Marques de Molins to Cushing, January 3, 1875

The Marquis de Molins to Mr. Cushing.

Sir: The events which have just been realized in Spain are so clear and evident that they need no demonstration; so legal and necessary, that they require no apology; and, nevertheless, so great a desire animates the regency ministry not to interrupt the friendly relations which unite Spain with other countries, that, even in the absence of the king and of the minister especially charged with international affairs, it has the honor to address you through my channel.

Since the time when the dynasty of which Don Alfonso is the representative set foot, he being yet a child, on foreign soil, every kind of government has been tried in Spain without any success, or rather, let us say, with deplorable and ruinous result. Elective monarchy, federal republic, cantonal republic, unitarian republic, civil dictatorship, military dictatorship, and even the absolutist system, which a family of pretenders symbolizes in our country, and which, in spite of all efforts, although it is potent to occupy and ruin a portion of our territory, is powerless to establish itself throughout the whole kingdom—all has been inefficacious as well as dolorous.

Meanwhile the hearts and desires of all the world were turned with sorrow from the spectacle of present things toward the heir of our ancient kings, to Don Alphonso do Borbon y Borbon, who, by the abdication of his august mother, united in his person the monarchical right and the parliamentary tradition.

Those who, see in the religious principle the mainspring of our national history, and whose sensibilities were wounded by the excesses which in this respect were committed by the revolution, reasonably set their hopes in him, who, being the worthy heir of Catholic monarchs, abounded in the faith of Ms fathers without, however, seeking to make thereof an instrument and a standard for his political aspirations.

Those who, giving due heed to this same national history and still more to the just exigencies of the present age, believe to be impossible every form of government not founded in the parliamentary doctrines which the ancient Cortes foreshadowed, and which are realized among modern nations, also turned their eyes trustingly toward the king, the immediate descendant of two illustrious princesses, who, now more than forty years ago, bound together indissolubly the interests and the existence of their throne with the interests and the existence of parliamentary principles.

Even the popular classes and the most advanced parties, already taught by the experience of unfounded hopes and of deceitful promises, had sadly learned that the government most prodigal of those hopes and promises was the one that most trampled them under foot when the opportunity occurred, and exacted the greatest sacrifices of principles, of men and of interest; and they too turned their gaze toward the young heir to a constitutional throne, under the shadow of which great development had been successfully given to the public wealth, and credit had been maintained, without forgetting, however, either to spare Spanish blood or to defend sacred and still glorious interests. All opinions, in fine, and all classes had a unanimous although secret desire to return with Don Alfonso to constitutional order and to hereditary right; tore-establish with the throne the principal agent and the best supporter which, by a singular exception, the public liberties have ever had in our country. There are well-founded motives to believe that the depositaries of public power themselves knew and confessed that the proclamation of Don Alfonso, made in one way or another, was the only solution of the Spanish crisis.

There is foundation also for presuming that, if the foreign powers benevolently recognized the last dictatorship, it was in the understanding that it would lead to a monarchical solution.

That which may indeed be questioned, and does in truth appear strange, is, that the evil being so great, the remedy so evident, and the desire for it so unanimous, King Alfonso XII was not sooner proclaimed; and the explanation is at once simple and honorable. It neither comported with his decorum nor with his interests, nor with the good of the country, that the soil whereon he had been born should through his fault be stained with blood, or that his good right should be weakened by impositions of force or by melancholy excesses.

But the limit of public suffering having been reached, and the general conviction being ripe, as you have seen, it was enough that at a point distant from this capital the name of Don Alfonso should be pronounced to cause that, without violence of any kind, and without any promise whatever, in a few hours, all the great cities, although ungarrisoned, and all the lesser villages, even those governed by revolutionary authorities, and the armies themselves, without any action that might have tended to produce indiscipline, should proclaim as legitimate, constitutional king, Don Alfonso. Nor is this strange, because the traditional and hereditary right is an irresistible force, and the names, the personal qualities, and the dynastic antecedents of the King, Don Alfonso de Borbon, are a political programme. His very name, the most gloriously repeated in our history, exerts a prestige, and his education also, received during misfortune and in several capitals of Europe, is a guarantee of culture and of skill.

Of these circumstances was the product, and was born and constituted the present public power, with the sole aim of reuniting the monarchical and constitutionally, hereditary tradition by bringing to Spain the King Don Alfonso XII, assuming forthwith the character of regency ministry, provided for by all the constitutions in the event of the absence of the King.

No further than this, Mr. Minister, extend either the faculties or the plans of the regency ministry, and for this reason they are not more explicitly expressed; but the public events are in themselves of too much gravity, and too keen our desire to surround, as soon as possible, the legitimate and constitutional throne of Don Alfonso with the good international relations which before existed, for us to longer delay giving you information of these facts, which we doubt not and hope you will bring to the knowledge of your Government, re-inforced, perhaps, with the influential testimony of that which you may have seen and appreciated for yourself in a country in which you have already resided for some time, and where you are justly esteemed.

The government has been constituted in the following manner:

• President of the regency ministry, Don Antonio Cánovas del Castillo;
• Minister of state, Don Alejandro Castro;
• Of grace and justice, Don Francisco de Cárdenas;
• Of war, the lieutenant-general Don Joaquin Jovellar;
• Of finance, Don Pedro Salaverria;
• Of gohernacion, Don Francisco Romero Robledo;
• Of public works, Don Manuel de Orovio, Marques de Orovio;
• Of ultramar, Don Adelardo Lopez de Ayala; and
• Minister of marine and of state ad interim, the undersigned.

I avail myself of this occasion to oiler to you the assurances of my most distinguished consideration.