8º. From the commencement of the Spanish insurrection, the policy of the Valencians had been characterised by a singular indifference to the calamities that overwhelmed the other parts of Spain. The local Junta in that province, not content with asserting their own exclusive authority, imagined that it was possible to maintain Valencia independent, even though the rest of the Peninsula should be conquered. Hence the siege of Zaragoza passed unheeded, and the suffering of Gerona made no impression on them. With a regular army of above ten thousand men, more than thirty thousand armed irregulars, and a large fleet at Carthagena, the governors of this rich province, so admirably situated for offensive operations, never even placed the fortified towns of their own frontier in a state of defence, and carelessly beheld the seventh and third corps gradually establishing, at the distance of a few days’ march from Valencia itself, two solid bases for further invasion! But it is now time to revert to the operations of the “_Central Supreme Junta_,” that it may be fully understood how the patriotism, the constancy, the lives, and the fortunes of the Spanish people were sported with by those who had so unhappily acquired a momentary power in the Peninsula. CHAP. IV. When sir Arthur Wellesley retired to the frontier of Portugal, the calumnies propagated in Andalusia, relative to the cause of that movement, were so far successful that no open revolt took place; but the public hatred being little diminished, a design was formed to establish a better government, as a preliminary to which, measures were secretly taken to seize the members of the Junta, and transport them to Manilla. The old Junta of Seville being the chief movers of this sedition, no good could be expected from the change, otherwise, such an explosion, although sure to be attended with slaughter and temporary confusion, was not unlikely to prove advantageous to the nation at large, it being quite obvious that some violent remedy was wanting to purge off the complicated disorders of the state. “_Spain_,” said lord Wellesley, “_has proved untrue to our alliance, because she is untrue to herself._”--“_Until some great change shall be effected in the conduct of the military resources of Spain, and in the state of her armies, no British army can attempt safely to co-operate with Spanish troops in the territories of Spain.”--“No alliance can protect her from the results of internal disorders and national infirmity._”