The weakness of this reasoning proved how the love of power had blinded those from whom it proceeded. The Junta wished to evade the law of the Partidas, because it did not specify a case which it could not possibly have contemplated, though the law itself was perfectly and directly relevant. They assumed it as a certain consequence of a regency, that the colonies would be disgusted; that the Cortes would not be convoked; that the rights of Ferdinand would be disregarded; and that new opportunities of corruption would be afforded to France; and they forgot to ask themselves what reason there could be for apprehending all or any of these dangers, more from a council of regency than from their own body. Romana’s manifesto contained nothing more flagrantly illogical than this. Having thus endeavoured to set aside this project by alarming the nation, they admitted that the executive power ought to be lodged in fewer hands, and said, that with that circumspection, which neither exposed the state to the oscillations consequent upon every change of government, nor sensibly altered the unity of the body which it was intrusted with, they had concentrated their own authority; and that from this time those measures which required dispatch, secrecy, and energy, would be directed by a section formed of six members, holding their office for a time. The remainder of the manifesto was in a worthier strain. “Another opinion,” they said, “which objected to a regency, objected also to the Cortes as an insufficient representation, if convoked according to the ancient forms; as ill-timed, and perhaps perilous in the existing circumstances; and in fine as useless, because the provincial Juntas, which had been immediately erected by the people, were their true representatives; but as the government had already publicly declared that it would adapt the Cortes, in its numbers, forms, and classes, to the present state of things, any objection drawn from the inadequacy of the ancient forms was malicious, as well as inapplicable. Yes, Spaniards,” said they, “you are about to have your Cortes, and the national representation will be as perfect and full as it can and ought to be, in an assembly of such importance and eminent dignity. You are about to have your Cortes; and at what time, gracious God! can the nation adopt this measure better than at present? When war has exhausted all the ordinary means, when the selfishness of some, and the ambition of others, debilitate and paralyse the efforts of government; when they seek to destroy from its foundations the essential principle of the monarchy, which is union; when the hydra of federalism, so happily silenced the preceding year by the creation of the central power, dares again to raise its heads, and endeavour to precipitate us into anarchy; when the subtlety of our enemies is watching the moment of our divisions to destroy the state; this is the time, then,