‘There never was anything like the _madness_, the _imprudence_, and the _presumption_ of the _Spanish officers_ in the way they risk their corps, knowing that the _national vanity_ will prevent them from withdrawing them from a situation of danger, and that if attacked they must be totally destroyed. A retreat is the only chance of safety for the Duque del Parque’s corps; but instead of making it he calls upon you for cavalry.’... ‘I have ordered magazines to be prepared on the Douro and Mondego to assist in providing _these vagabonds_ if they should retire into Portugal, which I hope they will do as their only chance of salvation.’ Again in 1811, defending himself from an accusation, made by the Spaniards, that he had caused the loss of Valencia, he says, ‘the misfortunes of Valencia are to be attributed to _Blake’s ignorance of his profession and to Mahy’s cowardice and treachery_.’ Now if any passage in my history can be pointed out more disparaging to the Spaniards than the expressions of lord Wellington and the other persons quoted above, I am content to be charged with an ‘unnatural bias’ against that people. But if this cannot be done, it is clear that the reviewer has proved, not my unnatural bias to the French but his own natural bias to calumny. He has indeed a wonderful aversion to truth, for close under his eye, in my second volume which he was then reviewing, was the following passage; and there are many of a like tendency in my work relative to the Spaniards which he leaves unnoticed. ‘Under such a system it was impossible that the peasantry could be rendered energetic soldiers, and they certainly were not active supporters of their country’s cause; but _with a wonderful constancy they suffered for it, enduring fatigue and sickness, nakedness and famine with patience, and displaying in all their actions and in all their sentiments a distinct and powerful national character_. _This constancy and the iniquity of the usurpation, hallowed their efforts in despite of their ferocity and merits respect_, though the vices and folly of the juntas and the leading men rendered the effects nugatory.’—_History_, vol. ii. chap. 1.