He spoke not of constitutions but of justice to the people, and hence his proposal was rejected as a matter of Jacobinism. Mr. Drummond, the English plenipotentiary, even betrayed it to the queen, a woman not without magnanimity, yet so capable of bloody deeds, that, in 1810, she secretly proposed to Napoleon the perpetration of a second Sicilian vespers upon the English. The emperor, detesting such guilt, only answered by throwing her agent into prison, yet the traces of the conspiracy were detected by the British authorities in 1811; and in 1812 lord William Bentinck was forced to seize the government, in the manner before recommended by Moore, and did finally expel the queen by force. But because these measures were not resorted to in time, he was now, with an army of from twenty-five to thirty thousand men, sixteen thousand of which were British, only able to detach a mixed force of six thousand to aid lord Wellington. And at the same time the oppression of Ireland required that sixty thousand fine soldiers should remain idle at home, while France, with a Russian war on hand, was able to over-match the allies in Spain. Bad government is a scourge with a double thong! CHAPTER IV. OPERATIONS IN ANDALUSIA AND ESTREMADURA. [Sidenote: 1812. April.] A short time previous to Hill’s enterprize against Almaraz, Soult, after driving Ballesteros from the Ronda, and restoring the communication with Grenada, sent three thousand men into the Niebla; partly to interrupt the march of some Spaniards coming from Cadiz to garrison Badajos, partly to menace Penne Villemur and Morillo, who still lingered on the Odiel against the wishes of Wellington. The French arguments were more effectual. Those generals immediately filed along the frontier of Portugal towards Estremadura, they were hastily followed by the Spanish troops sent from Cadiz, and the militia of the Algarves were called out, to defend the Portuguese frontier. Soult then remained on the defensive, for he expected the advance of lord Wellington, which the approach of so many troops, the seeming reluctance of the Spaniards to quit the Niebla, the landing of fresh men from Cadiz at Ayamonte, and the false rumours purposely set afloat by the British general seemed to render certain. Nor did the surprize of Almaraz, which he thought to be aimed at the army of the south and not against the army of Portugal, alter his views.