Buonaparte required from these deputies, as their next service, an address to their countrymen, exhorting them to acknowledge the new King, and warning them of the evils of resistance, and the impossibility of making any successful opposition. “Dear Spaniards,” they said, “worthy compatriots, your families, your hearths, your fortunes, your property, your lives, are as dear and as precious to us as our own! We have been like you faithful and devoted to our former dynasty, till the term arrived which had been fixed by Providence, the absolute disposer of crowns and sceptres. The irresistible call of duty, and the desire of your welfare, has brought us to the presence of the invincible Emperor of France. We confess to you that the sight of his glory and his power might have dazzled us; yet we had determined to lay our supplications before him for the general good of our country. What was our surprise, when he prevented us, by proofs of benevolence and goodness, the more to be admired because of the greatness of his power! He has no other view than for our happiness. The sovereign whom he gives us is his august brother Joseph, whose virtues are the admiration of his subjects.” They proceeded to enumerate the blessings which he would confer upon them in the improvement of their finances, agriculture, and resources of every kind, the restoration of their military and naval strength, and the preservation of their religion in its exclusive purity. “And what,” they asked, “is the recompense which the great Emperor of the French requires from you in circumstances so important to the whole nation? That you remain quiet; that you take care of your families and your own concerns; that you do not abandon yourselves blindly to the dreadful disorders which are inseparable from popular commotions; that you wait with peaceable confidence that melioration of your fortune which you may expect from a virtuous monarch. Spaniards, look to yourselves and to your innocent children! What fruit can you hope to reap from the disturbances which rashness and malevolence are exciting? Anarchy is the severest of all chastisements which the Almighty inflicts upon mankind. No one disputes your courage; but without direction, without order, without unanimity, all efforts will be vain. The most numerous forces that you can embody would disappear before disciplined soldiers like smoke before the wind. Flatter not yourselves with the thought of possible success in such a contest; it is unequal in means if not in valour; you must be overcome, and then all would be lost. There is no safety for the state but in uniting ourselves with all our hearts to the new government, and assisting it in the work of regenerating the country. We are come to a miserable situation, brought to it by the capricious, indolent, unjust government under which we have lived for the last twenty years. It remains for us all to submit, and each to co-operate in his place for