But the baseness of party went beyond this. Not only were ministers blamed for what they had done in assisting Spain, and counselled to withdraw their assistance as speedily as possible, but the Spaniards themselves were calumniated and insulted. They had neither courage, nor honour, nor patriotism; no love for their country, nor any thing in their country worth defending. What mattered it to them whether their King were called Joseph or Ferdinand, a Buonaparte or a Bourbon? God would dispense sunshine and showers upon the peninsula, whoever was his vicegerent there; the corn and the olive would ripen, and the vine and the fig-tree yield their fruits. What folly then to contend for a feeble and oppressive government, of which the loss was gain! The Emperor of the French had rid them of this wretched government; he had abolished the Inquisition, reduced the monastic orders, and would suppress them and all other remaining grievances as soon as the obstinacy of the people would allow him leisure. And indeed the people were sensible of these benefits: ... a few chiefs, the overgrown aristocracy of the land, had for a while misled them; but those chiefs had only a little hour to strut and fret; and for the people, whose detestation of the French government had been carried to a pitch wholly unauthorized by its proceedings toward them, their eyes were opened now; they saw that Buonaparte was doing good; while, on the other hand, they regarded the English as heretics; and nothing could overcome the antipathy which this feeling occasioned.