173 CHAP. IX. Geographical, Moral, and Political.-Circumacourage the Spaniards in their Resistance against PAIN, in oranay language, is S'considered as consisting of one extensive state or kingdom; and so it is in its foreign relations, and sundry other points of the greatest importance. But under the crown of Spain are united many states of kingdoms, which have gradually coalesced into one monarchy; each kingdom (formerly so called) retaining still, together with many particular laws and usages, a peculiar and distinct character, and some of them separate local interests: circumstances which, no doubt, presented to such a mind as Buonaparte's, hopes of being able to call to his aid the destructive power of division and discord. The northern districts, containing the kingdom of Navarre, the three provinces of Biscay, and the principality of Asturias, enjoy peculiar privileges, being governed in some sort by themselves, and by far the greater part of their contribution appropriated to the expences of their own municipal establishments. These provinces consisting chiefly of prodigious tracts of mountains, produce a race of hardy, active, and industrious people, who, for want of sufficient employment in the cultiva tion of the ground, or in the iron mines with which their country abounds, have naturally devoted themselves to the sea service in va rious branches; and from those tracts of sea coast, the Spanish na vy draws the most energetic portion of its mariners. The other parts of Spain are very unequally distributed into those belonging to the crowns of Castille and Arragon. To Castille belong the kingdom of Gallicia, the provinces of Burgos, Leon, Zamora, Salamanca, Estramadura, Palencia, Valladolid, Segovia, Avila, Toro, Toledo, La Mancha, Murcia, Guadalaxara, Cuenca, Loria, and Madrid: to these are added, the four ancient Moorish kingdoms, composing the provinces of Andalusia, namely Seville, Cordova, Jaev, and Grenada. To the crown of Arragon belong the kingdoms of Arragon and Valentia, the county of Catalonia, and the kingdom of the island of Majorca. The states udder the crowns of Castille and Arragon, had their several cortes or assemblies of representation of the different orders of inhabitants; but those of the two crowns were never united into one body; and, indeed, since the days of Charles V. who resigned the governmeat in 1555, the cortes were seldom convened. The government, however, though in appearance despotic, and independent of the will of the nation, was, as is the case in even the most arbitrary European states, tempered by a complicated system of councils, in which if judgment was tardy, it was commonly just. The north; the sedate and solemn inhabitant of the broad and arid plains of the two Castilles and La Mautha; the pensive and taciturne Estramaduran; the volatile and talkative Andalusian; the laborious cultivator of the shores of the Mediterranean-these different descrip The great and important Peninsula of Spain (including Portugal, naturally a part of the same country, and at various periods subject to the same sovereign), is most advantageously situated between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. It commands the narrow strait of Gibraltar, the only communications of the population of Spain, tion between these seas, and occupies in some respects the centre of the habitable globe. This Peninsula, a name by which the Spaniards frequently designate their country, extends, where broadest, from west to east, about 640 English miles and from north to south about 540 miles. The population of the whole Peninsula has been computed at between thirteen and fourteen millions of which Portugal is supposed to contain two millions. The reniainder distributed over Spain will afford only, about 74 persons for every square mile, while the inhabitants of England are computed, to exceed 150, and those of France one hundred and seventy, on a similar extent of territory; many parts of the interior.being almost destitute of springs and rivers; and others being, exceed ingly mountainous. Indeed on, the first glance at the map of Spain, it appears to be a country shaped, and in a very great measure consisting in belts of mountains, ramifying from one another and leaving intervals of various breadths between them, yet all of them linked to the same mass or stock. The sea coasts of Catalonia, Valentia, Murcia, Grenada, and Andalusia, present scenes of amazing fertility, active industry, and crowded population. resemble each other in so few points as to appear to be of very different descent, and indeed the production of very different countries and climates. In one impor tant particular, however, the national character of the Spaniards might be traced in every corner of the kingdom. Entire and respectful subinission to the authority of the sovereign was every where, predominant. For while the Catalonian was proud to think, that the king was not king, but only count of Catalonia; and the Biscayau that he was only lord of his moun tains; they both agreed in yielding most implicit obedience to his mandates, when promulgated in the customary forms of each respec tive district. That the Castillian and the Arragoneze should, glory in their submission to the, royal authority, is not surprizing, as from the unga of the sovereigns of Castille and Arragon, sprang the family wich in the course of time The hardy, industrious, and ad- venturous became masters of the whole country. Arragon and Castille had likewise embraced the interests of the house of Bourbon in the dispute with that of Austria in the beginning of the last century. That the Catalonians, however, should have evinced in 1808 a decided attachment to the reigning family, against whom they had obstinately and long contended, and from whom they had received no favours, but many many marks of dislike, having been disarmed, and experienced various other proofs of distrust from those in power-that the Catalonians should manifest now a decided and determined attachment to the interests