1812. It was an event of the greatest importance to the people, being a transition from absolute despotism to a Constitutional Monarchy. Hitherto they had been subject to the mandates of a capricious king, without a knowledge of their rights or power to assert them; but the new law extended its protecting hand and gave them a feeling of comparative security.
The Plaza de Riego a de la Merced (Mercy), as it is more commonly called, bears the name of Gen. Riego, a Liberalist who delivered an address in this square. He was afterwards executed in Madrid on charge of conspiring against the government. In the centre of the Plaza stands a monument on which are inscribed the names of forty-nine innocent men, executed here on the 11th of December, 1831. The principal one, a Spaniard by the name of Torrijos, who was known as a Liberalist, during a stay at Gibraltar, received a letter from the Governor of Malaga, informing him that great excitement prevailed among the citizens who were anxious for a change of government, and desired his immediate presence. Accordingly he embarked from Gibraltar in a small vessel containing forty-nine persons, who immediately upon their landing upon the coast west of Malaga, were seized and put to death without any opportunity of defending themselves. Upon two sides of the monument are the following couplets:
A blacker crime than this can scarcely be found recorded in the annals of Spanish history. Had it transpired in the less enlightened period of the middle ages, it would be regarded as the result of ignorance and barbarism, but the deliberate performance of a treacherous act in the very height of civilization is a stain upon the record of the nation which can never be effaced.
Lone mount, uplifting high thy storm-scarred crest,
Oft veiled in clouds, amidst the circling hills,
Thy craggy sides and slopes in verdure dressed,
The source of limpid springs and fruitful rills;
While many dwellers in the vale below,
Who loved thee once have passed from earth away,
And we who love thee, too, like them shall go,—
From age to age, dost thou, unmoved, stay,
And like the prophet who of old did cry,
"Repent, repent, the Kingdom is at hand!"
So wouldst thou lift our worldly minds on high,
To things eternal, to a Better Land.
Thy maker's glory thou dost well foretell;
We greet thee, Hail! but soon must say Farewell!
