The supreme junta now offered sir Arthur Wellesley the rank of captain-general, and sent him a present of horses; and when he, accepting the rank, refused the pay, as he had before refused that of the Portuguese government, they pressed him to renew offensive operations; but, acting as if they thought the honours conferred upon the general would amply compensate for the sufferings of the troops, the junta made no change in their system. These things convinced sir Arthur Wellesley that Spain was no longer the place for a British army, and he relinquished the idea of further operations in that country. Sending his cavalry to the neighbourhood of Caceres, he broke down another arch of the Cardinal’s bridge, to prevent the enemy from troubling him, and, through the British ambassador, informed the junta that he would immediately retire into Portugal. This information created the wildest consternation; for, in their swollen self-sufficiency, the members of the government had hitherto disregarded all warnings upon this subject, and now acting as, in the like case, they had acted, the year before, with sir John Moore, they endeavoured to avert the consequences of their own evil doings, by vehement remonstrances and the most absurd statements:--“_The French were weak and the moment most propitious for driving them beyond the Pyrenees_:” “THE UNCALLED-FOR RETREAT OF THE ENGLISH WOULD RUIN THE CAUSE:” and so forth. But they had to deal with a general as firm as sir John Moore; and, in the British ambassador, they no longer found an instrument suited to their purposes. Lord Wellesley, a man with too many weaknesses to be called great, but of an expanded capacity, and a genius at once subtle and imperious, had come out on a special mission,--and Mr. Frere, whose last communication with the junta had been to recommend another military project, was happily displaced; yet, even in his private capacity, he made an effort to have some of the generals superseded; and the junta, with a refined irony, truly Spanish, created him _marquis of_ UNION. At Cadiz, the honours paid to lord Wellesley were extravagant and unbecoming, and his journey from thence to Seville was a scene of triumph; but these outward demonstrations of feeling did not impose upon him beyond the moment. His brother’s correspondence and his own penetration soon enabled him to make a just estimate of the junta’s protestations. Disdaining their intrigues, and fully appreciating a general’s right to direct the operations of his own army, he seconded sir Arthur’s remonstrances with firmness, and wisely taking the latter’s statements as a guide and basis for his own views, urged them upon the Spanish government with becoming dignity.