Just before the tumult of Aranjuez, the marquis of Solano y Socoro, commanding the Spanish auxiliary force in the Alentejo, received orders from Godoy to withdraw from that country with his division, and to post it on the frontier of Andalusia, to cover the projected journey of Charles IV. Napoleon was aware of these orders, but would not interrupt their execution. Solano quitted Portugal without difficulty, and in the latter end of May, observing the general agitation, repaired to his government of Cadiz, where a French squadron[5], under admiral Rossily, had just before taken refuge from the English fleet. As Solano passed through Seville (that city being in a state of great ferment), he was required to put himself at the head of an insurrection in favour of Ferdinand VII. He refused, and passed on to his own government; but there also the people were ripe for a declaration against the French; and a local government having been in the mean time established at Seville, the members at once assumed the title of the “Supreme Junta of Spain and the Indies,” declared war in form against the intrusive monarch, commanded all men between the ages of sixteen and forty-five to take arms, called upon the troops of the camp of St. Roch to acknowledge their authority, and ordered Solano to attack the French squadron. That unfortunate man hesitated to commit his country in a war with a power whose strength and means he was better acquainted with than the temper of his own countrymen, and was instantly murdered: he died with a courage worthy of his amiable and unblemished character. There is too much reason to believe that his death was coolly projected, and that the junta at Seville sent an agent to Cadiz for the express purpose of exciting the populace to commit this odious assassination. This foul stain upon the cause was intensely deepened by the perpetration of similar or worse deeds in every part of the kingdom. At Seville the conde d’Aguilar was dragged from his carriage, and, without even the imputation of guilt, inhumanly butchered; and here again it is said that the mob were instigated by a leading member of the junta, count Gusman de Tilly, a man described as “capable of dishonouring a whole nation by his crimes,” while his victim was universally admitted to be virtuous and accomplished. [Sidenote: Sir Hew Dalrymple’s correspondence.]