One of the weightiest errors for which they were censured was for not exerting themselves more effectually to bring the whole strength of the country against the invaders. They had promised to raise 500,000 men and 50,000 cavalry. Granada was the only province which supplied its full proportion, and Granada even exceeded it; its contingent was about 28,000, whereas it furnished nearly forty. But this depended more upon the provincial Juntas than upon the central government, whose decrees were of no avail in those parts which the enemy possessed, and were ill observed in others, where the local administrations, from disgust, or jealousy, or indolence, or incapacity, seemed to look on as spectators of the dreadful drama, rather than to perform their parts in it, as men and as Spaniards. Neither is it to the want of numbers that their defeats were to be attributed; there were at all times men enough in the field; arms, equipments, and discipline were wanting. It is unjust to judge of the exertions of the Spanish Junta by those of the National Convention in France, who had the whole wealth and strength of a populous and rich country at their absolute disposal, and who began the revolutionary war with officers, and tacticians, and statesmen capable of wielding the mighty means which were put into their hands. The fault of the Junta was in relying too much upon numbers and bravery, and too little upon their fortresses. The general under whom the great captain Gonzalo de Cordova learnt the art of war had left them a lesson which they might profitably have remembered. He used to say, that fortresses ought to be opposed to the impatience and fury of the French, and that the place for stationing raw troops was behind walls and ramparts.