Page:Modern poets and poetry of Spain.djvu/218

172 having again evacuated Madrid, the Cortes were convoked to assemble there, when Martinez de la Rosa was elected Deputy for his native city. He had throughout the struggle joined the most active members of the liberal party, Arguelles, Quintana and others, who, all honourable and patriotic characters, had acted in perfect sincerity in forming the Constitution of 1812, as it was called, which they hoped would secure the future freedom of the country.

In this, however, they found themselves mistaken; the representative system had scarcely time to develope its advantages, when it was overthrown entirely on the return of Ferdinand to Spain, who, by his decree of the 4th of May, 1814, annulled the Constitution, and dissolved the Cortes. Had he been contented with this, as in re-assumption of the regal authority exercised by his predecessors, the liberal party might have had only to lament the abrupt termination of their hopes. But, unfortunately, proceedings still more arbitrary were commenced against their leaders individually, of a nature unknown, even in Spain, till then, and in comparison with which the rule of the Prince of the Peace was a pattern of toleration. As those leaders had not been guilty of any act which could make them amenable to any legal tribunal, Ferdinand VII. took on himself to pass the sentences he chose to inflict on them for the opinions they had held, and the conduct they had pursued, in the momentous struggle for national independence, resulting in his restoration. The partisans of the Absolute King wished to extort from Martinez de la Rosa a retractation of the opinions he had maintained; but they miscalculated his character. He refused to listen to their overtures, and he was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment in the penal settlement of Gomera in Africa.

In 1820 a reaction took place, and the constitutional party again obtained possession of the government. Martinez de