With the military affairs thus mismanaged, the civil and political transactions proceeded step by step, and in the same crooked path. Short as the period was between the first breaking forth of the insurrection, and the arrival of Mr. Stuart at Coruña, it was sufficient to create disunion of the worst kind. The juntas of Leon, of the Asturias, and of Gallicia, were at open discord, and those provinces were again split into parties, hating each other with as much virulence as if they had been of a hundred years growth. The money and other supplies sent by the English ministers were considered, by the authorities into whose hands they fell, as a peculiar donation to themselves, and appropriated accordingly. The junta of one province would not assist another with arms when there was a surplus, nor permit their troops to march against the enemy beyond the precincts of the particular province in which they were first organized. The ruling power was in the hands of the provincial nobility and gentry, men of narrow contracted views, unused to business, proud, arrogant--as extreme ignorance suddenly clothed with authority will always be--and generally disposed to employ their newly-acquired power in providing for their relations and dependants at the expense of the common cause, which with them was quite subordinate to the local interests of their own particular province. Hence a jealousy of their neighbours regulated the proceedings of all the juntas, and the means they resorted to for increasing their own, or depressing a rival government’s influence, were equally characterised by absurdity and want of principle. The junta of Gallicia did their utmost to isolate that province, as if with a view to a final separation from Spain and a connexion with Portugal. They complained, as of an injury, that the army of Estremadura had obeyed the orders of the junta of Seville; they at once struck up an independent alliance with the junta and bishop of Oporto, and sent troops, as we have seen, under Valladeras, to aid the war in Portugal, but, at the same time, refused to unite in any common measure of defence with the provinces of Castille, until a formal treaty of alliance between them was negotiated, signed, and ratified. In the mean time their selfishness and incapacity created so much disgust in their own district, that plots were formed to overthrow their authority. The bishops of Orense and St. Jago became their decided enemies; and the last-named prelate, an intriguing man, secretly endeavoured to draw Blake, with the army, into his views, and even wrote to him, to desire that he would lead the forces against the government of Coruña; but the junta having intercepted the letters, arrested the bishop. Their own stability and personal safety were however still so insecure, that many persons applied to Mr. Stuart to aid in changing the form of government by force. The Asturians were even worse, they refused to assist Blake when his army was suffering,