The Spanish revolution of 1854 has, I need hardly say, not been accomplished without some expense. Revolutions are costly amusements: from the State they take money, and from the people days of labour. Although this one has, up to the present time, especially as regards Madrid, and in all Spain except Catalonia, been particularly orderly for a movement of the kind, and remarkably free from excess and riot, there still is a bill to pay. The provincial juntas, during their few days of local but almost absolute power, issued various decrees that would have played havoc with the finances had they not been promptly repealed by the regular government established under Espartero, to which, however, even up to the present moment, some of these juntas refuse to give up. In many provinces important taxes were taken off, without any measures being adopted to replace the heavy deficit their abolition would occasion in the public revenue. And some of these taxes were of daily collection, as, for instance, duties on goods entering towns. Then there were barricades to be paid, damages to be repaired, streets to be repaired, and many other charges. And the outgoing ministers, when they saw their political end approaching, took scandalous liberties with the public money. Of the portion of the forced loan that had been collected, but a few thousand reals were to be discovered, although at least half a million sterling had been got in, and paid at Madrid into the coffers of the State. In short, as regards finance, the new government has entered office under most unfavourable circumstances. But the purses of Progresista capitalists, rigidly closed to the Sartorius ministry, are freely opened to that of Espartero. And no time has been lost in effecting savings in various departments. Numbers of useless clerks and government officials have been dismissed; and although, according to the very bad rule here observed, all these men are entitled to more or less retiring pension, to be more or less punctually paid, still the economy is considerable. But the great saving will result from the character of the men who have come into office, and who are all respected for their integrity. O’Donnell, it is true, made his fortune in no very reputable way—by the slave-trade, when he was governor of Cuba—but that has been such a common and received practice that it would be erroneous to infer, from his having followed it, that he would necessarily take bribes in Madrid, or defraud the country he assists to govern. A Spanish general, sent out to command at the Havanna, sees nothing improper—as there is certainly nothing extraordinary—in receiving his ounce or two of gold for every slave landed. Don José Concha, now on the eve of embarking for Cuba to resume the post he formerly held there, is almost the only instance, for many years, of resistance to the temptation held out to West Indian captain-generals by the importers of the raw article from Africa.