to submit to Joseph Bonaparte, or of a design to hang back, wait on the times, and make their decision only when it should become obvious which paid better, patriotism or servility. The people had considerable justification in the fact that a very large proportion of Godoy’s protégés, especially of those at Madrid, did swear homage to the intruder in order to keep their places and pensions. They were the base of the miserable party of _Afrancesados_ which brought so much disgrace on Spain. The misguided cosmopolitan liberals who joined them were much the smaller half of the traitor-faction. Godoy and his clique, therefore, must take the main responsibility for the state of decay and corruption in which the Spanish army was found in 1808. What more could be expected when for so many years an idle, venal, dissolute, ostentatious upstart had been permitted to control the administration of military affairs, and to settle all promotions to rank and office? ‘Like master like man’ is always a true proverb, and the officers who begged or bought responsible positions from Godoy naturally followed their patron’s example in spreading jobs and peculation downwards. The undrilled and half-clothed soldiery, the unhorsed squadrons, the empty arsenals, the idle and ignorant subalterns, were all, in the end, the result of Godoy’s long domination. But we do not wish to absolve from its share of blame the purblind nation which tolerated him for so long. In another country he would have gone the way of Gaveston or Mortimer long before.