If the Spaniards had had as little wisdom, or as little sense of national honour, as the party who opposed the measures of government in England, they would have believed the Intruder, and submitted to him. This party, who, at the time of Sir John Moore’s retreat, told us that the Spaniards had then yielded, and that their fate was decided, now declared, with a little more prudence in their predictions, that the show of resistance must soon be at an end. The king’s message, declaring that Great Britain would continue its assistance to the great cause of Spain, as the most important considerations of policy and of good faith required, excited in them the gloomiest forebodings. “We were then still,” they said, “to cling to the forlorn hope of maintaining a footing in Portugal! Our resources were still farther to be drained in supporting our ally, or rather in supporting a system which did not arouse its own people to its defence; and for our efforts, however strenuous, in the support of which we did not receive either their gratitude or their co-operation. It was reported,” they said, “that the English army had made a retrograde movement to Lisbon, and actually embarked in the transports at the mouth of the Tagus. Having uniformly declared their opinion, that this expedition, under Lord Wellington, was injurious to the most important interests of the country, as they affected both its resources and its character, they should most sincerely and warmly congratulate the public if such were its termination.” That is, they would have congratulated us if we had broken our faith, deserted our allies, fled before our enemies, left Buonaparte to obtain possession of Cadiz and Lisbon, and then waited tremblingly for him upon our own shores, with our resources carefully husbanded till it pleased him to come and take them!