Had there been leisure, or had the Spaniards been in a temper for humane considerations, these persons ought to have been supplied with means of transport to their own country; instead of which they were consigned to a most inhuman state of confinement. The property also of all French subjects, under which term the natives of all countries in subjection to France were included, was confiscated; ... and in consequence above three hundred shops were shut up, and more than as many families reduced to ruin. Thus it is, that in such times injustice provokes retaliation, wrongs lead to wrongs, and evil produces evil in miserable series. ♦DEATH OF FLORIDA BLANCA.♦ At this juncture, when every hour brought tidings of new calamities and nearer danger, Florida Blanca, the venerable president of the Central Junta, died, at the great age of eighty-one; fatigue, and care, and anxiety having accelerated his death. When the order of the Jesuits was abolished, he was ambassador at Rome, and is believed to have been materially instrumental in bringing about that iniquitous measure; and it was under his ministry that Spain joined the confederacy against Great Britain during the American war. These are acts of which he had abundant reason to repent; but there were specious motives for both; and this must be said of Florida Blanca, that of all the ministers who have exercised despotic authority in Spain, no other ever projected or accomplished half so much for the improvement of the people and the country. Whatever tended to the general good received his efficient support, and twenty years of subsequent misrule had not been sufficient to undo the beneficial effects of his administration. It was Godoy’s intention that his exile from the court should be felt as a disgrace and a punishment; but the retirement to which it sent him suited the disposition and declining years of the injured man, and he passed his time chiefly in those religious meditations which are the natural support and solace of old age. Many rulers and statesmen have retired into convents when they have been wearied or disgusted with the vanities and vexations of the world; few have been called upon, like Florida Blanca, in extreme old age, to forsake their retirement, their tranquillity, and their habits of religious life, for the higher duty of serving their country in its hour of danger. The Central Junta manifested their sense of his worth by conferring a grandee-ship upon his heir, and all his legitimate descendants who should succeed him in ♦MARQUES DE ASTORGA PRESIDENT OF THE JUNTA.♦ the title. He was succeeded as president by the Marques de Astorga, a grandee of the highest ♦1808.♦ class, and the representative of some of the proudest names in Spanish history. The education of this nobleman had been defective, as was generally the case with Spanish nobles, and his person excited contempt in those who are presumptuous and injurious enough to judge only by appearances.