P.
On the ill conduct of one of their generals, they were much discomfited, and in great distress for money. Donna Maria, a woman of noble birth, great abilities, and unbounded ambition, superior to the prejudices of the age, proposed to seize all the rich and magnificent ornaments in the cathedral of Toledo; but lest that action should offend the people, by an appearance of impiety, she and her retinue went to the church in a solemn mourning procession, and implored pardon of the saints, whose shrines she was about to violate. By this artifice, she procured a considerable sum of money for the Junta, without paining the minds of the pious. Their general, the young and generous Padilla, was however taken prisoner, and condemned to death, which he bore with christian magnanimity. He wrote an affectionate letter to his wife, in which he tells her the bitterest pang of death is the grief she will suffer on the occasion: yet he exhorts her to consider it as his deliverance. This blow was fatal to the confederacy.—The city of Toledo alone, animated by Donna Maria, who sought to revenge her husband's death, yet held out. Respect, admiration, and sympathy, secured to her the ascendancy over the people which he had possessed; and the prudence and vigour with which she
