The enemies of democracy soon spread many grievous reports of misfortunes and treachery, some true, some false; and at the most critical period of the war in Valencia, they endeavoured to raise a popular commotion to sweep away the cortes. The monks and friars, furious at the suppression of the inquisition, were the chief plotters every where; and the proceedings of Palacios, in concert with them, were only part of a church project, commenced all over Spain to resist the cortes. In October, Lardizabal, the other deposed regent, published at Alicant, a manifesto, in which he accused the cortes and the Cadiz writers of jacobinism, maintained the doctrine of passive obedience, and asserted, that the regents only took the oath to the cortes, because they could not count on the army or the people at Cadiz; otherwise they would cause the king’s authority to be respected in their persons as his only legitimate representatives. This manifesto was declared treasonable, and a vessel was despatched to bring the offender to Cadiz; but the following day it was discovered, that the old council of Castile had also drawn up a manifesto similar in principle, and the persons sent by the cortes to seize the paper were told that it was destroyed. The protest of three members against it was however found, and five lawyers were selected from the cortes to try the guilty councillors and Lardizabal. In November the public cry for a new regency became general, and it was backed by the English plenipotentiary. Nevertheless the matter was deferred upon divers pretexts, and meanwhile the democratic party gained strength in the cortes, and the anti-British feeling appeared more widely diffused than it really was; because some time elapsed before the church and aristocratic party discovered that the secret policy of England was the same as their own. It was so, however, even to the upholding of the inquisition, which it was ridiculously asserted had become objectionable only in name; as if, while the frame-work of tyranny existed, there could ever be wanting the will to fill it up. Necessity alone induced the British cabinet to put on a smooth countenance towards the cortes. In this state of affairs, the negotiation for the colonial mediation, was used by the Spaniards merely as a ground for demanding loans, subsidies, and succours in kind, which they used in fitting out new expeditions against the revolted colonists; the complaints of the British legation on this point were quite disregarded. At this time also Lapeña was acquitted of misconduct at Barosa, and would have been immediately re-employed, if the English minister had not threatened to quit Cadiz, and advised general Cooke to do the same.