Serrano; for the care of the national sovereignty of individual rights and of the glorious conquest of the Revolution of September falls nearer to no one, absolutely no one, than to General Serrano. The day, gentlemen, when this national sovereignty is defamed, the day in which the rights of Spaniards are trampled under foot, or are diminished, the name of General Serrano, now so glorious, and the most glorious record of Alcolea, will be buried in oblivion. General Serrano, therefore, may count, and count well, on all the Spaniards; for the Cortes, the Army, the Militia-all of us, together with the Regent-have from to-day onwards but one single banner- All for the country, and all for the country!""

A Ministry was formed, of which General Prim was the head, and when they took their seats in the Cortes, he said that he and his colleagues asked the indulgence of all, and especially of the Republicans, hoping that they would not make a systematic opposition. The Government had sworn to observe, and to cause to be observed, the Constitution, and would require equal respect to it from all Spaniards. He hoped, with God's help and their own strength, together with the support of the Cortes, disorders would not again arise. The Government were very resolved on this point, and in enforcing it would be hard, inflexible, and even cruel. Respecting finance, he said the Government would study to introduce economies, but they must be reasonable economies, and would seek to obtain. money by means which would not involve too great cost.

In the month of September, considerable excitement arose in Madrid, owing to the attitude of the "Volunteers of Freedom." Since the outbreak of the Revolution last year, these self-constituted soldiers had kept possession of the large red-brick building in the Puerto del Sol called "The Principal," in which were the Telegraph Office and the Ministry of the Home Department. It was thought expedient by the Government to remove them, but the people and the Volunteers objected to this, and as they refused to quit the building, Señor Rivero, who was Alcaid of Madrid, and also commander of the Volunteers, determined to employ force. He made all his preparations, and then gave the occupants of the building ten minutes' grace, telling them that if they did not leave, he would immediately open fire upon them. We should mention that the men employed to take possession of the building were also Volunteers; and when their comrades inside were assured that it would not be given up to troops of the line, they agreed to abandon it.

At a sitting of the Council of Ministers on the 28th of September, it was resolved to propose to the Cortes the young Duke of Genoa as a candidate for the vacant throne. This Prince was then a boy at Harrow School, in England. He was born in 1854, and is the nephew of Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy. His father, the Duke of Genoa, brother of the King, died in 1855, and his mother, a daughter of John, King of Saxony, contracted, afterwards, a morganatic or left-handed marriage with the Marquis de Rapallo.

His sister, the Princess Margaret, married in 1868 her cousin Humbert, Prince Royal and heir-apparent of the Italian Crown. But here, again, the insuperable difficulty occurred that neither the young Prince nor his immediate relatives were willing to accept the proffered dignity. The King of Italy was supposed to be adverse to it, and the Duchess of Genoa strongly opposed it. Besides, there were very grave objections to the choice of a mere boy to fill the throne of a country like Spain, which is still in the throes of revolution. It was generally believed that the strong support which General Prim gave to this plan was owing to a desire to prolong his own reign of power; for, with a minor king, he might reasonably expect that the real authority would remain in his hands. He was not, however, supported by all his colleagues, and one of the most important of them, Admiral Topete, resigned office in consequence, but was afterwards persuaded to resume his portfolio.

The state of Spain in the autumn was very unsatisfactory. At the end of September insurrections broke out in Saragossa, Valencia, Reuss, and other places; and, in fact, the provinces of Catalonia, Granada, and Andalusia were all more or less in a disturbed state. The Ministry brought in a Bill to suspend personal libertyequivalent to what in England would be called a suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. This was, of course, violently opposed by the Republican party, but was carried on the 5th of October, and the minority then retired from the Chamber. The Volunteers of Valencia issued a proclamation, dated October 15th, and signed "The Directory," in which they said, "Viva la Republica Democratica Federal! Catalonia, Aragon, Andalusia, Santander, and Spain entire, have responded to the cry of liberty of the heroic Valencia! Let us make one small effort more, one new proof of valour and of constancy in the face of the nation, of Europe, and of the whole world, which contemplates us with wonder. What bravery! What intrepidity! What courage, that of the Valencians! But, above all, what generosity with their enemies! What worthy treatment of their prisoners! What respect to property, to families, and to the honour of woman! Valencia commenced a grand poem eight days ago, and is about to conclude it for the glory of the ever loyal and generous Spanish people! Valour, Valencians! Valour and constancy! Constancy and ever constancy! Troops are not coming to resist us! The Government have not enough, and what they have they cannot count on as theirs, for the Ministry, the Regent, and, in short, the reaction are conquered, dead, rotten, and destroyed.

