who was to remedy all the evils of long misrule, to relieve the people from all grievances, restore Spain to its ancient prosperity, and confer upon it a happiness which it had never before enjoyed! In an unhappy hour had Joseph’s ministers entered his service, persuading, or seeking to persuade, themselves that they might benefit their country by giving their countenance to a perfidious and odious usurpation. The ablest men who have ever endeavoured to do good by evil means, have felt their best intentions frustrated in the attempt. These ministers, worthy, as under other circumstances they might have been of their station, found themselves now the mere instrument of that very military power which they had flattered themselves that they should be allowed to direct. Still, however, seeking some excuse to their own hearts, and to posterity, they took advantage of the time for attempting alterations, which would have been most salutary if the nation had been prepared for them, ... but for which it was so little prepared, that the premature attempt only attached the Spaniards the more to the very evils from which it was intended to deliver them. One sweeping decree abolished all the regular orders in Spain, whether monastic, mendicant, or clerical; the individuals belonging to them were ordered to quit their convents within fifteen days, resume their secular habits, and repair to their native places, where pensions were promised them. It was certain that the intrusive government had neither the means nor the intention of paying these pensions; but the whole property of the suppressed orders was seized for the use of the state. The reason assigned for this measure in the preamble to the decree was, that these communities had taken a hostile part against the government, which, while it thus abolished them, wished to recompense those individuals who had conducted themselves well. Better reasons, Urquijo and his colleagues well knew, would only have exasperated a people whose souls were thoroughly enslaved to the superstitions which debased them; but the cause which was thus assigned exasperated them as much, and this feeling was kept up and disseminated every where by the ejected members, who, wherever they went, excited the compassion of their countrymen and inflamed their hatred of the intrusive government. Some prudence as well as humanity was shown, by exempting the nuns from this decree; they were subjected to the ordinary, and forbidden to receive pupils. The military orders were abolished also, except that of the Golden Fleece, and the one which the intrusive government had itself instituted. This was needlessly offending the national pride, which was in like manner wounded by the removal of the tax raised under the name of the _Voto de Santiago_; the relief, even had circumstances allowed it to be felt, would not have compensated for the outrage upon Spanish feeling. In taking away the privilege of sanctuary, and suppressing all