Previous to this offer the Spanish government had, at his desire, directed Ballesteros to cross the Morena, and place himself at Alcaraz and in support of the Chinchilla fort, where joined by Cruz Murgeon, by Elio, and by the Partidas, he would have had a corps of thirty thousand men, would have been supported by Hill’s army, and, having the mountains behind him for a retreat, could have safely menaced the enemy’s flank, and delayed the march against Madrid or at least have obliged the king to leave a strong corps of observation to watch him. But Ballesteros, swelling with arrogant folly, never moved from Grenada, and when he found that Wellington was created generalissimo, he published a manifesto appealing to the Spanish pride against the degradation of serving under a foreigner; he thus sacrificed to his own spleen the welfare of his country, and with a result he little expected; for while he judged himself a man to sway the destinies of Spain, he suddenly found himself a criminal and nothing more. The Cortez caused him to be arrested in the midst of his soldiers, who, indifferent to his fate, suffered him to be sent a prisoner to Ceuta. The count of Abisbal was then declared captain-general of Andalusia, and the duke del Parque was appointed to command Ballesteros’ army, which general Verues immediately led by Jaen towards La Mancha, but Soult was then on the Tormes. [Sidenote: Appendix, No. 6. A.] That marshal united with the king on the 3d of October. His troops required rest, his numerous sick were to be sent to the Valencian hospitals, and his first interview with Joseph was of a warm nature, for each had his griefs and passions to declare. Finally the monarch yielded to the superior mental power of his opponent and resolved to profit from his great military capacity, yet reluctantly and more from prudence than liking; for the duke of Feltre, minister of war at Paris, although secretly an enemy of Soult, and either believing, or pretending to believe in the foolish charges of disorderly ambition made against that commander, opposed any decided exercise of the king’s authority until the emperor’s will was known: yet this would not have restrained the king if the marshals Jourdan and Suchet had not each declined accepting the duke of Dalmatia’s command when Joseph offered it to them. [Sidenote: Joseph’s Correspondence, MSS.]