This answer having frustrated the projected intrigue, Mr. Frere, conscious perhaps of diplomatic incapacity, returned with renewed ardour to the task of directing the military affairs, in every part of the Peninsula. He had seen an intercepted letter of Soult’s, addressed to the king, in which the project of penetrating into Portugal was mentioned; and immediately concluding that general Mackenzie’s troops would be wanted for the defence of that kingdom, counselled him to abandon Cadiz and return to Lisbon; but the general, who knew that, even should he return, a successful defence of Portugal with so few troops would be impossible, and that every precaution was already taken for an embarkation in the last extremity, observed, that “the danger of Lisbon rendered the occupation of Cadiz more important.” [Sidenote: Appendix, No. 9.] [Sidenote: Appendix, No. 8.] General Mackenzie’s reply was written the 26th of February. On the 3d of March he received another despatch from Mr. Frere. Cadiz, and the danger of Portugal, seemed to have passed from the writer’s mind, and were unnoticed; but entering into a minutely inaccurate statement of the situation of the French and Spanish armies, he observed, that Soult having failed in an attempt to penetrate Portugal by the Minho, _it was impossible, from the position of the Spanish forces, assisted as they were by the Portuguese, that he could persevere in his plan_. Wherefore, he proposed that the British force then in the harbour of Cadiz should proceed immediately to Tarragona, to aid Reding; and this wild scheme was only frustrated by an unexpected despatch from sir John Cradock, recalling the troops to Lisbon. They arrived there on the 12th of March; and thus ended a transaction clearly indicating an unsettled policy, shallow combinations, and a bad choice of agents on the part of the English cabinet, and a most unwise and unworthy disposition in the supreme junta. General Mackenzie attributed the jealousy of the latter to French influence; Mr. Frere to the abrupt proceedings of sir George Smith, and to fear, lest the junta of Seville, who were continually on the watch to recover their ancient power, should represent the admission of the British troops as a treasonable proceeding on the part of the supreme government. It is, however, evident that the true cause was the false position in which the English ministers had originally placed themselves, by inundating Spain with arms and money, without at the same time asserting a just influence, and making their assistance the price of good order and useful exertion. CHAPTER III.