Before I proceed to the remaining class of _Pretendientes_, allow me, as a relief from the contemplation of this scene of vice and corruption, to acquaint you with a man in power who, unwarped by any undue influence, has uniformly employed his patronage in the encouragement of modest and retiring merit. His name is Don Manuel Sixto Espinosa. His father was a musician, who having had the good fortune to please the King by his tasteful performances on the piano, was appointed teacher of that instrument to the Royal Family. His son, a young man of great natural abilities, which he had applied to the study of finance and political economy, (branches of knowledge little attended to in Spain,) had been gradually raised to a place of considerable influence in that department, when his well-known talents made the Prince of the Peace fix upon him as the fittest man to direct the establishment for the consolidation of the public debt. Espinosa, as Director of the Sinking Fund, has been accused of impiety by the clergy, for trespassing on their overgrown privileges; and blamed, by such as allow themselves to canvass state matters in whispers, for not opposing the misapplication of the funds he enables Government to collect. It would be needless to answer the first charge. As to the second, common candour will allow that it is unfair to confound the duties of a collector with those of a trustee of the national revenue. Without, however, entering upon the only remaining question, whether, in the unfortunate circumstances of this country, it is an honest man’s duty to refuse his services to a Government whose object is to fleece the subject in order to pamper its own vices--a doctrine doubtful in theory, and almost inapplicable in practice,--Espinosa has qualities acknowledged by all who know him, and even undenied by his enemies, which, without raising him into an heroic model of public virtue, make him a striking instance of the power of virtuous and honourable principle, in the midst of every allurement and temptation which profligacy, armed with supreme power, can employ. Inaccessible to influence, his patronage has uniformly been extended to men of undoubted merit. A manuscript Essay on Political Economy, written by a friendless young man and presented to Espinosa, was enough to obtain the author a valuable appointment. A decided enemy to the custom of receiving presents, so prevalent in Spain, as to have become a matter of course in every suit, either for justice or favour; I positively know, that when a commercial transaction, to the amount of millions, between this Government and a mercantile house in London had received his approbation, Espinosa sent back a hamper of wine, which one of the partners had hoped, from its trifling value, he would have received as a token of gratitude. His private conduct is exemplary, and his manners perfectly free from “the insolence of office,” which he might assume from the high honours to which he has been raised.