Napoleon, notwithstanding his activity, and the offers which he made of the vice-royalty of Mexico to Cuesta, Castaños, Blake, and probably to others residing in that country, failed to create a French party of any consequence. The Americans were unwilling to plunge into civil strife for a less object than their own independence: the arrogance and injustice of Old Spain, however, increased, rather than diminished, under the sway of the insurrectional government, and at last, as it is well known, a general rebellion of the South American states established the independence of the fairest portion of the globe, and proved, how little the abstract love of freedom influenced the resistance of the old country to Napoleon. The intercourse with the English court, which had been hitherto carried on through the medium of the deputies, who first arrived in London to claim assistance, was now placed upon a regular footing. The deputies, at the desire of Mr. Canning, were recalled, and admiral Apodaca was appointed envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary at St. James’s, and Mr. John Hookham Frere was accredited, with the same diplomatic rank, near the central junta. Mr. Stuart, whose knowledge of the state of the country, whose acquaintance with the character of the leading persons, and whose able and energetic exertions had so much contributed to the formation of a central government, was superseded by this injudicious appointment, and thus a great political machine, with every wheel in violent action, was, at the critical moment, left without any controlling power or guiding influence; for Mr. Stuart, who, on his own responsibility, had quitted Coruña, and repaired to Madrid, and had remitted the most exact and important information of what was passing, remained for three months without receiving a single line from Mr. Canning, approving or disapproving of his proceedings, or giving him instructions how to act at this important crisis: a strange remissness, indicating the bewildered state of the ministers, who slowly and with difficulty followed, when they should have been prepared to lead. Their tardy abortive measures demonstrated, how wide the space between a sophist and a statesman, and how dangerous to a nation is that public feeling which, insatiable of words, disregards the actions of men, esteeming more the interested eloquence and wit of an orator like Demades, than the simple integrity, sound judgment, and great exploits, of a general like Phocion.