Upon the receipt of this note, Mr. Frere requested a conference. They proposed to him that he should name a governor for Cadiz. He replied, it was a responsibility with which he would not charge himself for all the world. Four months ago he should have chosen Morla, Espeleta six months before that: both had been found wanting in the day of trial, though neither had been placed in a situation so trying as that of a governor holding out in the last remaining garrison. Then replying to the argument, that the Junta could not act against popular opinion, “it must likewise be recollected,” he said, “that the British government could not proceed in opposition to an opinion equally decided in England; and which of the two pretensions was the more just? England was willing to expose an English army to any hazard which resulted absolutely from the nature of things; but England would not consent that that danger should be aggravated in the slightest degree, out of deference to the caprice of popular opinion, or suspicions which were unworthy of either country. England required of Spain that it should place confidence in the British government, binding itself by the most formal engagements; Spain offered the choice of a governor and the chance of his fidelity. Our proposal was in every respect the fairest and the most rational, and it could not be expected that we should depart from a demand of right, for the sake of conferring a favour. Mr. Frere offered to propose to General Mackenzie, that he should leave 1000 men in Cadiz, and proceed with the rest to act in concert with Cuesta for the protection of Seville, and that when General Sherbrooke arrived, 3000 should proceed to the same direction, and he should content himself with garrisoning Cadiz with 2000 men, and proceed with or forward the remainder of his own force to General Mackenzie. To this proposition the Junta had so nearly acceded, that the agreement was only broken off by their insisting that the public mind could not be reconciled to the admission of 2000 troops into Cadiz, and offering to admit half the number, a force which Mr. Frere judged altogether inadequate to a purpose for which his own government allotted four times that amount.