The Spaniards have boldly asserted, and the world has believed, that the deliverance of the Peninsula was the work of their hands: this assertion so contrary to the truth I combat. It is unjust to the fame of the British general, injurious to the glory of the British arms. Military virtue is not the growth of a day, nor is there any nation so rich and populous, that, despising it, can rest secure. The imbecility of Charles IV., the vileness of Ferdinand, and the corruption of Godoy, were undoubtedly the proximate causes of the calamities that overwhelmed Spain; but the primary cause, that which belongs to history, was the despotism arising from the union of a superstitious court and a sanguinary priesthood, which, repressing knowledge and contracting the public mind, sapped the foundation of all military as well as civil virtues, and prepared the way for invasion. No foreign potentate would have attempted to steal into the fortresses of a great kingdom, if the prying eyes, and the thousand clamorous tongues belonging to a free press, were ready to expose his projects, and a well-disciplined army present to avenge the insult; but Spain being destitute of both, was first circumvented by the wiles, and then ravaged by the arms, of Napoleon. She was deceived and fettered because the public voice was stifled, but she was scourged and torn because her military institutions were decayed. From the moment that an English force took the field, the Spaniards ceased to act as principals in a contest carried on in the heart of their country, and involving their existence as an independent nation; they were self-sufficient, and their pride was wounded by insult; they were superstitious, and their religious feelings were roused to fanatic fury by an all-powerful clergy, who feared to lose their own rich endowments; but after the first burst of indignation the cause of independence created little enthusiasm. Horrible barbarities were exercised on those French soldiers that sickness or the fortune of war exposed to the rage of the invaded, and a dreadful spirit of personal hatred was kept alive by the exactions and severe retaliations of the invaders, but no great and general exertion to drive the latter from the soil was made, or at least none was sustained with steadfast courage in the field. Manifestoes, decrees, and lofty boasts, like a cloud of canvas covering a rotten hull, made a gallant appearance, but real strength and firmness were nowhere to be found.