Aware of the hostility they had to encounter, the members of the council lost no time in forming a party to support themselves. Don Arias Mon y Velarde, dean or president for the time being, wrote a circular letter to the local juntas, pointing out the necessity of establishing a central and supreme power, and proposing that deputies from each province, or nation, as they were sometimes called, should repair to Madrid, and there concert with the council the best mode of carrying such a measure into effect. If this proposal had been adopted, all power would inevitably have fallen into the hands of the proposers. Confessedly the first public body in the state, and well acquainted with the forms of business; the council must necessarily have had a preponderating influence in the assembly of delegates, and it appeared so reasonable that it should take the lead, when an efficient authority was required to direct the violence of the people in a useful channel, before the moment of safety was passed; that all the juntas trembled at the prospect of losing their misused power. The minor ones submitted, and agreed to send deputies. The stronger and more ambitious felt that subtlety would avail more than open opposition to the project. [Sidenote: Mr. Stuart’s Correspondence.] [Sidenote: Cox’s Correspon^{ce}. Appendix, No. 13, section 5.] [Sidenote: Mr. Stuart’s Correspondence.] The council followed up this blow by the publication of a manifesto, containing an accurate detail of the events of the revolution, defending the part taken by its members, and claiming a renewal of the confidence formerly reposed in them by the nation. This important state paper was so ably written, that a large party, especially at Valladolid, was immediately formed in favour of its authors; and the junta of Seville were so sensible of the increasing influence of the council, that they intercepted a copy of this manifesto, addressed to sir Hew Dalrymple, and strictly suppressed all writings favourable to the formation of a supreme central authority. Nothing they dreaded more; but it was no longer possible to resist the current, which had set strongly in favour of such a measure. The juntas, however they might oppose its progress, could not openly deny the propriety of it, and in every province, individuals of talent and consideration called for a change in the Hydra polity, which oppressed the country, and was inefficient against the enemy. Every British functionary, civil or military, in communication with the Spaniards, also urged the necessity of concentrating the executive power. [Sidenote: Ibid.]