The provincial juntas were still permitted to retain their power within their own districts, and the greatest timidity marked all the proceedings of the central government in relation to those obnoxious bodies. Attentive, however, to their own interests, the members of the supreme junta decreed, 1st. that their persons should be inviolable; 2d. that the president should have the title of highness, with a salary of 25,000 crowns a year; 3d. that each of the deputies, taking the title of excellency, should have a yearly salary of 5,000 crowns; and lastly, that the collective body should be addressed by the title of majesty. Thinking that they were now sufficiently confirmed in power to venture upon a public entry into Madrid, the junta made preparations to ensure a favourable reception from the populace. They resolved to declare a general amnesty, to lower the duties on tobacco, and to fling large sums among the people during the procession; but, in the midst of all this pomp and vanity, the presence of the enemy on the soil was scarcely remembered, and the details of business were totally neglected, a prominent evil that extended to the lowest branches of administration. Self-interest, indeed, produced abundance of activity, but every department, almost every man, seemed struck with torpor when the public welfare was at stake; and withal, an astonishing presumption was common to the highest and the lowest. [Sidenote: Lord W. Bentinck’s Corresp^{ce}.] To supply the place of a generalissimo, a council or board of general officers was projected, on whose reports the junta proposed to regulate the military operations. Castaños was destined to be president; but some difficulty arising relative to the appointment of the other members, the execution of the plan was deferred, with the characteristic remark “that when the enemy was driven across the frontier, Castaños would have leisure to take his seat.” The idea of a defeat, the possibility of failure, never entered their minds; the government evincing neither apprehension, nor activity, nor foresight, were contented if the people believed the daily falsehoods they promulgated relative to the enemy; and the people, equally presumptuous, were content to be so deceived; in fine, all the symptoms of a ruined cause were already visible to discerning eyes. The armies neglected even to nakedness, and the soldier’s constancy under privations cruelly abused; disunion, cupidity, incapacity, in the higher orders; the patriotic ardour visibly abating among the lower classes; the rulers grasping, improvident, and boasting; the enemy powerful; the people insubordinate, and the fighting men without arms or bread; as a whole, and in all its parts, the government unfitted for its task; cumbrous and ostentatious, its system, to use the comprehensive words of Mr. Stuart, “was neither calculated to inspire courage nor to increase enthusiasm.”