Solano was at this time on the frontiers with his army, having been recalled from Portugal. If any man in such times could rely for security upon his character, his popularity, and the whole tenor of his life, this nobleman might have felt himself secure. The arbitrary authority which he possessed at Cadiz had always been exercised for the good of the inhabitants and the improvement of the city: the military and naval officers respected him, the higher orders were his personal friends, and the populace looked with full confidence to his justice. No one more deeply felt and regretted the decline and degradation of Spain; yet had he partaken of its degradation, for he resigned himself to it, and despairing of his country, would have submitted to a nominal reform of government imposed by a foreign power, and under an intrusive dynasty. Upon the first movements at Seville, he hastened thither; and Saavedra, P. Gil, Count de Tilly, and others, who were willing to stand forward against the usurpation, and encourage a spirit from which every thing might be hoped, communicated their desires and intentions to him, as a true Spaniard, whose genuine patriotism could not be called in question. But Solano was one of those persons who believed the power of the French to be irresistible; the leading men whose opinions were most conformable to his own, and who, till this fatal time of trial, had been thought capable and desirous of introducing those reforms which the system of administration required, had submitted to Buonaparte’s pleasure; and while they, in common with all the constituted authorities in the metropolis, in the most earnest terms exhorted their countrymen to submission, the French, he knew, were ready to march troops wherever their presence might be required, and to repress an insurrection as promptly and severely in Seville as they had done at Madrid. He was not aware that the spirit which had manifested itself at Madrid, and was ready to break out in Seville, was felt at that time throughout every city and every village in the Peninsula. A proper fear also lest the people should possess themselves of power which they would certainly abuse, influenced him also; and determining hastily to support what appeared to him the cause of order and the laws, he received the communications which were made to him with coldness and distrust, required time to deliberate before he could assent to their views, and hastened with all speed to resume his command at Cadiz, and preserve that important city for the intrusive government. ♦HE REFUSES THE ASSISTANCE OF THE BRITISH SQUADRON.♦