The duties which they proposed to themselves, and the benefits which they promised the people, were farther explained in an address to the nation; for they affirmed, it became them to inform the people of their situation, with a dignity becoming the Spanish character; and to establish, in a frank and generous manner, those relations of reciprocal confidence which ought to be the basis of every just and wise administration. A tyranny of twenty years, exercised by the most incapable hands, had brought them to the very brink of perdition: the nation was alienated from its government by hatred or contempt: every thing favoured the perfidious plot which Buonaparte had formed against them, when they rose to vindicate their rights, and became at once the admiration of Europe. Their situation was unexampled in their history, unforeseen by their laws, and, as it were, opposed to their habits. Great and wonderful things they had accomplished; but all their enthusiasm and all their virtue were required for what remained to be done. Their armies were naked and unprovided with every thing. The French, collected behind the Ebro, were expecting reinforcements, and ravaging Upper Castille, Rioja, and the provinces of Biscay; Navarre and Catalonia were almost wholly in their power: they possessed the passes, and had made themselves, by what treachery was well known, masters of the strong frontier fortresses, and of Barcelona. The despot of France, deceiving, by the grossest impostures, the slaves who obeyed him, was striving to keep all other states in inactivity, that he might bring the whole enormous weight of his military force upon Spain. The continental powers were watching the issue of this first struggle, desiring to declare themselves against the common enemy, but proceeding with the timid circumspection which they had learnt from past misfortunes. A confederacy against the tyrant was evidently their only means of preservation: for what state could now hold relations of amity with him? who could now give credit to the words and promises of Buonaparte, or trust to his good faith? The fate of Spain was at once a lesson and a warning to Europe, ... her resolution would serve as an example, her victories as an incentive; and the reprobate, who had trampled under foot the principles of justice, had placed himself in that fearful situation, that he must either become master of all, or perish in the struggle which he had so wantonly provoked.