legion under Sir de Lacy Evans. This success turned the tide of war against Don Carlos, who vainly attempted a raid towards Madrid. Espartero was soon at his heels, and obliged him to hurry northwards, after several defeats. In 1839 Espartero carefully opened up negotiations with Maroto and the principal Carlist chiefs of the Basque provinces. These ended in their accepting his terms under the famous convention of Vergara, which secured the recognition of their ranks and titles for nearly 1000 Carlist officers. Twenty thousand Carlist volunteers laid down their arms at Vergara; only the irreconcilables led by Cabrera held out for a while in the central provinces of Spain. Espartero soon, however, in 1840, stamped out the last embers of the rising, which had lasted seven years. He was styled "El pacificador de Espana," was made a grandee of the first class, and received two dukedoms. During the last three years of the war Espartero, who had been elected a deputy, exercised from his distant headquarters such influence over Madrid politics that he twice hastened the fall of the cabinet, and obtained office for his own friends. At the close of the war the queen regent and her ministers attempted to elbow out Espartero and his followers, but a _pronunciamiento_ ensued in Madrid and other large towns which culminated in the marshal's accepting the post of prime minister. He soon became virtually a dictator, as Queen Christina took offence at his popularity and resigned, leaving the kingdom very soon afterwards. Directly the Cortes met they elected Espartero regent by 179 votes to 103 in favour of Arguelles, who was appointed guardian of the young queen. For two years Espartero ruled Spain in accordance with his Radical and conciliatory dispositions, giving special attention to the reorganization of the administration, taxation and finances, declaring all the estates of the church, congregations and religious orders to be national property, and suppressing the _diezma_, or tenths. He suppressed the Republican risings with as much severity as he did the military _pronunciamientos_ of Generals Concha and Diego de Leon. The latter was shot in Madrid. Espartero crushed with much energy a revolutionary rising in Barcelona, but on his return to Madrid was so coldly welcomed that he perceived that his prestige was on the wane. The advanced Progressists coalesced with the partisans of the ex-regent Christina to promote _pronunciamientos_ in Barcelona and many cities. The rebels declared Queen Isabel of age, and, led by General Narvaez, marched upon Madrid. Espartero, deeming resistance useless, embarked at Cadiz on the 30th of July 1843 for England, and lived quietly apart from politics until 1848, when a royal decree restored to him all his honours and his seat in the senate. He retired to his house in Logrono, which he left six years later, in 1854, when called upon by the queen to take the