Joseph and his ministers had no confidence either in the Emperor’s sincerity in making these offers, or in the likelihood of their finding any acceptance among the patriots. He sent, however, to Cadiz as his agent a certain Canon La Peña, a secret _Afrancesado_, but a brother of Manuel La Peña, the incapable general who had betrayed Graham at Barrosa. This officer was on his trial at the moment for his misbehaviour on that occasion, and the canon pretended to have come to assist him in his day of trouble on grounds of family affection. It would seem that he sounded certain persons but with small effect. Toreno, who was present in Cadiz at the time, and well acquainted with every intrigue that was in progress, says that the Regency never heard of the matter, and that very few members of the Cortes knew what La Peña was doing. It seems that he had conversations with certain freemasons, who were connected with lodges in Madrid that were under French influence, and apparently with one member of the ministry. ‘I do not give his name,’ says the historian, ‘because I have no documentary proof to bear out the charge, but moral proof I have[140].’ Be this as it may, the labours of La Peña do not seem to have been very fruitful, and the assertion made by certain French historians, and by Napoleon himself in the _Mémorial de Ste-Hélène_, that the Cortes would have proceeded to treat with Joseph, but for Wellington’s astonishing successes in the spring of 1812, has little or no foundation. As Toreno truly observes, any open proposal of the sort would have resulted in the tearing to pieces by the populace of the man hardy enough to make it. The intrigue had no more success than the earlier mission of Sotelo, which has been spoken of in another place[141]. But it lingered on, till the battle of Salamanca in July, and the flight of Joseph from Madrid in August, proved, to any doubters that there may have been, that the French cause was on the wane[142]. One of the most curious results of this secret negotiation was that Soult, hearing that the King’s emissary was busy at Cadiz, and not knowing that it was at Napoleon’s own suggestion that the experiment was being made, came to the conclusion that Joseph was plotting to abandon his brother, and to make a private peace with the Cortes, on condition that he should break with France and be recognized as king. He wrote, as we shall presently see, to denounce him to Napoleon as a traitor. Hence came no small friction in the following autumn. [140] Toreno, iii. p. 100. [141] See vol. ii. p. 168. [142] Toreno says that the mistress of the Duke of Infantado was implicated in the negotiation, after he had become a regent, but that he himself had no treasonable intentions, being a staunch supporter of Ferdinand.