eight; and for military government, into fourteen divisions. In Grenada, and some other provinces, the inhabitants assured king Joseph that the laws would be enforced, tranquillity maintained, and all foreign aggression repelled by the organization of some battalions of free, or volunteer companies of Spaniards. His majesty accepted these offers: but a very little experience sufficed to satisfy him, that these civic guards were by no means to be trusted. Some regular regiments were also formed of Spaniards, who took the oath of allegiance to Joseph, and were distinguished by the appellation of Juramentados. Neither were these found worthy of confidence. They deserted on every favourable opportunity. Napoleon never approved the policy of embodying either corps of civic guards or regiments of Juramenta dos. Some of the latter, towards the end of the year, he ordered to be marched into France.

In February, 1811, the whole of the companies that had been formed for maintaining tranquillity in the interior of Spain, were, by order of Buonaparte, broken and dispersed,

In the night of the 10th of August, the whole guard of the gate of Toledo at Madrid, including the officers who commanded, went off in a body, and joined the nearest party of the Spanish patriots. So far was Joseph from trusting, for his personal safety, to civic guards, or the good will of the people, that the great business on which he was most intent for a great part of the summer and autumn, of 1810, was the construction of strong and extensive forti

fications for the defence of his palace, Bueno-Reteiro, in Madrid. He was fond of making excursions from Madrid, but kept the particular place he was going to as long as possible a secret; nor did he remain long at any of these places. He was once within a hair-breadth of being surprised in one of his retreats by the Guerillas. He is represented to have been a man of placid and mild manners, and rather indolent than ambitious. The French at Paris called him Roi malgrè lui. His crown certainly did not sit easy on his head. The following is a copy of a letter from Joseph to his wife, intercepted by the Guerillas, and published in the Spanish journals:

Madrid, Aug. 23, 1810. "My dear friend,

"I have received no letters

from you to-day. I am in good health. My situation here, however, is still much to be pitied. I embrace you and my children. THE KING.

«To Her Majesty the Queen of Spain, at Paris."

The situation of Joseph was not only irksome, but humiliating, Napoleon having lost all patience with the moderation of his brother, ordered violent measures, the execution of which he committed to his own generals: so that Joseph was a passive spectator of vexations and enormities calculated to excite the hatred and indignation of that nation whom he wished to conciliate. To all king Joseph's applications for suc cour, the French emperor replied,

that he would not send any more succours to him at present (June, 1810), because he could not. "Why don't you," said his minister to Joseph's ambassador at Paris, "raise contributions in Andalusia? Above all, at Seville, Murcia, and Malaga? and confiscate English merchandize? In the establishment of the king of Spain there is too much pomp, show, and luxury. Pay the army: that is, conquer and pacify the country in the first place. Grant rewards to individuals afterwards. It is impossible but there must be more specie in Spain, considering what must have been imported by the French, the English and from America. It is the way of the Emperor to support the armies he employs at the expense of the countries he invaded. If the Emperor had not invaded Spain, he could have disbanded his troops, and spared his own treasury. The staff establishment of the king of Spain was too numerous, and too expensive. The Spanish corps he had taken into his service were not only an useless expense, but a mischief, as they commonly deserted to the enemy. The favour and kindness shown to the Spanish gentlemen newly come over from the enemy to the king, served only to disgust those who had espoused his cause from the beginning."

The embassador, in reply, stated among other things, that very heavy arrears of pay were due to the officers both of his catholic majesty's staff and household, and

that the ordinary impositions on Spain at present, were almost wholly unproductive. They were levied only on a small portion of the subdued provinces; and even in these, the collectors were often thwarted by the Guerillas. *

It already occurred, as one way of raising money, to sell what the French called the forfeited estates. In the month of July, there was a public sale of the estates of all the Spanish grandees, and other great landed proprietors, who had emigrated to Cadiz, and adhered to Ferdinand 7th. But this measure of finance turned out to very little account, and next to nothing.

was

If it seemed necessary to urge Joseph to the adoption of harsh and cruel measures for the subjection of Spain, there no necessity for exciting the French generals either to plunder, or to commit any act of atrocity that might be supposed to contribute to the same end. General orders were issued by Soult, at Seville, May 29, for granting no quarter to any Spaniards, not regular troops, found in arms against king Joseph. All such were to be treated as rebels against legitimate authority, and devoted, without mercy, to fire and sword. But the Regency of Spain immediately ordered retaliation, a few examples of which excited a murmur of discontent throughout the whole French army. And by a decree of Buonaparte, the rights of war were allowed to the Guerillas.

Towards the end of the preceding year, Kellerman, general of division, and governor-general for Upper Spain, for the districts of Salamancha, Zamora, Toro, Leon, Placentia, Burgos, Guipusco, and Alava, issued general orders for putting the horses and mares of those districts, of a certain size, in requisition, and conducting them to their respective capitals. The left eyes of all the rest were ordered to be put out, so that they might be disabled from military service.*

It was a common stratagem of the French to appear in one place, where their presence was not necessary, and suddenly retire to those where it was, marching with great rapidity from place to place. It was intended by this manoeuvre to frighten the people, and thus make them lay down their arms, under the persuasion that they should be certainly overwhelmed by numbers.

Of all the princes of the house of Bourbon at this time, 1810, the duke of Orleans was by far the most active and enterprizing, and the most distinguished both by natural capacity and accomplishments. At the battle of Jemappe, under general Dumourier, he gave decided proofs of personal valour, and, on a great many subsequent occasions, when wander ing as a fugitive on the continent of Europe, sometimes in Switzerland, and sometimes in Scandinavia, even to the North Cape, in America, and in England, he shewed a readiness, and a fertility of resources in his own mind,

not often to be met with in persons of his rank. It was naturally imagined, that the presence of such a prince in Spain, would tend to heighten the enthusiasm of the Spaniards, and to detach some of the French from an usurper to a prince of the house of Bourbon. He had married a daughter of the king of Sicily, his kinswoman, and resided at the court of Palermo. He was invited by the Regency, on the 11th of March, to take the command of an army on the frontier of France. He landed from Sicily first at Malta, in the beginning of June; from thence he, proceeded to Tarragona, in Catalonia; whither he was expected to return, after holding a conference with the Regency and the British commander at Cadiz. When the duke arrived in Catalonia, he published a proclamation declaring the purpose of his arrival, and inviting all true Frenchmen as well as Spaniards to join him in an effort to deliver themselves from the yoke of tyranny and usurpation. But the Cortes would not confirm this prince in the office of commander-in-chief in Catalonia, to which he had been appointed by the council of Regency; and he was obliged to leave Cadiz, which he did on the 3rd of October, and returned in a Spanish frigate to Sicily. It was said at the time, that the cause of the duke's disappointment and dismissal from Spain was, the ambition he discovered, and the intrigues he had begun to set on foot among the members of the Cortes, for being appointed sole

regent of Spain during the captivity and absence of Ferdinand VII. This report derives a degree of probability from the subsequent determination of the Cortes towards the close of

1811, that no

person should be appointed to the regency of Spain, during the captivity of Ferdinand, who had any claims to the eventual succession to the crown.