of the House of Bourbon, can be attributed only to an inveterafe aversion to their neighbours on the northern side of the Pyrenees, with whom for ages they had been in almost continued hostility, from whose inroads and devastations they had often severely suffered, and whose revolutionary doctrines, moral, political, and religious, as well as their actions, were calculated to inspire Spaniards with aversion and horror. Another feature, strongly characterising all the provinces of Spain, and indeed all the subjects of his catholic majesty in any quarter of the world, was, an absolute devotion, not only to the doctrine, but to the policy of the see of Rome. In this absolute devotion to the church, the Spaniards, with perhaps the exception of the Portugueze alone, exceed all the nations of Europe. The church or secular clergy in Spain possessed immense revenues, even the third part, it has been computed, of the whole land. But it would be extreemly erroneous to courlude that those reveunes were appropriated to the sole enjoyment, application, or accumulation of the several incumbents. Of late years, it became the policy of government to grant pen signs on the richest benefices for the support of various public establishments; so that even the metropolitan of Toledo, the most exalted dignitary of the kingdom, although nominally enjoying a revenue of perlaps £100,000 sterling, could not in reality, dispose of more thau a fourth part of that sun. The opening of roads, the construction of bridges, the establishment of inus and schools, the reparation of churches and chapels, and various other works of public utility, which in Britain are carried on at the expence of the state, or more frequently of individuals and associations, in Spain, are often imposed on those enjoying large ecclesiastical possessions; and where such duties have not been imposed, the incumbents, from zeal to the public good, or even from a desire to imitate the conduct of their predecessors or contemporaries, bave often charged themselves with that performance*. The attachment of the people to the church and its ministers was also warmly cherished by the exemplary deportment of the episcopal body, who from the day of their appointment, immediately repaired to their respective dioceses, in which they uniformly resided, there devoting themselves entirely to the various duties of their sta tion. The abbies and convents over Spain appropriated to the reception of females, were some years ago calculated to contain about 34,000 persons, * There are not a few monuments of the public spirit and munificence of the Roman Catholic clergy, in various parts of Britain. The old bridge over the Dee was built at the expence of the bishop of 'Aberdeen. That over the Eden, a great work, was constructed by the archbishop of St. Andrews. The university, and the library funds of this last mentioned city, would not have been encroached on by monkish professors. persons, while those for the accommodation of monks and friars, of all descriptions, were inhabited by nearly double that number; of this last description of persons, by far the greater number might certainly be considered as lost to the prosperity of the kingdom. But the Benedictine, Bernardline, and some others of monks, might, in many respects, be considered by the population around, as eminent benefactors to the country, Continually fixed, to one spot, in the midst of their possessions, they were naturally led to cultivate and improve their common heritage: and being destitute of the power of accumulation, they regularly expended their income in the quarter from whence it was drawn. On the other hand, the great nobles and proprietors of land, with a very few exceptions, abandoning the care of their vast domains to agents and intendants, drained the country and its cultivators, to supply the exigencies of an ile and often dissipated life in the capital and other great towns. This injurious dereliction of the country, is, no doubt, to be attributed in a great measure to the introduction of French manners, and a frivolous taste, and above all, to the jealousy entertained by the first Spanish kings of the House of Bourbon, of the old nobles of Spain, who in the war of the succession had very generally, and very naturally, manifested a predeliction for all the House of Austria. A great and opulent lord residing constantly on his own domain, was an object of displeasure to the court; of discountenance, and even molestation. VOL. L. The noble spirit of the Spanish grandees in general, sunk in luxury, indolence, and vice, suffered a gradual depression. They were neither invited nor ambitious to share in the employments of the state, so that with the exception of a few ancient names in the church or the army, and still fewer in the, navy, the great body of the Spanish nobility ceased to be of any political importance in the kingdom. li is extremely remarkable, that it was not among the great landed proprietors, who had in the common phraseology the greatest stakes, that the patriotism of the Spaniards shone forth with the greatest splendour: but among the commercial class, whose property was in some measure moveable, and the clergy, who at best were only life-renters, The nobility in general, did not seem to feel the amor, patriæ, the attachment to natal soil, so strongly as the clergy of all ranks, who resided in their own dioceses, parishes, and monasteries, nor even as that of the poor peasants. The deep-rooted aversion already noticed to the French, was not confined to the province of Catalonia, but pervaded all the northern and middle provinces of the kingdom. From the earliest periods, down to the beginning of the last century, the Spaniards and French were engaged almost without intermission in hostilities. Another reason for the peculiar dislike of the Spaniards to their northern neighbours, is found in the national character and deportment of the French, who not only affected or really felt some degree of contempt for the Spaniards, [N] but |