PLANS OF THE FRENCH. SIR A. WELLESLEY RAISED TO THE PEERAGE. MARQUIS WELLESLEY ARRIVES IN SPAIN. ALTERATIONS IN THE BRITISH MINISTRY. STATE OF THE SPANISH GOVERNMENT. THE BRITISH ARMY RETREATS TO THE FRONTIERS OF PORTUGAL. BATTLES OF TAMAMES, OCANA, AND ALBA DE TORMES. ♦1809. AUGUST.♦ Never during the war had the prospect appeared so hopeful as when Sir Arthur entered Spain. For the first time Buonaparte had been repulsed at all points in a great battle; and for the first time also a spirit of national resistance had broken forth in Germany, ... the only spirit by which his tyranny could be overthrown. The Spaniards seemed to acquire strength from their defeats, learning confidence in their resources, if not experience from misfortunes; while the British army, by the passage of the Douro and the discomfiture of Soult, had once more made the enemy feel what they might apprehend from such troops and such a commander. ♦SOULT PROPOSES IMMEDIATELY TO INVADE PORTUGAL.♦ The Peninsula was but a secondary object in the all-grasping schemes of Buonaparte’s ambition. At first he had expected to secure it without a struggle; nor was he yet so undeceived concerning the real nature of the resistance to be experienced there, as to believe that any serious effort would be required for completing its conquest. In Germany it was, he thought, that the fate of Europe must be decided; and this opinion was proclaimed in England by those who, on every occasion, sought to persuade the public that resistance to such a statesman and such a general, wherever it was attempted, could only end in defeat, and humiliation, and ruin. Under this impression he had ordered the intrusive government, which was in fact entirely under his orders, to content itself with protracting the war till the campaign in Germany should be brought to a close. That campaign was now ended. The battle of Wagram had re-established his shaken power; an armistice had immediately been sued for, and in the negotiations which followed, the house of Austria surrendered more than the French king Francis I. had lost at Pavia. The news of this great success did not, however, induce the Intruder to deviate from his instructions. M. Soult, the most enterprising as well as the ablest of the French officers who were employed in Spain, proposed at this time a plan for re-entering Portugal. The line which should have secured the communication of the British army with Lisbon he occupied, now that that army had found it necessary to retreat across the Tagus. He proposed, therefore, to move from Plasencia against Beresford’s inefficient force, while Ney, advancing from Salamanca, should act upon its left flank. That army, if not absolutely destroyed, would be prevented from forming a junction by way of Alcantara with Sir Arthur; and the French, by rapidly pursuing this advantage, might occupy Abrantes, and once more take possession of Lisbon, in which case Soult, ♦CAMPAIGN OF 1809, PP.