Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/277

Rh they kept him three years. These high-handed proceedings proved the ruin of the gachupines. The Creoles were determined to uphold Ferdinand, raising seven millions of dollars in a few months to aid the struggling royalists of Spain.

In 1812 the Spanish Cortes enacted a constitution which embodied many such reforms as the freedom of the press, the suppression of the Inquisition, the closing of monasteries and convents, the expulsion of the Jesuits and the cutting off of all privileges belonging exclusively to the army and the nobility. To crown all, the people were invested with power. But long before the ignorant peasantry of Spain could realize their high privileges a counter-revolution had seated Ferdinand on the throne, as firm a believer as ever in

He annulled everything the Cortes had done, persecuted those who had in any way aided the people in their cause, revived the Inquisition, and thus plunged the nation into a civil war which lasted six years. In 1820 the people regained their power and compelled the king to swear to support the constitution. There were great rejoicings all over Spain, to which Ferdinand listened in silence. He was a Bourbon of whom it was well said, "They never learn anything, and never forget anything." The royalists, though in a decided minority, began to plot again, and ere long the perjured king, with the aid of the Church, had regained his despotic power, and a cloud from the Dark Ages seemed for a time to over-shadow Spain. Ferdinand was restored once more to his throne and compelled again to swear to support the constitution. Backed by the Holy Alliance, he entered