The Spanish insurrection presented indeed a strange spectacle; patriotism was seen supporting a vile system of government; a popular assembly working for the restoration of a despotic monarch; the higher classes seeking a foreign master; the lower armed in the cause of bigotry and misrule. The upstart leaders secretly abhorring freedom, yet governing in her name, trembled at the democratic activity they had themselves excited. They called forth all the bad passions of the multitude, but repressed the patriotism that would regenerate as well as save. The country suffered the evils, without enjoying the benefits, of a revolution! Tumults and assassinations terrified and disgusted the sensible part of the community; a corrupt administration of the resources extinguished patriotism, and neglect ruined the armies: the peasant-soldier, usually flying at the first onset, threw away his arms and returned to his home, or, attracted by the license of the _partidas_, joined the banners of men who, for the most part originally robbers, were as oppressive to the people as the enemy. The _guerilla_ chiefs would, in their turn, have been quickly exterminated, but that the French, pressed by lord Wellington’s battalions, were obliged to keep in large masses. This was the secret of Spanish constancy! Copious supplies from England, and the valour of the Anglo-Portuguese troops, these were the supports of the war! and it was the gigantic vigour with which the duke of Wellington resisted the fierceness of France, and sustained the weakness of three inefficient cabinets, that delivered the Peninsula. Faults he committed, and who in war has not? but his reputation stands upon a sure foundation, a simple majestic structure, that envy cannot undermine, nor the meretricious ornaments of party panegyric deform. The exploits of his army were great in themselves, and great in their consequences: abounding with signal examples of heroic courage and devoted zeal, they should neither be disfigured nor forgotten, being worthy of more fame than the world has yet accorded them--worthy also of a better historian. TABLE OF CONTENTS. BOOK I. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION _Page_ 1 CHAPTER II.