"Soldiers and Chiefs of the Army!-To the first, your licences await you! To the second, the security of being respected in your career! Republican Spain needs valiant officers and brave generals! "No longer can certain men, of sad memory for us, continue their wicked plans. No longer can they give their word of honour and Wretches, believe you that the people sleep? No,

then break it.

they sleep not! So far from this, they have struggled day and night for liberty and for the triumph of the Republic, which is Order, Justice, and Peace. According to news received by a paper (and Unionista too), Saragossa should have the Republic since the 11th, for on the 10th the Saragossans, our brothers, were taking the cannon from the artillerymen with their knives. In Teruel, also, they are combating, and the Imparcial says the Government have to send more troops there to conquer them. Where are they? Valencians, our victory is secure! Viva la Republica Federal a thousand times."

But the troops of the line never wavered in their duty to the Government, and the insurrection was forcibly put down after some severe fighting in several places, especially at Saragossa and Valencia, where artillery was brought into play against the rebels, or sublevados, as they were called. And when the disturbances had ceased, a resolution was carried in the Cortes to the effect that "The Cortes declare that the Army and Navy, and the Volunteers of Liberty who have placed themselves by the side of the Government, have merited well of the country for the manner in which they have complied with their duties in the late insurrection." In the course of a speech made by General Prim on this occasion, he said that by all his traditions and political history he was a Monarchist. "Such I was, such I am to-day, and such I will continue to be, and I will do all I possibly can for the Cortes speedily to name a Monarch. Some have believed, or pretended to believe, that I have ideas quite apart from what I have just said, of bringing, once for all, not the monarchy, for that is already settled by the vote of the Cortes, but the Monarch for our country. But the Deputies must understand that the great necessity of to-day is the consolidation of order in the nation, and not only of material order, but of moral order also. Oh that we could say we had a candidate acceptable to all! To this we are going. This is the desire of the Government, this is what the country wants-that the dynasty founded here may have the immense majority of the Cortes Constituyentes on its side, for they represent the genuineness of the Revolution of September. The day we see we can accomplish this, that day will we carry to a head this great work— the crowning of the edifice raised by the Revolution of September. I ought not to enter into more details on this point. I will limit myself to repeating that the Government have the same desire as beats in the hearts of all the Spaniards. Very speedily after the re-establishment of material and moral order, the Government will bring forward the question of the Monarch. Without the Sovereign the work is imperfect. Let the Cortes remain tranquil. The President of the Council of Ministers will be the first to realize what he has just said, as soon as ever he can possibly do so."

The question of who was to be the future Monarch of Spain received no solution this year, and that kingdom still remains without a king.

An interesting debate took place in the Cortes at the latter end of December, in which Señor Castelar distinguished himself by a long and powerful speech on the state of Spain and the policy of the Government. He said that the Government "have abused their authority, exceeded the faculties conceded to them, trampled laws under foot not touched by the suspension of individual rights, and violated guarantees we believed secure not only by written sanction, but by the unwritten and higher sanction of right divine. To this there have been added a struggle between the political and ecclesiastical power, the disappearance of the Conservative element from the Government, to the reinforcement of the Radical element therein, all confounded with the pending clerical reforms and the election of the Monarch. . . . We who were wasted by Bourbon oppression, but who became the dead revived, the dumb who had recovered speech, the paralytic who had recovered movement-we yet carry the servitude in our habits and the might in our consciences so far that we prefer intrigue in silence, secret sessions, and discussions in the lobbies, to debate in the Cortes and to the light of liberty. . . . There you have discussed and resolved the most arduous and gravest problems, as if you were conjurors instead of legislators! There you sought to renew the last days of the Convention, and to drive away from here an important political party. There you abdicated one of your most essential faculties, and, renouncing interference in the trial of the Republican Deputies, you decreed the delivery of the chosen of the people to the council of war! There, finally, you introduced the question of questions, the advent of a King, and proposed a member of a family who have been the eternal enemies of our country, who twice, first at the foot of the deathbed of Carlos II., and then in the dying moments of Felipe V., lay in wait for the chance of taking a piece out of the Spanish Crown-that Crown which now you throw, as if it were a fragile toy, to a boy-king, destitute of moral stature to represent our liberties or to understand our Revolution!"

