not prejudice, his majesty is con- modations were provided for the emperor. The journey of his imperial majesty was deferred; but the king, seduced by new promises, made by general Savary in the name of his imperial majesty, continned his progress to this city. Your excellency should ask M. Champagny if the king be at full liberty, and if he be so, he may return to his dominions, and give audience to the plenipotentiary, to whom the emperor may confide his powers. If not free, your excellency knows that every act is absolutely nugatory; and consequently whatever may be agreed will have no other effect than to stain the reputation of the emperor before the whole world, the eyes of which are fixed upon his conduct, and who knows what Spain has already done in favour of France. I have shewn to your excellency the treaty of the 27th October last, by which the emperor has guaranteed the integrity of Spain in the person of the king, with title of emperor of the two Americas. Nothing has intervened to destroy this treaty; on the contrary, Spain has added new claims to the gratitude of France.-The king has resolved not to yield to the importunity of the emperor; neither his own honour, nor his duty to his vassals permit him to do so. These he to the agitation of in. cannot compel to accept the dynas. MOST excellent Sir; Although ty of Napoleon; much less can he deprive them of the right they have to elect another family to the throne when the reigning family shall be extinct. It is not less repugnant to the feelings of the king to receive, as a compensation, the crown of Etruria; for, besides that that country is under the authority of its ic. gitimate sovereign, whom he would Official Dispatch from Don Pedro the whole Spanish nation would have been subject, has hitherto been restrained by what has been printed and published by the grand duke of Berg, and by all the French generals in that country, indicating the sentiments of peace and good understanding which the emperor of the French and king of Italy was desirous of maintaining with the the king my master; and also on account of the assurances which the ambassador of his imperial majesty in Madrid, the grand duke of Berg, and general Savary, had given to his majesty of the approaching arrival of the emperor in the said city; on which account, the king determined to proceed to Burgos to meet him, to shew this public mark of his affection, and of the high esteem, he had for his personit has now become impossible longer to answer for the tranquillity of such a numerous people; especially as they are apprised that the king has been six days in Bayonne, and they have no assurance of his return to Spain. In such a state of affairs, his majesty must be anxious for the repose of his beloved subjects, and for this purpose to return to their bosoms to tranquillize their agitation, and attend to their heavy demands of public business, as his ab. sence would expose his people to incalculable mischiefs, which would fill his heart with the most poignant grief. This speedy return, his majesty promised in the most solemn manner to his people, grounding his engagement on the assurances of the emperor, that he should shortly be restored to his country, and ac. knowledged to be her sovereign by his imperial majesty.-His majesty has, therefore, ordered me to com municate to you these observations, for the purpose of your submitting them to the consideration of his imperial majesty, whose approbation they will doubtless meet; and his majesty, my master, is ready to treat in his dominions with his imperial majesty on all convenient subjects, with such person as the em peror should be pleased to authorize for that purpose. Royal Decree addressed to the Supreme Council of Castile by Fer dinand VII. ON after the Prince of Peaca SOON was arrested, frequent and ear, nest entreaties were made by the grand duke of Berg, by the ambassador of France, and by general Savary, in the name of the emperor, my intimate ally, that he should be delivered up to the French troops, that he might be conveyed to France, where his imperial majesty would order him to be tried for the offences he had committed. These solicita. tions were generally accompanied with threats in case of a refusal, to In Vittocarry him off by force. ria they were repeated with equal importunities; and I wishing to form the most prudent determination, consulted with the duke of Infantado and the infant Carlos, with *This dispatch was not answered, and produced an effect precisely the contrary of what might have been expected in a regular course of things. The spies within, and the guards without the palace were doubled. The king for two nights endured the insult of an alguazil, who, stationed at the door, ordered his majesty and the infant don Carlos to retire to their apartments. The first time the insult was offered, the king complained in severe terins, on which the governor employed polite language, and manifested much disapprobation of such conduct; but this did not prevent the repetition, and probably this offensive circumstance would have been repeated, had not the king abstained from going out at night, P4 don Y Charles IV. My honoured Father and Lord that your don Juan Escoiquiz, and with don Letter of the King to his Father, Pedro Cevallos, my principal secretary of state. This minister, on that occasion, said; "Sire, if I were to yield to my own personal feelings, I should immediately recommend the surrender of the Prince of Peace. But such a sentiment ought to be stifled, and in truth I do stifle it when I contemplate the duty you owe to your own sacred person, and the obligations you are under to administer justice to your subjects injured by don Manuel Godoy. This obligation is essential to the sovereignty, and your majesty cannot disregard it without treading under foot whatever is most respectable among men. Under this view, I think you ought to answer the emperor, informing him, at the same time, that your majesty has offered to your august parents to save him from the penalty of death, should he be capitally convicted by the council. By your compliance with this proposal, your majesty will give to the world a proof of your magnanimity, to your beloved parents a proof of your affection, and the emperor will be gratified in observing with what wisdom you discharge the demands of justice, and conciliate the expectations of his imperial and royal majesty."-All approved of this salutary advice, and I did not hesitate a moment in adopting it, and proceeded to act upon it.