with 650,000 had placed no less than 32,000 levies in the field: and Estremadura with 420,000 had sent to the front 12,000 men by October, while keeping 10,000 more of undrilled recruits in its dépôts[372]. New Castile, as we have already had occasion to remark, had 1,200,000 inhabitants, and yet had only added to its original five battalions of militia six more of volunteers, and a single regiment of horse, at the moment when Napoleon’s armies came flooding across the Ebro. The Central Junta’s authority in Andalusia or Galicia was much limited by the survival of the ambitious local Juntas. But in Leon and the two Castiles there was, when once Cuesta had been got out of the way, no rival power in the field. No one was to blame but the central government, if the full resources of those regions were not utilized in September, October, and November. The English representatives at Madrid saw all this, and did their best to stir up the Junta. But it was not likely that mere foreigners would succeed, where Castaños and the other more energetic Spanish officers had failed. Already in October the situation appeared most unpromising: ‘We have made repeated representations,’ wrote Mr. Stuart, the British minister, ‘and I have given in paper after paper, to obtain something like promptitude and vigour: but though loaded with fair promises in the commencement, we scarcely quit the members of the Junta before their attention is absorbed in petty pursuits and in wrangling, which impedes even the simplest arrangements necessary for the interior government of the country.... In short, we are doing what we can, not what we wish: and I assure you we have infamous tools to work with[373].’ Exactly the same impression is produced by a study of the dispatches of Lord William Bentinck, our military representative at Madrid, and of the diary of Sir Charles Vaughan, who carefully attended and followed the debates of the Central Junta at Aranjuez. It was clear to any dispassionate observer that time was being wasted, and that the best was not being done with the available material. [370] Napier is not quite correct in saying (i. 293) that ‘Leon never raised a single soldier for the cause.’ It had three battalions of volunteers (2,400 men) at Rio Seco, and raised four more at Leon, Zamora, Ledesma, and Benavente in September (_Madrid Gazette_, Sept. 28). But this was a poor contribution for a kingdom of four provinces and 620,000 souls. [371] I see no proof that even this was done. There were only five of them, the _Provinciales_ of Cuenca, Toledo, Ciudad Real, Alcazar de Don Juan, and Siguenza. Toledo and Alcazar had 579 and 595 under arms at the time of Baylen, and only 500 each, apparently, in Nov. 1808. See Arteche, iii. 496.