Chapter XLIX: Section 2: Ministerial letter from the King to the marquis of Almenara

(Translation from the Spanish.)

“_September 21, 1810._

“The impolitic violence of the military governors has attacked not only men, and fields, and animals, but even the most sacred things in the nation, as the memorials and the actions of families, in whose preservation those only are interested to whom they belong, and from which strangers cannot reap the least fruit. In this class are the general archives of the kingdom, called the archives of Simancas, which are found in the province of Valladolid, the governor, Kellerman, has taken possession of them.” “Those archives, from the time of their institution, for centuries past, have contained the treaties of the kings since they were known in Castile; also, ancient manuscripts of the kindred of the princes, the descents and titles of families, pleadings in the tribunals, decisions of the Cortes; in short, all that is publicly interesting to the history of the nation, and privately to individuals.”