During the series of disasters which thus rapidly succeeded each other, there had been no time for the Junta to think of removing their residence to the capital, still less for them to take into consideration, on the appointed day, the plan for forming a Regency, and convoking the ♦THE CENTRAL JUNTA RETIRE FROM ARANJUEZ.♦ Cortes. They began now to feel themselves insecure at Aranjuez; ... already advanced parties of the French had approached the Tagus; wherever they went there was no armed force to oppose them; they had appeared at Villarejo on the 28th, on the 30th at Mostoles; and if at this time two or three hundred horse, with a few infantry, had pushed on to Aranjuez, they might with perfect ease have surprised the Junta, and by depriving Spain of its government, have inflicted ♦JOVELLANOS’S MEMORIAL, P. II. § 44.♦ upon it a more dangerous injury than all which it had hitherto suffered in the field. This opportunity was overlooked by Buonaparte; and the Junta, sensible of their danger when the consequences of the defeat at Tudela and the rout at Somosierra were known, deliberated whither to retire. Florida-Blanca, who was sinking under the burthen of years and the anxieties of his situation, was for removing at once to Cadiz, and a few others agreed with him. Jovellanos, who added to his other virtues that of perfect calmness and intrepidity under any danger, represented that this would be sacrificing too much for safety; and that the honour of the government, as well as the public service, required that it should establish itself as near as possible to the theatre of war. Toledo was named, and rejected, ♦1808. DECEMBER.♦ as having nothing but its situation to defend it. Cordoba and Seville were proposed, but liable to the same objection; and Badajoz, which was the place that Jovellanos advised, was chosen: the provinces every where were open to the enemy, but Badajoz was a strong place, from whence the Junta might correspond with the British army, and with that which Romana was now re-forming in the northern provinces from the dispersed troops of Blake and the Conde de Belveder. There they could take measures for raising new armies in Extremadura and Andalusia; and if the French should overrun those provinces, which there was now nothing to prevent them from doing, they might thence pass through Portugal to those northern parts where the founders of the Spanish monarchy had found an asylum from the Moors; and where its restorers, animated with the same spirit, might, in like manner, Jovellanos thought, maintain the independence of their country. They were to halt at Toledo on the way, and there take such measures as circumstances might require. ♦STATE OF MADRID.♦