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? f ¦ consGocace ; and perhaps the degenerate Spaniards are to shew the example of the best constitution for civil and religious liberty of any nation in Europe : they have the means in their own history . That part of Spain Avhich is freed
from the power of the French is under Juntas , each province having its separate J unta , that of Seville claiming the pre-eminence . One JuHta has wisely proposed the calling of the Cortez , and to this call it cannot be doubted that the others will attend as soon as
the immediate business of warfare permits them . The eyes of Europe will naturally be fixed on such a meeting . "We have seen the result of a similar one , called by an acknowledged king , and under acknowledged laws . We shall now have an assembly of representatives of the people , called by the people themselves , and without any
king at their head . It is fortunate for them , that their king and their chief nobles are at a distance ; and the intriguers of the old government by their visit to Bayonne will have deprived themselves of a seat in this assembly . Till we know in what manner the representatives will be chosen , we can form no
rational conjecture of the meeting of £ he new Cortez : one thing we may take for granted , that this revolution will bring forward a number of new men , and in the ferment occasioned by it , many changes will be made in their government ; and at any rate , that their late vile and infamous government , as they themselves have termed it , will Xiot be restored .
The great victory has % een obtained by the Anclalusian ^ , who have thus freed the whole , of the south of $ pain from the French ; and , J ? y securing the passes of Sierra Morena , they can prevent the introduction of any fresh forces , if the French had them to send , into the jurisdiction of the Junta of Seville .
This event must necessarily put that part of the kingdom into high spirits , and these will be increased by the retreat of the French king from Madrid . It is of little consequence , that he has taken with him ^ a vast quantity of
treasure , much of it probably the plunder of churches and abbtes . Campyses was the first destroyer of Egyptian idolatry by a similar conduct , and it never afterwards was" ab , le to raise ifs }* ea < l . This Spaniurds may j ^ this re-
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aped grow wiser also , and be grateful in a future time to their neighbours of France for having rid them of these mockeries . To what distance Joseph Buonaparte has retreated we know not . He has to encounter the Catalonians in
his march , but with the regular forces that he has , it is not improbable that he will make his retreat good . Indeed the Spaniards must be on their guard not to risk a general action , and it will be sufficient for them if their enemy quits the kingdom . ^
Portugal is not yet freed . An army of ours is certainly landed , and another has probably landed but the news has not arrived intEngland . These armies united with the Portuguese are more than sufficient to drive Junot from Lisbon , He has had recourse to the usual tricks of
manifestoes , endeavouring to excite the people against us , ' as a band of heretics $ . but perhaps the Portuguese have been taught by this time to esteem the heresy of robbery and plunder , to be as bad as that of not believing one to be thrvee or three one ; or that of believing' that God never had a mother ; and that of the fiction of the union of the divine
and human natures m one man is lit only for mad-brained priests and monks . He is however in great force at Lisbon , and if the people of that city could be supposed to assist him , he might resist for a very considerable time . The place -will of course be taken possession of in the name of the queen of Portugal , and the Portuguese will have like their
neighbours , the Spaniards , the opportunity of re-organising their shattered constitution . Portugal was worse governed than Spain , and its inhabitants are more superstitious . A free press may tend to rescue them from the dreadful abyss of ignorance into which they are fallen , but this must be the woik of time . Our band of heretics will not
assist much > ve fear m opening their minds . X » r prince has issued from his residence in the Brazils a grand manifesto against the French ; justifying his own conduct in quoting his kingdom . He has reason to congratulate himself on this step , and we ^ l afj ly learn , that the British merchants arc received with the utmost kindness in his new
dominions . By their aid , and with an active cabinet , he may form there a muth more flourishing empire than he has left in itfoe old world . The affairs of Spain and Portugal
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State of guffit Affair * . 443
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1808, page 443, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2395/page/43/
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