When the Emperor Napoleon had resolved upon dethroning the Spanish Bourbons, it was his wish to have made Lucien Buonaparte King of Spain, the ablest of his brethren, and the only one who was unprovided with a kingdom. His first elevation to the consulship, which was the passage of the Rubicon in his career, had been chiefly brought about by Lucien’s intrepidity and talents. But Lucien, who fancied himself the abler, as in some respects he was indeed the wiser man, had not obtained that ascendancy in his brother’s councils to which he thought himself in many ways entitled; as a lover of constitutional freedom, he heartily disapproved the system which Napoleon pursued, and was therefore in some degree estranged from him, though the bond of fraternal feeling had not been broken. Having in his diplomatic employments found means to amass a princely fortune, he was then residing at Rome, happy in his family and in his pursuits, collecting pictures, and busy in the composition of a long and elaborate poem. This condition of honourable and enviable privacy Buonaparte hoped he might be induced to relinquish for the throne of Spain and of the Spanish Indies. But Lucien knew something of Spain and of the Spaniards, whereas the Emperor had neither taken into consideration the nature of the country nor the character of the people; and even if the injustice and odium of the usurpation had not determined his refusal, the insecurity of such a throne might have decided him, and the certainty that he who accepted it must submit to be the mere instrument of Napoleon’s ambition. The choice therefore then fell upon his brother Joseph, who was reigning not without some popularity at Naples, over a kingdom which had long been grievously misgoverned, and which had submitted in fair war to the right of conquest. He too, by Lucien’s earnest advice, declined the odious elevation; but while he pursued his journey to Bayonne, whither he had been summoned, intending to persist in his refusal, the Emperor, who would take no denial from him, proceeded in his arrangements, well knowing that he would submit to that ascendancy which so few were capable of resisting. ♦ADDRESSES FROM THE JUNTA AND THE COUNCIL OF CASTILLE TO BUONAPARTE. MAY 13.♦