Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 1.djvu/151

Rh armies of Napoleon, only served to rouse the spirit of the nation, which substituted, in every province, a popular government for that, by which it thought that its youthful monarch had been betrayed. A Central Junta was entrusted with the management of affairs, which was followed by a Regency, and this, again, by a Second, ; created by the Cortes, which were assembled in the Isla de Leon, in September 1810, as the only legitimate source of power during the captivity of the sovereign. By these unexpected events, the form and spirit of the Spanish government were entirely changed: principles, which had been inculcated for ages, were at once exploded; a Constitution, democratic in the extreme, in its theory, was substituted for the Royal Prerogative; the sovereignty of the people was set against the divine rights of Kings; and even religion was deprived of its influence, as a political engine, by the abolition of the Holy Tribunal. That such things could take place in the Peninsula, without producing corresponding effects in its dependencies, was not to be expected; and these effects it is my present object to trace.

It is generally admitted, that the insurrection of Aranjuez, (1808,) which led to the dismissal of the