Papers Relating to Lord Eliot’s Mission to Spain in the Spring of 1835

By the spring of 1835 the Basque Country was the seat of a brutal and cruel conflict known as the First Carlist War or the Seven Years War (1833-1839). The Queen Regent announced, through a proclamation, that those who took up arms for Carlos would be declared guilty of rebellion and thus treated as rebels. This situation would have continued for months if no third party had intervened as a mediator between the belligerents. In 1835 the British Cabinet, headed by Sir Robert Peel, considered "the necessity of making some arrangement which should put an end to the mode of carrying on the war, which had excited the most painful sensations throughout Europe." The Duke of Wellington became Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in Peel's first cabinet (1834-1835) and in the spring of 1835 he entrusted Eliot with the mission to set an arrangement for the exchange of prisoners and for the preservation of the lives of captive soldiers. The present book is a collection of papers related to Eliot's mission. The instructions that he received from the Duke of Wellington help elucidate the nature and purpose of his undertaking and Eliot's dispatches and letters give an account of what he accomplished. The journal of Colonel John Gurwood, who accompanied Eliot on his journey, and his letters addressed to Lord Fitzroy Somerset, add important information to this interesting story.