During the progress of the insurrection, Barcelona itself had remained tranquil. Its inhabitants, dependent on commerce, and suffering, therefore, under the miserable state of depression to which the trade of Spain, under the absolute sway of Ferdinand and his servants, had already been red iced, probably felt little inclination to further the views of a party, whose success would have rendered their condition still more hopeless. At all events, the presence of a large French garrison, which behaved with great impartiality, except when the insurgents approached too near for the safety or the city, prevented any factious movement. The king, however, wished to shew his people that he could restore tranquillity to Catalonia with his own unaided arm, and that foreign mercenaries were not necessary to support his rights; or, as some imagined, his Apostolic counsellors were not unwilling to get rid of a force, which was a troublesome impediment to the progress of their friends. Soon after the king's arrival at Tarragona, a convention was signed with the French ambassador for the removal of the garrison of Barcelona; and, in the end of November, the troops which had composed it, to the number of seven regiments, quitted Catalonia, and took their way towards France.

Although every rational man had long regarded the separation of the South American provinces from Spain as being final and complete, the Spanish government had not only continued to assert its empty supremacy, but had even prohibited all commercial intercourse with the revolted colonies, lest it should appear to waive a

claim which there was no prospect of its ever being able to enforce. By recognizing their independence it could easily have secured to itself commercial advantages which would have been a valuable and solid counterpoise to the loss of titular sovereignty: by refusing this acknowledgment, and prohibiting all direct trade with them not only in Spanish, but even in foreign vessels, without a special licence, it ruined the commerce and marine of Spain, while it inflicted no substantial injury on the colonies; it aggravated the provocations to opposition, and weakened its own means of aggression. It now began to show some faint glimmering of returning reasonsome desire to regain for itself a portion of that trade which it had formerly interdicted to the world. To bring a few thousand reals into the treasury, and yet avoid the appearance of recognizing rights which, for a long time, it had been unable to deny, except in words, it borrowed the protection of a foreign flag, and consented to steal, as it were, some indirect commercial intercourse with its former vassals, by the intervention of foreigners, whose claim to trade with them at all it formally disavowed. On the 13th of February an ordinance was issued, opening a direct trade between Spain and America in foreign vessels. It authorised Spanish merchants to ship goods directly for South America under a foreign flag, and to receive South American commodities in Spain upon paying certain duties, without the necessity of a permit in each par ticular instance, as had been the case till then. The export duty was fixed at four per cent above the duties formerly established for goods exported to the colonies; and

the import duty on the products of America, brought to Spain in foreign vessels, at eight per cent above the former rate for national ships. The export duty was raised to 10 per cent, when the cargo, assorted from a Spanish port and destined for America, should consist of a half or a third part of foreign produce or manufactures. Although Ferdinand would not acknowledge South American independence, the Pope, as being responsible, in some measure, for the salvation of all Christendom, did not see in that refusal any good reason why the souls of the South American independents should be consigned to everlasting damnation, or, which was the very next thing to such damnation, should be left to receive the rites of religion at the hands of persons

not canonically instituted. Negotiations had accordingly been going on for a considerable time between his holiness and some of the republics; and, in the month of June in this year, on the recommendation of Bolivar, as head of the Colombian Commonwealth, he gave canonical institution to several South American bishops. His Catholic Majesty took high offence at this act of the court of Rome; he considered it an infraction of his rights of sovereignty, and a breach of the concordat between himself and the Pope. Orders were immediately transmitted to the frontiers not to admit the new papal nuncio, who was on his way to Madrid; and the nuncio, receiving on the frontiers official communications to the same effect, returned into France.

compelled to fall back towards the Douro, destroying the bridges as they retired: a precaution, in taking which they were sometimes resisted by the monks, who would willingly have paved a way for the rebels from the frontiers to Lisbon. An officer and his party who had been ordered to blow up a bridge at Santo Thirso, were surprised and made prisoners, and the bridge preserved, by the interference and authority of a monastery of Benedictine friars in the neighbourhood. On the 2nd of February, the rebels, having passed the Cavado, made themselves masters of Braga, within a short distance of Oporto. In some of the small towns through which they passed, the activity of the priests secured them a welcome from the populace, who received them with shouts for the "absolute king," meaning thereby don Miguel. Oporto itself, so nearly menaced, was again thrown into the greatest alarm; but the goodwill of the inhabitants towards the regency, the fidelity of the troops, and, above all, the spirit and resolution of the governor-general Stubbs, prevented any disturbance of the public tranquillity, and furnished the means, and gave the promise, of an obstinate defence.

