But it was too late to recede; the infamy was indelible, it remained only to secure the prize, and this he believed there would be no difficulty in effecting. His first care was to conceal from the French all knowledge of the mortifying failure his arms had experienced, till he should have secured the subserviency of the other continental powers, and collected fresh armies to pour into the peninsula. His system of government was founded upon falsehood as well as force. While all Spain was in arms, the French papers represented it as joyfully welcoming its new sovereign. “The disturbances,” they said, “which broke out in a few provinces were completely quelled: they had been occasioned only by the common people, who wished to pillage the rich: the disaffected had got together some bands of smugglers, opened the prisons, and put arms into the hands of the felons: these wretches had committed great excesses upon their peaceful countrymen, but every thing was now quiet. The captains-general, the magistrates, and the polished part of the nation, displayed the best sentiments, and the greatest repose and best state of mind prevailed. At Cadiz the public tranquillity did not experience a moment’s interruption; the inhabitants of that interesting city had resisted all the insidious offers of the English. Throughout the peninsula, indeed, only a few insignificant individuals had been led astray by the spies of England. But the Council of Castille, and the most respectable persons, had exerted their influence with all ranks, to crush the seeds of sedition before they should shoot forth; and their efforts had been completely successful.” Over great part of France and of the continent these accounts would be believed; wherever, indeed, a vigilant tyranny could keep out all information except its own. But at Bayonne it was not possible that the truth could be concealed; and by the falsehood which was officially circulated in that part of the country, it seems that the general opinion there was strongly against a war, provoked solely for the aggrandizement ♦JUNE 8.♦ of the Buonaparte family. M. Champagny addressed a note to the prefect of the Gironde, informing him, that the Emperor had just received advices from his brother the King of Holland, saying the King of England was dead, and that the first act of George IV. had been to make a total change of ministers. This was not given as a report, but as an authenticated fact, officially communicated: “and may this event,” it was added, “be the presage of a general peace, ... the object of the Emperor’s wishes, to the want of which Europe is so sensible, and which would be so advantageous to the commerce of Bourdeaux in particular!” The same falsehood was repeated in that number of the Madrid[37] Gazette which contained Buonaparte’s proclamation of Joseph as King of Spain and the Indies. Buonaparte endeavoured also to keep his allies as well as his subjects ignorant of the real state of things.