assassinate—­a pity which they never have implored in vain, when acknowledging their crime, they have solicited pardon from Frenchmen, who, incapable of departing from their noble character, are ever as generous as they are brave.’—­By order of Monseigneur le duc d’Abrantes, Commander in chief.’—­Compare this with the Address of Massaredo to the Biscayans, in which there is the like avowal that the Spaniards are to be treated as Rebels.  He tells them, that he is commanded by his master, Joseph Bonaparte, to assure them—­’that, in case they disapprove of the insurrection in the City of Bilboa, his majesty will consign to oblivion the mistake and error of the Insurgents, and that he will punish only the heads and beginners of the insurrection, with regard to whom the law must take its course.’

To be the victim of such bloody-mindedness is a doleful lot for a Nation; and the anguish must have been rendered still more poignant by the scoffs and insults, and by that heinous contempt of the most awful truths, with which the Perpetrator of those cruelties has proclaimed them.—­Merciless ferocity is an evil familiar to our thoughts; but these combinations of malevolence historians have not yet been called upon to record; and writers of fiction, if they have ever ventured to create passions resembling them, have confined, out of reverence for the acknowledged constitution of human nature, those passions to reprobate Spirits.  Such tyranny is, in the strictest sense, intolerable; not because it aims at the extinction of life, but of every thing which gives life its value—­of virtue, of reason, of repose in God, or in truth.  With what heart may we suppose that a genuine Spaniard would read the following impious address from the Deputation, as they were falsely called, of his apostate countrymen at Bayonne, seduced or compelled to assemble under the eye of the Tyrant, and speaking as he dictated?  ’Dear Spaniards, Beloved Countrymen!—­Your habitations, your cities, your power, and your property, are as dear to us as ourselves; and we wish to keep all of you in our eye, that we may be able to establish your security.—­We, as well as yourselves, are bound in allegiance to the old dynasty—­to her, to whom an end has been put by that God-like Providence which rules all thrones and sceptres.  We have seen the greatest states fall under the guidance of this rule, and our land alone has hitherto escaped the same fate.  An unavoidable destiny has now overtaken our country, and brought us under the protection of the invincible Emperor of France.—­We know that you will regard our present situation with the utmost consideration; and we have accordingly, in this conviction, been uniformly conciliating the friendship to which we are tied by so many obligations.  With what admiration must we see the benevolence and humanity of his imperial and royal Majesty outstep our wishes—­qualities which are even more to be admired than his great power!  He has desired