The greater part of the deputies having arrived, their installation was performed with as much ceremony as the place and circumstances would permit. The Archbishop of Laodicea performed mass, and administered an oath to his colleagues, first taking it himself, that they would preserve and extend the holy, Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion, defend their Sovereign Ferdinand, their rights, privileges, laws, and usages, and especially those relating to the succession in the reigning family, promote every thing conducive to the welfare and improvement of the kingdom, keep secret every thing which ought not to be divulged, maintain the laws, and resist the enemies of the country at all hazards. The oath having been taken, Te Deum was sung by the barefooted friars of St. Pasqual, and the assembly then adjourned to the hall chosen for their sittings. Florida-Blanca was appointed president, and his first act was to proclaim King Ferdinand from the great gallery of the principal front of the palace. The gates of the palace had not been opened till now since the departure of Charles for Bayonne; and the ceremony of thus proclaiming Ferdinand in the favourite residence of his ancestors, ... the scene of his own childhood, ... the spot where, six months ago, he had been acclaimed King, ... he who was now prisoner in a foreign land, and in the power of the perfidious tyrant who had ensnared him, ... moved the venerable statesman to tears when he pronounced his name, and excited feelings of grief and indignation in the multitude, which heightened and hallowed the enthusiasm wherewith they repeated it. ♦CONDUCT OF THE COUNCIL OF CASTILLE.♦