The government agents were corrupt, and the government itself was as it had ever been tyrannical faithless mean and equivocating to the lowest degree. In 1812 a Spaniard of known and active patriotism thus commenced an elaborate plan of defence for the provinces. “Catalonia abhors France as her oppressor but she abhors still more the despotism which has been carried on in all the branches of her administration since the beginning of the war.” In fine there was no healthy action in any part of the body politic, every thing was rotten except the hearts of the poorer people. Even at Cadiz Spanish writers compared the state to a vessel in a hurricane without captain, pilot, compass, chart sails or rudder, and advised the crew to cry to heaven as their sole resource. But they only blasphemed. When Wellington, indignant at the systematic breach of his engagement, remonstrated, he was answered that the actual regency did not hold itself bound by the contracts of the former government. Hence it was plain no considerations of truth, for they had themselves also accepted the contract, nor of honest policy, nor the usages of civilized states with respect to national faith, had any influence on their conduct. Enraged at this scandalous subterfuge, he was yet conscious how essential it was he should retain his command. And seeing all Spanish generals more or less engaged in political intrigues, none capable of co-operating with him, and that no Spanish army could possibly subsist as a military body under the neglect and bad arrangement of the Spanish authorities, conscious also that public opinion in Spain would, better than the menaces of the English government, enable him to obtain a counterpoise to the democratic party, he tendered indeed his resignation if the government engagement was not fulfilled, but earnestly endeavoured by a due mixture of mildness argument and reproof to reduce the ruling authorities to reason. Nevertheless there were, he told them, limits to his forbearance to his submission under injury, and he had been already most unworthily treated, even as a gentleman, by the Spanish government.