I shall not dwell upon the incidents of the afternoon and night of the 28th August, of which you will have already seen accounts. For a short time things looked menacing, and many expected a fight. The council of ministers, assembled in the large building on the Puerta del Sol which is at once the Spanish “Home Office” and the main guard-house, received numerous delegates from the corporation, the provincial deputation, and from other public bodies; expounded to them their views and reasons, and received promises of support. Meanwhile the national guard—a portion of it somewhat sulky and dissatisfied—took up arms and prepared to maintain order. A considerable number of barricades had been thrown up. The presence and exhortations of General San Miguel sufficed for some of these to be removed by their makers. But in a small section of the town they were maintained; and a few hundred malcontents busied themselves in strengthening them, and declared their intention of defending them. Over their uneven summits were to be seen the barrels of muskets and fowling-pieces, and a few familiar faces which had often crossed my sight during the revolution of July. It was not certain what the barricaders wanted; in fact, there was a strange combination of elements; but the chief demand they put forward was, the dismissal of the ministry, whom they declared to have betrayed the people. As far as I could observe, Espartero was excepted from this verdict; but only by those of the insurgents who, however mistaken in the course they pursued, acted in good faith, and in support of their own political views. There were many others who were actuated by widely different motives. The reactionary and absolutist party had its representatives at the barricades; foreign influence was also at work; and it has been supposed by some that Christina had supplied funds—not, perhaps, in anticipation of the outbreak (although even that she may have foreseen), but to be in readiness for any occasion of mischief that might present itself. It was clearly for her interest, the revolution having gone so far, to see it carried farther. If the ultra-democratic party, aided by the rabble of the low districts of Madrid, could gain the ascendant, the certain result was anarchy. Then would come reaction, and Christina and her friends might hope to resume their places and recommence their spoliations. Accordingly, there can be no doubt—indeed, it were easily proved—that agents of the expelled party—the Palacos, as they are called—stimulated and assisted in the disturbances of the 28th August. Their efforts were of no avail against the steady attitude of the national guards, who remained for eighteen hours under arms in the streets, obedient to their officers, and turning a deaf ear to the perfidious insinuations of agents who sought to set them against the government, and to divide them amongst themselves. The insurgents, seeing that their cause was hopeless, and having the promise, from