On the other hand, experience proved, that Joseph was not a general equal to the times. Napoleon himself admits, that, at this period, the marauding system necessary to obtain supplies, joined to the Guerilla warfare, had relaxed the discipline of the French armies, and introduced a horrible license, while the military movements were feebly pushed. Hence, perhaps, the only effectual means to obtain the resources of Spain for the troops, with least devastation, was to make the success of each “_corps d’armée_,” and the reputation of its commander, dependent upon the welfare of the province in which it was fighting. And, although some of the governors, had neither the sense nor the justice to fulfil this expectation; others, such as Soult and Suchet, did tranquillize the people, and yet provided all necessary things for their own troops; results which would certainly not have been attained under the supreme government of the king, because he knew nothing of war, loved pleasure, was of an easy, obliging disposition, and had a court to form and maintain. I am aware that the first-named generals, especially Soult, were included by Joseph amongst those who, by oppressing the people, extended the spirit of resistance; but this accusation was the result of personal enmity; and facts, derived from less interested quarters, as well as the final results, prove that those officers had a longer reach in their policy than the king could understand. There is yet another view in which the matter may be considered. Napoleon says he left many provinces of Italy under the harsh government of Austria, that the spirit of jealousy, common to the small states of that country, might be broken, and the whole rendered amenable and ready to assimilate, when he judged the time ripe to re-form one great kingdom. Now the same policy may be traced in the military governments of Spain. The marshal’s sway, however, wisely adapted to circumstances, being still the offspring of war and violence, must, of necessity, be onerous and harsh; but the Peninsula once subdued, this system would have been replaced by the peaceful government of the king, who would then have been regarded as a deliverer. Something of this nature was also necessary to sweep away the peculiar privileges which many provinces possessed, and of which they were extremely tenacious; and the iron hand of war, only, could introduce that equality which was the principal aim and scope of the constitution of Bayonne. [Sidenote: King Joseph’s Correspondence. MSS.] [Sidenote: Suchet’s Memoirs.]