“No power influenced by England can exist upon the continent. If any desire it, their desire is folly, and sooner or later will ruin them. I shall be obliged to govern Spain, and it will be easy for me to do it by establishing a viceroy in each province. However, I will not refuse to concede my rights of conquest to the king, and to establish him in Madrid, when the thirty thousand citizens assemble in the churches, and on the holy sacrament take an oath, not with the mouth alone, but with the heart, and without any jesuitical restriction, ‘to be true to the king, to love and to support him.’ Let the priests from the pulpit and in the confessional, the tradesmen in their correspondence and their discourses, inculcate these sentiments in the people; then I will relinquish my rights of conquest, then I will place the king upon the throne, and I will take a pleasure in showing myself the faithful friend of the Spaniards. “The present generation may differ in opinions; too many passions have been excited; but your descendants will bless me as the regenerator of the nation: they will mark my sojourn among you as memorable days, and from those days they will date the prosperity of Spain. These are my sentiments: go, consult your fellow citizens, choose your part, but do it frankly, and exhibit only true colours.” The dispositions now made by Napoleon indicated a vast plan of operations. It would appear that he intended to invade Gallicia, Andalusia, and Valencia, by his lieutenants, and to carry his arms to Lisbon in person. Upon the 20th December the sixth corps, the guards, and the reserve, were assembled under his own immediate control. The first corps was stationed at Toledo, but the light cavalry attached to it scoured the roads leading to Andalusia, up to the foot of the Sierra Morena. The fourth corps was at Talavera, on the march towards the frontier of Portugal. The second corps was on the Carrion river, preparing to advance against Gallicia. The eighth corps was broken up; the divisions composing it ordered to join the second, and Junot, who commanded it, repaired to the third corps, to supply the place of marshal Moncey, who was called to Madrid for a particular service; doubtless an expedition against Valencia. The fifth corps, which had arrived at Vittoria, was directed to reinforce the third, then employed against Zaragoza. The seventh was always in Catalonia. [Sidenote: Appendix, No. 28.]