Proclamation of the cabinet of General Serrano denouncing the movement in favor of Prince Alfonso, December 30, 1874.

Proclamation of the cabinet of General Serrano denouncing the movement in favor of Prince Alfonso, December 30, 1874.

At the very moment when the chief of the state was moving the army of the north to give decisive battle against the Carlist hosts, thus making use of the immense sacrifices which the government has exacted of the country, and which the latter has given with such noble patriotism, a small force of the army of the center, led by Generals Martinez. Campos, and Jovellar, have raised, in sight of the enemy, the seditious banner of D. Alfonso de Borbon. This act, which words fail to condemn and which seeks to initiate a fresh civil war, as though the calamities of every kind which burden the country were not already enough, has, fortunately, found no echo in the armies of the north and of Catalonia, or in any of the several military districts. The government which has appealed, in the supreme circumstances in which the nation now is in the peninsula and in America, to all parties which bear the name of liberal to stifle in a common effort the aspirations of absolutism, holds an unquestionable right and even a sacred duty to qualify harshly and to chastise, with all rigor within its sphere, a rebellion which, in fine, it could not favor, if it spread, any more than it could favor Carlism and demagogy, dishonoring us besides in the eyes of the civilized world. The ministry, faithful to its purposes and loyal to the solemn pledges it has given before the country and before Europe, is to-day more than ever resolved to fulfill its duty and will fulfill it.