If this document was written _propriâ manu_, by Don Carlos, he must be endowed with higher intellectual faculties than most Kings or Pretenders possess. It is undeniably clever, and is more progressive than one would expect from an upholder of the doctrine of Divine right. It may be, as Tennyson sings, that the thoughts of men (even when they are Bourbons) are widened with the process of the suns. But I protest that there is such a masterly mistiness in it here and there, such a careful elusion of rocks and ruggednesses political, and such a fine wind-beating flourish of the banner of glittering generality, that I think there were more heads than one engaged in the concoction of the manifesto. I have studiously refrained from the introduction of the religious topic as far as I could in this work--it is outside my sphere; but I should be unjust to the reader did I not give him some information (not from the controversial standpoint) on a subject which will obtrude itself in any discussion on the merits of the conflict which has twice distracted Spain and may divide the country again. It is unfortunately indisputable that religion was poked into the quarrel. The struggle was described in _El Cuartel Real_ as a religious war; the theological allegiance of the partisans of Don Carlos was appealed to, and their ardent attachment to the Papacy was worked upon, as in the concluding sentence of the proclamation of Don Carlos. In those portions of the north where Carlism was all-powerful, the authorities were emphatically showing that those who served under them must be practical Roman Catholics _nolentes volentes_. An austere placard, signed by Barona, member of the Carlist war committee, was posted in the province of Alava, and ordained among other articles: Firstly, that the town councillors of every municipality should assist in a body at High Mass; secondly, that the mayors should interdict, under the most severe penalties, all games and public diversions, and the opening of all public establishments during Divine service; and thirdly, that all blasphemers, and all who worked on a holiday, who gave scandal, or who danced indecently, should be _scourged_. The first of these articles is lawful enough in a country which is almost exclusively Roman Catholic. In England nothing can be said against it, seeing that British soldiers of all denominations are compelled to attend Church parade, and the prisoners in all gaols have to register themselves as belonging to some religion. There is just this theoretical objection, however--the article implies that municipal honours are to be limited to members of one creed, which is intolerant. That which underlay the antipathy of numerous Conservatives outside Spain to the Royalist cause, was the belief entertained that the success of Don Carlos would lead to the re-assertion of clerical preponderance, would destroy liberty of conscience as understood in most European nations, and would set up a political priesthood. The manifesto of Don Carlos does not deal with those points in the full and categorical manner desirable. I was told there were two parties in the Carlist camp, the clerical and--for want of a better name, let it be called--the non-clerical The former, the Basques, and those who gave Carlism its great primary impulsion, were as zealously Roman Catholic as ever Manuel Santa Cruz was. They looked forward to the re-acquisition of the ecclesiastical domains and the re-establishment of the Catholic Church in all its ancient supremacy of wealth and power. The non-clericals knew that the Basques, even assuming them all to be Carlists, were but 660,000 in number, a small minority of the population, and that the existence of a State unduly influenced by a Church--things temporal controlled by personages bound to things spiritual--was antagonistic to the feelings of the majority of Spaniards.