[Extract.]

Mr. Munro to Mr. Seward.

No. 459.]

Sir: In my dispatch No. 458, of 3d instant, I had the honor of informing the department of the resignation of the cabinet in view of the general discontentment in the country, and the extraordinary fact of a ministry resigning office with a large majority in the Parliament, and when carrying into execution some of the laws voted by the Cortes.

The Duke de Louié and Marquis de Sa’du Brandeira, having both, although applied to, formally refused to form a cabinet, the Count d’Avila, who was Portuguese minister at Madrid, and has before acted as minister, undertook and succeeded informing a ministry on the 4th instant. * * * * * * * * * * *

The new cabinet presented themselves at the two houses of Parliament yesterday for the first time, and the president of council, in the name of his colleagues, declared that they would immediately propose certain modifications in the law of administrative division and the working of the law on articles of consumption, both which have been the immediate cause of general agitation.

For the present the country is quiet, and the popular political associations await, with a certain amount of reserve, the acts of the new ministry.

It is believed that, should the new cabinet not count upon a favorable vote in the Cortes to carry out their proposed measures, recourse will be had to a dissolution of the House of Deputies, and an appeal to a new general election, and such an event is more than likely to happen, as it is not to be expected that the present representatives will now be inclined to recant the laws which they voted by large majority but six or eight months back.

I have the honor to remain, very respectfully, sir, your most obedient servant,

C. A. MUNRO.

Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.