whom the Spaniards were bound by true friendship and fair dealing, but of whose fair promises and bad faith no one could give more information than the then president of the Regency, the Duque del Infantado. “Was Spain,” he asked, “like the petty kingdom of Portugal, that the command of its armies should be intrusted to a foreigner? Had its revolution begun like that of Portugal? Had it not still resources of its own? Had it not generals, officers, and soldiers, who still supported the honour which they had inherited from their forefathers; and who in the present war had made both English and French know that they were nothing inferior to them in discipline or in courage, and that they had chiefs of their own who knew how to lead them to victory? Finally, he required that the opinion of the soldiers and of the people should be taken upon this matter; if they condescended to the appointment, he should renounce his employments, and retire to his own house, thus manifesting, that he had only the honour and the welfare of his country in view, not any ambitious or interested end.” ♦HE IS EXILED TO CEUTA.♦ Ballasteros was a rude, intrepid, enterprising, and persevering soldier of fortune, handsome in person, strong in body, and of a hale constitution; very useful as a partizan at the head of 4000 or 5000 men, but incapable of conducting any extensive operations with a regular army. Before the appointment of Lord Wellington took place he was in no good humour with the Government, and the Government on its part as little pleased with him. With some better parts of the national character, he partook in no slight degree of its boastfulness, and entertaining a most exaggerated notion of his own merits, made no scruple of saying that Ballasteros had done more for Spain than all her other chiefs put together, and that in spite of the Government, Ballasteros, unassisted and discouraged, would continue to do more than the favourites of the Regency, whose pockets were filled with doubloons by the English. But though he had a large party among the lower orders in Cadiz, and some of his regiments were much attached to him, he overrated his own importance as greatly as his own deserts; he was unpopular in the provinces and disliked by his officers: and when the Government put him under arrest for thus defying its authority, marched him under an escort to Malaga, and sent him from thence to Ceuta as an exile, not a hand, and scarcely a voice was raised in his defence. Some seditious writings indeed were published in his favour at Cadiz, but they produced no effect. The loss of an active partizan was regretted, and the error of an honest, though obstinate and wrong-headed man; but the army and the nation concurred in condemning him, and in approving the promptitude and decision with which the Government had acted.