The first burst of these bands, occasioned the French considerable loss, impeded their communications, and created great alarm. It was a second insurrection of the whole country. The Murcians, in concert with the peasants of Grenada and Jaen, waged war in the mountains of Andalusia; Franquisette and Palarea beset the neighbourhood of Ciudad Real, and Toledo in La Mancha. El Principe, Saornil, and Juan Abril, descending from the Carpentino mountains, sometimes on the side of Segovia, sometimes on the side of Madrid, carried off small French posts, close to the capital, and slew the governor of Segovia, at the very gates of that town. On the other side of Madrid, the Empecinado, with twelve hundred cavalry and infantry, kept the hills above Guadalaxara, and ventured sometimes to give battle in the plain. Espoz y Mina was formidable in Navarre. Longa and Campillo, at the head of two thousand men, harassed Biscay and the neighbourhood of Vittoria, and the chain of communication, between these great bands and the Empecinado, was maintained by Amor, Merino, and the Friar Sapia, the two first acting about Burgos, and the third holding the mountains above Soria. In the Asturias, Escaidron, continually hanging upon the flanks and rear of Bonet, between St. Andero and Oviedo, acted in concert with Campillo on one side, and with Porlier on the other, and this last chief, sometimes throwing himself into the mountains on the borders of Gallicia, and sometimes sailing from Coruña, constantly troubled the Asturias by his enterprises. To curb these bands, the French fortified all their own posts of communication and correspondence, slew numbers of the Guerillas, and suppressed others. Many were robbers who, under pretence of acting against the enemy, merely harassed their own countrymen; and few were really formidable, though all were vexatious. Enough, however, has been said upon this point! But, while reduced to this irregular warfare, for preventing the entire submission of Old Spain, the Regency, with inconceivable folly and injustice, were alienating the affections of their colonies, and provoking civil war; as if the terrible struggle in the Peninsula were not sufficient for the ruin of their country. The independence of Spain was, with them, of subordinate interest to the continuance of oppression in South America. Money, arms, and troops, were withdrawn from the Peninsula, to subdue the so-called rebellious colonists; nor was any reflection made on the inconsistency, of expecting Napoleon’s innumerable hosts to be beaten close to their own doors, by Guerilla operations, and yet attempting, with a few divisions, to crush whole nations, acting in the same manner, at three thousand miles distance. Such being the state of French and Spanish affairs, it remains to examine the condition of England and Portugal, as affecting the war in the Peninsula.