-I communicated it to the council with the fit circumspection to serve for their information aud direction; and also that they may take the most active measures to protect the houses and families of the four denounced persons. I, THE KING. -Your majesty has admitted that I had not the smallest partici. pation in the proceedings at Aran. juez, intended, as is notorious, and as your majesty knows, not to disgust you with your throne and government, but to maintain both, and not to abandon the vast multitude whose maintenance depends Your ma upon the throne itself. jesty also told me, abdication had been spontaneous, and that if any one should attempt to persuade me it was otherwise, I should not believe them, for it was the most pleasing act of your life. Your majesty now tells me, that though your abdication was certainly an act of your own free will, you nevertheless reserved in your mind a right to resume the reins of go. vernment when you should think proper. I have therefore inquired. of your majesty, if you were disposed to resume your scepter, aud your majesty has replied that you neither would return to the throne, or to Spain. Notwithstanding this, your majesty desires me to renounce in your favour a crown conferred upon me by the fundamental laws of the kingdom, on your free resig nation of it. To a son who has always been distinguished for his love, respect, and obedience to his parents, nothing that can require the exercise of these qualities can be repugnant to his filial piety, especially when the discharge of my duty to your majesty, as a son, is not in contradiction to the relation I bear, as a king, to my beloved subjects. In order that both these, who de-. mand my highest regard, may not be be offended, and that your majesty may be pleased with my obedience, in the present circumstance, I am willing to resign my crown in favour of your majesty, under the follow. ing limitations:-1. That your majesty will return to Madrid, whither I shall accompany you and serve you as the most dutiful son. 2. That there a cortes should be assem. bled; or, if your majesty should object to so numerous a body, that all the tribunals and deputies of the kingdom should be convoked. 3. That in the presence of this coun cil my renunciation should be exe Letter from Charles IV. to his Son cuted in due form, and the motives stated which induced me to make it, These are, the love I bear to my subjects, and my wish to make a return for their affection towards me, by securing their tranquillity, and relieving them from the horrors of a civil war, by means of a renun. ciation, having for its object your majesty's resumption of the sceptre, and your return to govern subjects worthy of your love and affection. 4. That your majesty should not be accompanied by individuals who have justly excited the hatred of the whole nation. 5. That should your majesty, as I am informed, be nei ther disposed to reign in person, nor to return to Spain, in such case, that I should govern in your royal name as your lieutenant. There is no one who can have a claim to be preferred before me. I am sum. moned thereto by the laws, the wishes of my people, and the love of my subjects; and no one can take more zealous and bounden in terest in their prosperity. My renunciation, confined within these limits, will appear in the eyes of the Spaniards a new proof of my pre . Ferdinand. M sels of the inen who surround Y Son-The perfidious coun your person, have placed Spain in a critical situation. The emperor alone can save her. Ever since the peace of Basle, I have been firmly persuaded that the essential interests of my people were inseparably connected with the preservation of a good understanding with France. No sacrifice has been omitted by me in order to obtain this important object. Even when France was under the direction of ephemeral governments, I suppressed my pri. vate feelings and listened only to the dictates of policy, and the welfare of my subjects. When the emperor re-established order in France, great difficulties were removed, and I saw new motives to continue attentive to the former system of alliance. When England declared war against France, I happily endeavonred to continue newter, and to preserve to my people the happiness of peace. England afterwards possessed herself of four of my frigates, and made war upon me, me, even before it had been decla red; and then I was under the necessity of opposing force to force; and the calamities of war, to my subjects, were the consequence. Spain, environed by coasts, and indebted for a great portion of her prosperity to her ultra-marine possessions, suffered by the war more than any other state. The interruption to her commerce, and all the destruction incident to such a situation, affected my subjects, and some of them had the injustice to attribute these events to my ministers. At last, I had the happiness to see my kingdom tranquil within, and free from inquietude, so far as respected the integrity of my domi. nions, I being the only one among the kings of Europe who sustained himself amid the storms of these later times. Spain yet enjoyed this tranquillity, not then obstructed by those councils which have misled you from the right path. You have too easily permitted yourself to be misled, by the aversion of your first wife towards France; and you have thoughtlessly participated in the injurious resentments indulged against my ministers, against your mother, and against myself. It was now necessary to recollect my own rights as a father and a king. With this view I caused you to be arrested, and I found among your papers the proof of your crime. But at the commencement of this career, I melted at seeing my son on the scaffold of destruction, and I admitted my sensibility to be excited by the tears of your mother. I forgave you, notwithstanding my subjects were agitated by the deceitful expedients of a faction, of which you have yourself been the declared leader. From that instant I resigned all the tranquillity of my life, and was compelled to add to the distresses I felt for the calami ties of my subjects, the afflictions occasioned by the dissensions in my own family. My ministers were calumniated to the emperor of the French, who believing that the Spaniards were disposed to renounce his alliance, and seeing the discord that prevailed even in the bosom of my own family, under va. rious pretences, inundated my provinces with his troops. While these occupied the right bank of the Ebro, and appeared to have for their object the maintaining the communication with Portugal, I entertained the hope that he would not abandon the sentiments of esteem and friendship which he had always manifested towards me, But when I perceived that his troops advanced towards my capital, I felt the urgency there was for collecting my army around my person, to present myself before my august ally in a manner worthy of the king of Spain. I should have removed all his doubts, and have secured my best interests. I gave orders to my troops to leave Portugal and Ma drid, and I united them in various parts of my monarchy, not to aban. don my subjects, but honourably to support the glory of my throne. Besides, my extensive experience convinced me that the emperor of the French might very well entertain wishes conformable to his particular interest, and to the policy of the vast system of the Continent, but which might be inconsistent with the interests of my house. What was, in such circumstances, your con. duct? You introduced disorder into my |