“A Council of Government had scarce been formed, when it violated the most sacred laws of the realm. A president was appointed without any authority whatever, and who, had he had any lawful title, hastened to forfeit it. In addition to his being a foreigner, which was a legal objection, he acted for the destruction of the very monarchy from which he received his appointment, and of the laws, which alone could sanction it. Under these circumstances we could not restrain our loyalty, much less could we violate the sacred engagements, which we had before contracted as Spaniards, as subjects, as Christians, as freemen, independent of all foreign authority and power. Nor could the interference of the first tribunal of the nation, the Council of Castille, check or control our exertions. The weakness of that Council became obvious from the wavering and contradictory proceedings which it adopted in the most momentous situation wherein the nation ever hath been placed, when the Council ought to have displayed that heroic firmness, with which numberless motives and its own honour called upon it to act. The order tamely to submit to, and circulate and obey the act of abdication in favour of a foreign prince, was the consummation of its weakness, perhaps of its infamy. That abdication was evidently void and illegal from want of authority in him who made it; the monarchy was not his, nor was Spain composed of animals subject to the absolute control of their owners; ... his accession to the throne was founded on his royal descent, and on the fundamental laws of the realm. It is void on account of the state of violence in which it was made; ... it is void, because the published act of abdication of King Ferdinand VII. and of his uncle and brother, was made in the same state of compulsion, as is expressly declared in the very act itself; ... it is void, because many royal personages, possessed of the right of inheritance to the crown, have not relinquished that right, but preserve it entire. “The French ruler summoned the Spanish nation: he chose such deputies as best suited his purpose, and in a despotic manner appointed them to deliberate in a foreign country on the most sacred interests of the nation, while he publicly declared that a private and respectful letter, written to him by Ferdinand VII. at the time when he was Prince of Asturias, was a criminal performance, injurious to the rights of sovereignty. It is, indeed, a heinous offence, it is rebellion, when an independent nation submits to the control of a foreign prince, and discusses in his presence, and under his decision, its most sacred rights and public welfare.