The generals of the regency, on receiving intelligence of this new and unexpected inroad, immediately hastened northward from

Beira.

The marquis d'Angeja, governor of the invaded province, count Villa Flor, and general Mello, who commanded in Tras os Montes, effected their junction at Lixia, not far from Braga, on the 2nd of February, the same day on which the rebels entered the latter town. They advanced next day to attack them in Braga; but

the rebels, on learning their approach, had commenced their retreat, having re-passed the Cavado, after fortifying, however, and preparing to defend, the bridge across the river. On the 5th, D'Angeja ordered Villa Flor to attack the bridge; it was carried after a slight resistance; and the constitutional troops, having passed, continued the pursuit, till the rebels endeavoured to make another stand at the small town of Barca, on the river Lima. One of their regiments succeeded in defending the town till night-fall, when it slowly retired beyond the river, still occupying the bridge. D'Angeja, giving them no repose, resolved instantly to force the passage. A brisk action now took place; the bridge was attacked and defended with great vigour, but was at length carried by the constitutionalists at the point of the bayonet, and the rebels, leaving behind them their artillery, which proved to be of Spanish manufacture, and two hundred and sixty prisoners, besides killed and wounded, fled in all

directions towards Gallicia. D'Angeja pursued them with such rapidity as gave them no time to rally, and, on the 8th, he entered

*

• During the pursuit, the baggage of the rebel leader Montealegre was captured, and its contents supplied decisive evidence of the share which the

Spanish government had borne in these attacks on Portugal. In it was found the original of a despatch from Montealegre to the queen-mother, dated only a few days before the battle of Coruches, and giving an account of the proceedings of the faction, down to that period, which proved, that the nomination of the leaders of the rebels had proceeded from Ferdinand himself. Montealegre there informed her majesty, that, at Madrid, he had been presented to her brother, his Catholic majesty, who "required him to take the

the frontier town of Melgaço. He immediately applied to the Spanish authorities to disarm the fugitives; but these applications were refused or evaded, till the rebels recruited themselves, and marched to another quarter, when the authorities declared that there were no insur gents within their jurisdiction. The cavalry were, indeed, in some instances, deprived of their sabres, but they were allowed to retain their horses, and could find no difficulty in procuring arms, either from the same arsenals that had supplied them with their artillery, or in Braganza, Chaves, and the other towns in the north of Portugal, where the influence of their lead ers chiefly prevailed. Accordingly, the rebels had scarcely been chased from the province of Minho, when they again appeared in arms on the left bank of the Tamega, in Tras os Montes, and, on the 18th February, united their forces at Chaves, ready to take the road which they had followed in their first invasion, and either march southward into Beira, whence the constitutional troops had been withdrawn into the north to defend Minho, or to force the passage of the Tamega, and advance against Oporto.

command as second, and to consider his nephew, the marquis de Chaves, as general in chief, that being the sovereign will of his Catholic majesty," that he had "the great glory of obtaining, in the month of November, the necessary permission for the departure of the troops to Portugal, and that he himself, and the whole of his division, were indebted to his majesty's royal munificence for the most signal benefits." There were copies likewise of several letters from a Spanish agent, accompanying the insurgents, addressed to Spanish authorities, and detailing the proceedings of the confederates, for the information of the Spanish government.

To counteract both designs, the army of the regency moved against them in two divisions. While one corps, under general Mello, moved right upon Chaves from the westward, Villa Flor, at the head of another, retraced his steps along the Tamega, to secure the important pass at the bridge of Amarante, and, by throwing himself between the rebels and the Douro, to prevent them from taking their route towards Beira. Unless they were strong and active enough to defeat these corps in detail, they could advance only by crossing the Tamega between Chaves and Amarante. In that event, the junction of Mello and Villa Flor behind them, would have cut off their retreat, while Oporto was in front, with a strong garrison, and a skilful and resolute commander, and the head-quarters of the British army had been advanced to the banks of the Mondego. Retreat, therefore, seemed the only safe course for the insur gents, and it was hastened by their internal dissensions. While they lingered inactively at Chaves, some of their regiments mutinied, and demanded the heads of their commanders, Magessi and Texeira, whose fidelity they doubted. The approach of Mello's division, on the 22nd of February, added panic to insubordination: they immediately quitted Chaves, and commenced a disorderly retreat towards the frontiers in the direction of Valladolid. Mello pressed closely upon them from behind, and his van-guard had a smart skirmish with their rear at Quintella on the 3rd of March. Villa Flor from the South-west, and the was advancing with great rapidity rebels, finding themselves pressed into a corner, concentrated their