually executing his commission, by impressing the Royal Parents and the Favourite with the same feelings.

Compare this statement with the contents of the letter (p. 458.) from his Imperial Majesty to King Ferdinand, in which he acknowledges having received the letter written to him by the Prince of Asturias, on the suggestion of the ambassador Beauhornois.

Nov. 1808.

"In this state of things, the Emperor ordered Izquierdo to repair to Spain, which he accordingly did, in a very precipitate and mysterious manner. According to his verbal statements, he brought no proposal in writing with him, nor was he to receive any, and he had orders to remain only three days.

"On his arrival, under these circumstances, at Aranjuez, the Favourite conducted him to the presence of the Royal Parents, and their conferences were conducted with so much secrecy, that it was impossible for any one to discover the object of his mission; but soon after his departure from this capital, their Majesties began to shew a disposition to abandon the metropolis and the Peninsula, and to emigrate to Mexico.

"The recent example of the determination taken by the Royal Family of Portugal seemed to have fully corresponded with the views of the Emperor, and there is reason to think that his Imperial Majesty promised himself a similar success in Spain.

"But he must have been very ignorant of the Spanish character to flatter himself with such expectations. Scarcely had the first reports gone abroad of the intention of the Royal Family to abandon their residence, a resolution clearly indicated by the many preparations which were going on, when discontent and fear were depicted in the most lively colours in the features of all the inhabitants of the capital, and of all ranks and classes of persons. This alone was sufficient to induce their Majesties to refute the rumour, and to assure the people that they would not abandon them.

"Nevertheless, such was the general distrust, such the magnitude of the evils which must have resulted, and such and so many the symptoms of a determination to emigrate, that every one was on the alert, and all seemed to be impressed with the neces sity of preventing a measure pregnant with so many mischiefs. The danger increased, and the fears of the public kept pace with it. The consequence was, that the commotions of Aranjuez, on the 17th and 19th of March, burst forth like a sudden explosion; the people being led by a sort of instinct of self preservation. The result was, the imprisonment of the Favourite, who, without the title of King, had exercised all the functions of royalty.

"Scarcely had this tempestuous scene taken place, when the Royal Parents finding themselves deprived of the support of their Favourite, took the unexpected but voluntary resolution which they had for some time entertained, to abdicate their Throne, as they accordingly did, in favour of their son and heir the Prince of Asturias.” (To be concluded in our next.)

TREA

TREATIES between FRANCE and SPAIN

for the Partition of PORTUGAL. Two secret treaties for the partition of Portugal were concluded at Fountainbleau on the 27th of October 1807, and ratified by Bonaparte on the 29th; they are annexed as documents to Ce. vallos's narrative, and are in substance

as follow:

The preamble to the first treaty states the object of the two Sovereigns (Charles and Napoleon) to be," to settle, by common consent, the interests of the two states, and to determine the future condition of Portugal, in a manner conformable to the policy of the two countries." Article 1.-The provinces of Entre Minho and Douro, with the city of Oporto, shall be given in full property and sovereignty to the King of Etruria, under the title of King of Northern Lusitania. 2.--The kingdoms of Alentejo and of the Algarves, shall be given to the Prince of the Peace, under the title of Prince of the Algarves. 3.The provinces of Beira, Tralos Montes, and Estremadura, shall remain as a deposit till a general peace, to be disposed of according to circumstances, as shall be agreed between the contracting parties. 4. The kingdom of Northern Lusitania shall be possessed by the hereditary descendants of the King of Etruria, according to the laws of succes sion in Spain. 5.-The principality of Algarves shall in like manner be hereditary in the descendants of the Prince of the Peace. 6.-In default of legitimate heirs of either of these Frinces, their dominions shall be given as an investiture to the King of Spain, on condition that they shall never be united under one head, nor attached to the Crown of Spain. 7.-The kingdom of Northern Lusitania, and the principality of Algarves, acknowledge the King of Spain as protector, and their Sovereigns shall in no case make war or peace without his consent. 8.-If the provinces of Beira, Tralos Montes, and Estremadura, should, at a general peace, be restored to the house of Braganza, in exchange for Gibraltar, Trinidad, and other colonies taken by the English from Spain or her allies, the new Sovereign of these provinces shall have, with respect to the King of Spain, the same obligation as the King of Northern Lusitania and the Prince of Algarves,

and shall possess them subject to the same conditions. 9.-The King of E. truria cedes the kingdom of Etruria to the Emperor Napoleon. 10.-When a definitive occupation of the provinces of Portugal shall be effected, commissioners shall be appointed to determine the proper limits. 11.-The Emperor of the French becomes guarantee to the King of Spain for the possession of his estates on the Continent of Europe, south of the Pyre nees. 12.-The Emperor of the French agrees to acknowledge the king of Spain as Emperor of both Americas, at such time as may be proposed for his Majesty to assume this title, which may either be on the occasion of a general peace, or at latest within three years. 13.-It is understood that the contracting powers will make an equal division of all the islands, colonies, and other ultramarine property of Portugal. 14.-The present treaty shall remain secret, &c.

The second treaty provides for the immediate march of a French army to Lis bon, and for the co-operation of a Spanish force in giving full effect to this villanous scheme. For this purpose the French troops were introduced into Spain, and a few months after Bonaparte had dubbed Charles IV. Emperor of both Ame ricas, and guaranteed to him the possession of his European dominions, he kidnapped him and his family, carried them prisoners to France, and transferred the crown of Spain to his bro ther! And to complete the acme of fraud, it ought to be observed, that whilst these very treaties were negotiating at Fountainbleau, Bonaparte was proposing terms to the Prince Regent of Portugal, and assuring him that he had no designs hostile to his country or to himself!! Had the Prince remained at Lisbon, he would undoubtedly have shared the fate of the Royal Family of Spain, and been at this time a prisoner in France.

Another Spanish public paper of some importance is a " Manifesto of the proceedings of the Royal Council of Castile, in relation to the events which have occurred since October last." It is the Council's justification of its own conduct to the nation for its apparent submission to the French while they were in possession of Madrid. It appears from it, that Ferdinand VII. even when in the custody of his destroyer, contrived

to