During the first success of the Spaniards, the enemies of Government either were silent or joined faintly in the expression of national feeling which was heard from all parts of the united kingdoms. No sooner had the prospect begun to darken than their real wishes were disclosed, and, true to their belief in the omnipotence of Buonaparte, they expatiated upon the folly and insanity of opposing one against whom it was impossible that any resistance could be successful. They dwelt upon the consummate wisdom of his cabinet, the unequalled ability of his generals, the inexhaustible numbers of his armies, and their irresistible force; but they neither took into this account the character of the Spanish people, nor the nature of their country, nor the strength of moral principles and of a righteous cause, being ignorant alike of all. That faith in English courage, by which the fields of Cressy, and Poictiers, and Agincourt were won, and which in our own days we had seen proved, not only upon our own element, our empire of the seas, at the mouths of the Nile and at Cape Trafalgar, but before the walls of Acre, and in Egypt, and at Maida, and in Portugal; ... that faith which should ever be the first article of an Englishman’s creed, for while it is believed, so long is it true; ... that faith these men had abjured, and substituted in its place a political heresy, baneful as it was false, that upon land nothing could withstand the French. The world was made for Buonaparte, and he had only to march over it, and take possession. When they were reminded of this Tyrant’s guilt, they thought it a sufficient reply to tell us of his greatness, and would have had us fall down and worship the Golden Image at the very time when the Spaniards were walking amid the burning fiery furnace. They began by predicting the failure of all our efforts, and the total ruin of the Spanish cause; laying down as “a proposition too plain to be disputed, that the spirit of the people, however enthusiastic and universal, was in its nature more uncertain and short-lived, more liable to be extinguished by reverses, or to go out of itself amid the delays of a protracted contest, than the steady, regular, moderate feeling which calls out disciplined troops, and marshals them under known leaders, and supplies them by systematic arrangements.” That it was in the power of England to assist the Spanish people with such troops, such leaders, and such arrangements, they had neither heart to feel nor understanding to perceive. They ridiculed the “romantic hopes of the English nation;” hopes, they said, which had been raised by “the tricks of a paltry and interested party.” Could any man of sense, they demanded, any one “above the level of a drivelling courtier, or a feeble fanatic, look at this contest, without trembling every inch of him for the result?”