The Junta replied, not to this traitor himself, but to Cuesta. “They had not forgotten,” they said, “the character with which they were invested, and the oath which they had taken, in unison with the wishes of the nation. If Sotelo were the bearer of powers sufficiently extensive to treat for the restitution of their King, and for the immediate evacuation of the Spanish territory by the French troops, let him publish them in the usual form, and they would be announced to the allies of Spain. The Junta had no authority to listen to any treaty, or terminate any transaction, which was not founded on the basis of eternal justice. Any other principle of negotiation, without benefiting the empire, would only tend to degrade the Junta, which had entered into the most awful engagements to bury itself beneath the ruins of the monarchy, rather than sanction any proposition which should diminish the honour and independence of the Spanish people.” This answer they desired Cuesta to transmit to the Intruder’s agent, and they published the proposal and the reply. Perceiving, however, of what importance the safety of the government was to the national cause, and the danger therefore of associating it in the minds of the people with any particular place of residence, in times when no place was secure, they published a decree upon this subject. It began by an avowal, that in their anxiety to provide immediate remedy for the calamities which had befallen the armies of La Mancha and ♦APRIL 18.♦ Extremadura, they had imprudently hazarded their own safety by remaining at Seville. But having provided for the reinforcement and equipment of the troops, and furnished all the supplies which were requisite for the defence of Andalusia, they had in cool consideration reflected, that their security was inseparable from that of the state; that the preserval of the deposit of the sovereignty entrusted into their hands was the first of their obligations; and that they could not again expose it to the danger of being destroyed, without doing wrong to the nation which had confided it to them. The Speed with which the tyrant of Europe advanced against Madrid in November, and sent troops towards Aranjuez, made it apparent that a principal object of his policy was to strike a blow at the government, and, seizing the body which administered it, cut all the bonds of political association, and thus throw the nation into confusion. These were still his objects: trusting more to his cunning than his force, he still pursued the government, hoping to get its members in his power, and then renew the infamous scenes of Bayonne, by compelling them to authorize his usurpation, or sacrificing them to his rage if they resisted his seductions and his menaces. Thus to degrade the government in the eyes of the nation itself would, he thought, be the best means of degrading the nation also, and reducing it to that servitude, which, in the