Geronimo de Buenavista, and there await the farther determination of the government. Montijo had accused him as an instrument of Tilly, engaged with him in treasonable designs, and also in a scheme for rendering Andalusia independent, and making it the head of a confederacy of ♦CASTAÑOS, REPRESENTACION, 15–18.♦ provinces. This was the mere fabrication of a man who scrupled at no means for promoting his own insane ambition, and as such the Junta received it; but they deemed it expedient to treat the general as if he were under their displeasure, lest a suspicion, which in its consequences might be most fatal to the country, should be raised against themselves. ♦HIS MEMORIAL TO THE JUNTA.♦ Castaños was not aware of the accusation which had been thus preferred; least indeed of all men could he have supposed that a charge of federalism would have been brought against him, who had with so much decision and effect opposed the dangerous disposition of the provincial authorities to consult their own security alone. But he complained of the injurious restraint in which he was placed, and in an able and temperate memorial appealed to his past services, showed that the defeat at Tudela was not imputable to any error or indiscretion on his part (his opinion having been over-ruled by their representative, D. Francisco Palafox), and required that his conduct might be judged of by the circumstances in which he was placed, and the actual condition of his army, not as if he had commanded 80,000 effective men. An army in the field, he said, was like a musical instrument with many keys and many registers: if these did not answer to the touch, if many strings were wanting, and the others not in tune, the best musician would be deemed a sorry performer by those who heard the broken and jarring sounds which he produced, and knew not the state of the instrument. Still, he maintained, the French were far from being able to subdue Spain. Castaños was not unsupported while he thus defended himself with the confidence of an innocent and injured man. The Junta of Seville honourably espoused his cause, and the government allowed him to remove to his own house at Algeciras, there to remain while the inquiry into his conduct which he demanded should be carried on. ♦INTRIGUES OF MONTIJO.♦