The inconsistent orders of the ministers were well calculated to introduce all manner of confusion, and to prevent all vigour of action, but more egregious conduct followed. In sir Arthur Wellesley’s instructions, although they were vague and undefined, as to immediate military operations, it was expressly stated that the intention of the government was to enable Portugal and Spain to throw off the French yoke, and ample directions were given to him as to his future political conduct in the Peninsula. He was informed how to demean himself in any disputes that might arise between the two insurrectional nations, how to act with relation to the settlement of the supreme authority during the interregnum; and directed to facilitate communications between the colonies and the mother country, and to offer his good offices to arrange any differences between them. The terms upon which Great Britain would acquiesce in any negotiation between Spain and France were stated, and finally he was empowered to recommend the establishment of a paper system in the Peninsula, as a good mode of raising money, and attaching the holders of it to the national cause. The Spaniards were not, however, sufficiently civilized to adopt this recommendation, and barbarously preferred gold to credit at a time when no man’s life, or faith, or wealth, or power, was worth a week’s purchase. Sir Hew Dalrymple was at this time also commanded to furnish sir Arthur with every information that might be of use to the latter in his operations. [Sidenote: Ibid. L^d. Castle^h. to S. H. Dalrymple, 28th June, 1808.] When the tenor of these instructions, and the great Indian reputation enjoyed by sir Arthur Wellesley are considered, it is not possible to doubt that he was first chosen as the fittest man to conduct the armies of England at this important conjuncture; yet scarcely had he sailed when he was superseded, not to make room for a man whose fame and experience might have justified such a change, but by an extraordinary arrangement, which can hardly be attributed to mere vacillation of purpose, he was reduced to the fourth rank in that army, for the future governance of which, he had fifteen days before received the most extended instructions.