This appointment was not perhaps what Tilly would have chosen; for it was believed that he had no inclination to show himself at Madrid; but he trusted to his talents for intrigue, obtained a monthly allowance of 500 dollars, and looked ♦THE OTHER MEMBERS UNEXCEPTIONABLE.♦ for those opportunities which revolutionary times offer to insane and desperate ambition. It is to the honour of the Spaniards, that this was the only exceptionable person elected for the central Junta: perhaps in no country could an equal number of men, under similar circumstances, have been chosen more worthy of the trust reposed in them. To be elected to a situation of so great responsibility, in a time of unexampled difficulties, was no object of desire; in no instance was the appointment solicited, and in most it was reluctantly accepted. The persons deputed were thirty-five[32] in number; of whom Florida-Blanca and Jovellanos were the most remarkable, for the offices which they had formerly filled, and the rank which they held in public opinion. Both were scholars as well as statesmen, both men of business, both high-minded and honourable Spaniards. Florida-Blanca had more of the spirit of his country, Jovellanos was more influenced by that of the age. The former had been an ambitious politician; the latter was always a philosopher, in the true and virtuous meaning of that polluted word. As the despotic minister of an absolute king, Florida-Blanca had used his power vigorously to uphold the dignity of the kingdom, and improve its internal condition; most of his measures were wise, and all were well-intended; but if he had ever conceived a wish to correct the abuses of the state, it had never appeared in his actions: Jovellanos had unwillingly accepted office, because it placed him in a sphere uncongenial to his modest habits and better mind, and withdrew him from the task to which he had devoted himself, of improving his native province. Jovellanos’s desire was to meliorate the government and the nation by recurring to the free principles of the old constitution; Florida-Blanca thought that if governments were administered as they ought to be, the strongest must be the best. Both, without hesitation[33], obeyed the call of their country, though Florida-Blanca, who was in extreme old age, would more willingly have passed the short remainder of his days in preparing and waiting for death; and Jovellanos, broken down, more by the infirmities which an unjust and cruel imprisonment had aggravated or induced, than by the weight of sixty-five years, desired for himself nothing in this world but tranquillity. The former brought with him little more than a venerable name; but Jovellanos was in full possession of his intellectual powers. ♦JOVELLANOS REFUSES ALL OFFERS OF THE INTRUSIVE GOVERNMENT.♦