The first news which reached England of the Spanish insurrection was brought by the Asturian deputies, and it was soon followed by dispatches from Coruña, Cadiz, and Gibraltar. Never was any intelligence received with more general joy. Notwithstanding the frequent hostilities in which Spain had been involved with this country, first, during the age of its power; then through its connexion with the Bourbons; and afterwards from the ascendance which the Directory and Buonaparte had obtained over an infamous minister, an imbecile King, and a wretched government, the English had always regarded the Spaniards as the most honourable people with whom they were engaged either in commerce or in war; nor was there ever a war in which some new instance of honour and generosity on their part did not make us regret that they were our enemies. Hitherto the present contest had been carried on with little hope. ♦1808. JUNE.♦ No other sympathy than that of mere political interest had as yet been felt in our alliances with Austria or Russia; but, from the moment when the Spaniards called upon us for aid, we felt that we had obtained allies worthy of our own good cause, and the struggle assumed a higher and holier character. It became, avowedly and plainly to every man’s understanding, a war for all good principles; and we looked on to the end with faith as well as hope. Never since the glorious morning of the French revolution, before one bloody cloud had risen to overcast the deceitful promise of its beauty, had the heart of England been affected with so generous and universal a joy. They who had been panic-stricken by the atrocities of the French demagogues, rejoiced to perceive the uniform and dignified order which the Spaniards observed in their proceedings, and their adherence to existing establishments; ... firmer minds, in whom the love of liberty had not been weakened by the horrors which a licentious and unprincipled people committed under that sacred name, were delighted that the Spaniards recurred with one accord to those legitimate forms of freedom, which a paralyzing despotism had so long suspended; the people universally longed to assist a nation who had risen in defence of their native land; and professional politicians, not having time to consider, nor being able to foresee in what manner these great events would affect their own party purposes, partook of the popular feeling. ♦PROCEEDINGS IN PARLIAMENT. JUNE 15.♦