While I was at Seville, considerable discontent was produced by a most unjust act of the government. All arrears of taxes due upon houses for the past thirty years, were claimed from the actual proprietor: the consequence of which was, that upon the mere shewing of the government officer, proprietors were forced to pay arrears for a period in which the house was in other hands, and even in many cases, before the actual proprietors were born! But more flagrant, at least more violent, acts of injustice and oppression are sometimes committed. After the return of the king, between two and three hundred persons who had served in the national volunteers during the constitution, were seized in Barcellona, and shipped to Ceuta,--the Spanish Botany Bay,--where they now remain. Their crime was said to be, unadvised talk in the coffee houses; but this was never ascertained, because no form of trial was gone through; and three years have not elapsed, since a man was hanged at Barcellona, without any one knowing what crime he had committed. The truest proofs of a good government, are just laws; and the best evidence of a well organized government, is to be found in their strict execution. Judging the Spanish government by these tests, it will appear the worst and weakest government that ever held together. Justice of no kind, has any existence; there is the most lamentable insecurity of person and property: redress is never certain, because both judgment, and execution of the laws, are left to men so inadequately paid, that they must depend for their subsistence upon bribery. Nothing is so difficult as to bring a man to trial who has any thing in his purse, except to bring him to execution; this, unless in Madrid, and in Catalunia, where the Conde de España is captain-general, is impossible; for money will always buy indemnity. Every thing in Spain connected with the following out of the laws, is in the hands of the escrivanos; these are the friends of all bad men: for whatever be the action a man may commit, or meditate, he has only to confide in the escrivano, and pay for his protection.