But, in truth, many of the natives of Spain who are even now selected to fill the highest offices, are about as despotic and as unscrupulous as any Asiatics in their notions of government and in their exercise of power, and as bad even as the Turks themselves are in their administration of justice and equity; while the Spanish government, and the political knowledge of the people, are infinitely behind the Turkish government in everything concerning their commercial policy.
During the time of electing members for the Cortes, or parliament in Spain, of course the existing government were anxious to secure the tide of the general election running in their favour--but what means do you, my courteous reader, imagine they took to secure this object? Why, neither more nor less than to order the police to seize all persons suspected of being likely to oppose their party actively at the ensuing elections throughout the country. Thousands of people were actually seized and hurried off to jail, to be confined there till the danger was past; and many of them, on the jails becoming too full to contain them all, were hurried to a seaport town and put on board ships sailing to Manilla, or, by hundreds at a time, sent out on a voyage of four months' duration, to reconsider their political opinions, and then to find their road home as they best might.
These people were captured in all situations of time and place, and were not allowed to communicate with their friends while in prison in Spain, which must have given rise to at least as much distress and privation among as many persons as the numbers of those seized, for very many of them were people with families entirely dependent upon them for support.
About a thousand of these _deportados_ reached Manilla in 1848-9, and being entirely destitute of all resources or means of subsistence, they had to be taken care of by the Colonial Government, who allowed them some rice and water every day, and had, finally, to charter vessels to re-ship them for the Peninsula. One of them was an Irishman, who having entered the Spanish service when a lad, had reached the rank of Colonel; his father was a general officer and K.C.B. of our own army, who, I believe, had married a Spanish lady, and after his death, his family had become resident in Spain.