Such, then, was the nature of Napoleon’s power that success alone could sustain it; success which depended as much upon others’ exertions as upon his own stupendous genius, for Russia was far distant from Spain. It is said, I know not upon what authority, that he at one moment, had resolved to concentrate all the French troops in the Peninsula behind the Ebro during this expedition to Russia, but the capture of Blake’s force at Valencia changed his views. Of this design there are no traces in the movements of his armies, nor in the captured papers of the king, and there are some indications of a contrary design; for at that period several foreign agents were detected examining the lines of Torres Vedras, and on a Frenchman, who killed himself when arrested in the Brazils, were found papers proving a mission for the same object. Neither is it easy to discern the advantage of thus crowding three hundred thousand men on a narrow slip of ground, where they must have been fed from France, already overburthened with the expenses of the Russian war; and this when they were numerous enough, if rightly handled, to have maintained themselves on the resources of Spain, and near the Portuguese frontier for a year at least. To have given up all the Peninsula, west of the Ebro, would have been productive of no benefit, save what might have accrued from the jealousy which the Spaniards already displayed towards their allies; but if that jealousy, as was probable, had forced the British general away, he could have carried his army to Italy, or have formed in Germany the nucleus of a great northern confederation on the emperor’s rear. Portugal was therefore, in truth, the point of all Europe in which the British strength was least dangerous to Napoleon during the invasion of Russia; moreover, an immediate war with that empire was not a certain event previous to the capture of Valencia. Napoleon was undoubtedly anxious to avoid it while the Spanish contest continued; yet, with a far-reaching European policy, in which his English adversaries were deficient, he foresaw and desired to check the growing strength of that fearful and wicked power which now menaces the civilised world.