in his camp. To that Emperor he was indebted for his own life, and for the lives of the Queen, and of the minister whom he had appointed and adopted into his family. Every thing now depended upon that great monarch. “My heart,” said Charles, “has been fully unfolded to him. He knows the injuries I have received, and the violence which has been done me; ... he has declared that you shall never be acknowledged as King; and that the enemy of his father can never acquire the confidence of foreign states. He has, in addition to this, shown me letters written with your own hand, which clearly prove your hatred of France. “Things being thus situated,” he continued, “my rights are clear, and my duties are much more so. It is incumbent upon me to prevent the shedding the blood of my subjects; to do nothing at the conclusion of my career, which should carry fire and sword into every part of Spain, and reduce it to the most horrible misery. If, faithful to your primary obligations, and to the feelings of nature, you had rejected perfidious counsels, and placed yourself constantly at my side, for the defence of your father; if you had waited the regular course of nature, which would have elevated you in a few years to the rank of royalty, I should have been able to conciliate the policy and interests of Spain, with those of all. For six months, no doubt, matters have been in a critical situation; but notwithstanding such difficulties, I should have obtained the support of my subjects. I should have availed myself of the weak means which yet remained to me, of the moral aid which I should have acquired, meeting always my ally with suitable dignity, to whom I never gave cause of complaint; and an arrangement would have been made which would have accommodated the interests of my subjects with those of my family. But in tearing from my head the crown, you have not preserved it for yourself; you have taken from it all that is august and sacred in the eyes of mankind. Your behaviour with respect to me ... your intercepted letters, have put a brazen barrier between yourself and the throne of Spain; and it is neither your own interest, nor that of the country, that you should reign in it. Take heed how you kindle a fire which will unavoidably cause your complete ruin, and the degradation of Spain! I am King by the right derived from my forefathers; my abdication was the result of force; I have nothing to receive from you; nor can I consent to the convocation of the Cortes ... an additional absurdity, suggested by the inexperienced persons who attend you. I have reigned for the happiness of my subjects, and I do not wish to bequeath them civil war, mutiny, popular Juntas, and revolution. Every thing ought to be done for the people, and nothing by the people: to forget this maxim, were to become an accomplice in all the crimes that must follow its neglect. I have sacrificed the whole of my life to my people; and in the advanced age to which I have arrived,