Revenue, Army, and Nary.—The revenue in 1853 amounted to 12,751,0001. The public debt amounted to 115,180,000/. The army in 1854 numbered 90,4S9 men and 11,395 horses, excluaivo of troops in the colonies. The navy in the same year consisted of 6 ships of from 80 to 90 guns, 12 frigates of from 30 to 40 guns, 12 corvettes of from 20 to 30 guns, 14 gun-brigs, C war-steamers, and other minor vessels. Tho fleet was manned by 9000 sailors and 15,000 marines.
Religion and Education.—The established religion is the Raman Catholic, and no other is allowed in tho Spanish domieions. The crown presents the archbishops and bishops, who are confirmed by the Pope. The wealth of the church was at one time immense. After the revolution of 1836-7, the monastic) orders wore suppressed, and the convents and the lands belonging to them were sold ; but tho convents of nuns were suffered to remain till the death of the then occupants. A law has this year (1855) been passed for the sale of the whole of the church-property, and its conversion to secular uses.
Education is very little diffused. The lower classes receive little or no instruction, except in the principal cities, where infant-schools have of late years been established. The children of the upper classes are mostly educated in France and other countries. The universities, formerly numerous and of great reputation, are now reduced to about 14, and those are attended by only a comparatively small number of students in theology, law, and There are however several academies and literary societies in Madrid, Cadiz, Sevilla, and other cites.
Cbaserirtuesi government of Spain during the middle ages was absolute, though, from the earlier development of popular rights, the power of the klug was more restricted than in any other oonutry of Europe. Ferdinand the Catholic (Fernando V. of Dsstillal aimed the first blow at Spanish liberty, by avoiding, as much as possible, the convocation of the Cortes. his successor, Charles V., completed the ruin of the Cortes, by entirely disregarding their petitions and defeating the citizens who rose In arms to support the cause of national liberty. Spain continued to be ruled despotically by the kings of the houses of Austria and Bourbon until the French invasion in 1803, when the deputies of the several provinces assembled at Cadiz, and framed a new constitution, which was sworn to and promulgated in ISIS. At the close of the war however, Ferdinand VII. refused to give it his sanction, and he re-established the old forms of government ; but being compelled soon after (1820) by a military insurrection, to swear to the constitution of 1812, it again became the law of the until It was a second time put down with the assist ance of a French army.
On the death of Ferdinand (1833), his widow, Queen Christina, wishing to conciliate the liberal party, gave the nation a new charter, and reestablished the ancient Cortes, with certain restrictions and modifications which rendered it of little or no value for the support of popular rights. At length, in 1836, the revision of the constitution was intrusted by the government to the two chambers of peers and deputies, and the new constitution of the Spanish kingdom was sworn to by the queen-regent in June, 1837. Two chambers were instituted —that of the Diputados and that of the Senadoree—the members of which are invested with equal powers, but all bills relating to taxation are to be presented in the first instance to the lower chamber. Both chambers are elected by the people, the crown having the privilege of choosing one out of every three senators presented by the electors of the provinces. The new constitution has in most points been assimilated to those of the ether representative states of Europe. The constitutional government however was gradually more and more neglected and violated, till in 1854 military insurrections in Barcelona and Madrid caused a revolution, and Espartero restored the consti tutional government.
was named %Sepia, 'Ice/meta, and 2iravfa, by the Greeks, Iberia and Hispania by the Romans. Hardly anything was known of the country till the Carthaginians and afterwards the Romans subdued and colonised it. The Phoenicians had previously numerous settlements on the southern coast, and the narrow tract between the sea-shore and the Sierra Nevada was inhabited by a mixed race of Iberians and Phoenicians called MOrpotefees. The Rhodians and Phocrearus also deem to have had settlements on the eastern coast. The Carthaginian general Hamilcar, about the year B.C. 237, began to introduce colonies on the southern coast; and the Carthaginian power continued to be extended under Ilitsdrubal and Hannibal till the Carthaginians were conquered and expelled by the Romans in the year a.c. 206. The Peninsula was then erected into a Roman province, and a struggle commenced between the Romans and the native inha bitants, which lasted till the subjugation of the northern mountaineers, the Gallaici, the Cantabri, 'and the Astures, by Augustus, about 25 years before tho Christian era.