Contemplating this exhibition of mediaeval intolerance, it is impossible to rate at any very high figure the ostentatious liberalism which pervades the greater part of the Constitution. We are bound to recognize in it merely the work of a party of ambitious politicians, who desired to secure control of the state-machine for themselves, and to exclude the monarchy from all share in its manipulation. No doubt any form of limited government was better than the old royal bureaucracy. But this particular scheme went much farther than the needs or the possibilities of the time, and was most unsuited for a country such as the Spain of 1812. When its meaning began to be understood in the provinces, it commanded no enthusiasm or respect. Indeed, outside the Cortes itself the only supporters that it possessed were the populace of Cadiz and a few other great maritime towns. Considered as a working scheme it had the gravest faults, especially the ill-arranged relations between the ministers (who did not form a real cabinet) and the Chamber, in which they were prohibited from sitting. In 1814 Lord Castlereagh observed, with great truth, that he could now say from certain experience, that in practice as well as in theory the Constitution of 1812 was one of the worst among the modern productions of its kind[144]. [144] The best and most recent account of all this, explaining many contradictions and some insincere suppression of fact in Toreno’s great history, is to be found in chapter ix of vol. ii of Señor Villa Urrutia’s _Relaciones entre España y Inglaterra 1808-14_.