Reasons, however, were not wanting for this change of plan. The danger from the spirit of the people in Galicia and in Portugal had either not been foreseen, or disregarded; while the French, well knowing in how short a time men of any nation may be made efficient soldiers by good discipline, and seeing with what celerity, after so many severe defeats, the armies of La Carolina and Extremadura had been brought into the field, deemed it necessary to attack those armies before they should become formidable, and destroy them, as far as their destruction could be effected by the most merciless carnage, ... for such Buonaparte’s generals, to whose pleasure the government of Spain was in fact entrusted, were determined to make. They had been trained in the school of the Revolution, and the temper which they had acquired there fitted them for the service of such a master; and Joseph’s miserable ministers, who had penned their edicts of extermination in the hope of intimidating their countrymen, had the misery of knowing that those edicts were acted upon to the letter. Wrung with compunction their hearts were, for some of them had begun life with good hearts, generous feelings, and upright intentions; but having allowed themselves to be engaged in an evil cause, they were now so far in blood, that one deadly sin drew on another, in dreadful and necessary series. ♦EFFECT OF THE WAR UPON THE FRENCH SOLDIERY.♦ By the letters which were intercepted at this time it appeared that mothers and wives in France congratulated themselves if the objects of their affection were employed in Spain, rather than in the Austrian war, so little did they apprehend the real and dreadful character of such a service. The armies in La Mancha were not better supplied than those in Galicia; weeks sometimes elapsed in which they received neither bread for themselves nor barley for their horses, having to subsist as they could by chance and by plunder. This mode of life had given them the ferocity and the temper of banditti, and would have led to the total subversion of discipline among any soldiers less apt for discipline than the French. The infantry sometimes murmured under their privations, delivered their opinions freely, and held sometimes towards their officers a language which might be deemed insolent; but a jest produced more effect upon them than a reprimand, a good-humoured reply brought them into good humour; and the prospect of action giving them a hope of discharging their ill feelings upon the Spaniards, always animated them, and made them alert in obedience. The cavalry had better means of providing for themselves, and more opportunities of plunder; they therefore were always respectful as well as submissive to their officers, lest they should be dismounted and deprived of these advantages. The character of the service in which they were incessantly employed gave both to men and horse a sort of Tartar-like sagacity