most proper for the independence and good of the state, we will resign it into the hands you shall point out, contented with the glory of having given to the Spaniards the dignity of a nation legitimately constituted.’” ♦GUERILLAS.♦ Had the nation been more alive to such hopes as were thus held out, the pressure of events and the presence of imminent danger would have distracted their thoughts from all speculative subjects. Frustrated as their expectations of immediate deliverance had been, their confidence was not shaken; the national temper led them to think lightly of every disaster, but to exaggerate every trifling success; and the defeats at Arzobispo and Almonacid were less felt or thought of by the body of the people, than the successful exploits of those predatory bands, who, under the name of Guerillas, were now in action every where. The government partook of this disposition; and it must be ascribed as much to this as to policy, that the official as well as the provincial journals published every adventure of this kind more fully and circumstantially than some of those actions wherein their armies had disappeared. The example which Mina and the Empecinado had set was followed with alacrity and tempting success, rich opportunities being offered by the requisition of plate from churches and from individuals, which the intrusive government was at this time enforcing. The guerillas were on the watch, and intercepted no trifling share of the spoils. One party surprised a convoy with eighty _quintals_ of silver near Segovia. The French, who found themselves sorely annoyed by this species of warfare, though they were as yet far from apprehending all they should suffer by it, endeavoured to raise a counter-force of the same kind in Navarre, under the name of Miquelets. But that appellation, which was so popular among the Spaniards, had no attraction for them when it was pressed into the usurper’s service, and the scheme only evinced the incapacity of those who projected it, for the guerillas depended for information, shelter, every thing which could contribute either to their success or their safety, upon the good will of their countrymen; who then would engage in an opposite service, with the certainty that every Spaniard would regard him as an enemy and traitor, and as such endeavour secretly or openly to bring about his destruction? ♦D. JULIAN SANCHEZ.♦