After denouncing the conduct of the Government in suspending personal liberty, Señor Castelar continued, "I know not how it is, but as often as I pronounce those words, the Revolution of September,' I feel a bitter pain enter into my soul! Ah, Señores, this Assembly should be converted into a temple, and this House of political business into a House of Prayer, the eloquence of politics into the eloquence of religious fervour, and one should be able to borrow the inspirations of Jeremiah to lament appropriately the fate of a revolution engendered yesterday in the purest fire of the new ideas, and agonizing to-day in the cabinets of monarchical diplomacy, to die to-morrow in the barracks! It was said fundamental rights should be inviolable, and all have been violated; it was said the magistrate, and not the police, should enter our dwellings, and our homes have been invaded; it was said that under the empire of our Constitution no citizen should be transported ore than 250 kilometres from his domicile --and multitudes have

been taken so far beyond that radius that their feet scarce touch the soil of their mother country, but the solitude of ocean has begun; it was said that the Press should be entirely free,--and the military authorities have suppressed and insulted the newspapers; it was said the rights of meeting and of association should suffer no eclipse, and they have suffered a night of two months long! Gentlemen, in France the Revolution of February is called the revolution of contempt; and I, in Spain, call the Revolution of September the revolution of disappointment. . .

"What, then, have you done with the soldiers of the people? What had they to do with the horrible assassination of the Secretary of the Civil Governor of Tarragona? Not content with disarming them, you dishonoured them in the eyes of the world by making them appear implicated in that event! What had the volunteers of Tortosa to do with those of Tarragona? What had the volunteers of Barcelona to do with the protests of a few of their chiefs? Yet you disarmed them, and exposed the liberty of Spain to a bloody struggle in the streets of that capital. What did you do to the volunteers of Zaragoza? They had obeyed their chief, the Alcaid, and maintained order; yet you disarmed them, and by that act caused another struggle. What did you do to the volunteers of Valencia? After your own military authority had entrusted to them the custody of the most important posts of the city, you ordered their disarmament, and thus provoked a struggle which ended in a bombardment, and filled that Paradise of our country with desolation, and that beautiful city, which is the Eve of that Paradise, with tears and blood.

"This setting up the Duke of Genoa proves to me you do not understand one word of monarchical theology. Your king reminds me of that fantastical being created artificially by Wagner, the disciple of Faust-who came out of an alchemistic composition of acids, phosphorus, and other substances, in the midst of grand cabalistic words, and in conjunction with I know not how many stars; and the very first thing he did on bursting the retort was to fly off in the arms of the devil, and leave his padre scientifico in abandonment and despair. Yes, your artificial king differs from natural kings as the creation of Wagner differs from the grand creations moulded in the bosom of the universe."

Speaking of the Spanish Monarchy, he said, "It descended from the Capetos of San Luis. It was founded by the great Henry IV., who raised his little throne of Navarre to the immense throne of France, and was anointed at Versailles, the Vatican of royal authority, which it had inherited from the Escurial. For the advent of this family we employed twelve years of war of succession; for its aggrandisement, to place Prince Carlos on the throne of Tuscany and Felipe on the throne of Parma and of Placencia, we armed the half of Europe against the other half-Charles XII. against Germany, Peter the Great against Poland and Denmark, the Stuarts against the Oranges, and England against all and for