The British Government, alarmed in view of the democratic spirit unexpectedly developed by a portion of the Spanish allies, sent a secret agent, Baron Rolli, a man of great sagacity, address, and intrepidity, to persuade Ferdinand to violate his pledge of honor, to escape from Valencay, and place himself at the head of the Spaniards who were in opposition to Joseph. It was hoped that this would awaken new enthusiasm on the part of the Church and the advocates of the old regime, and that it would check the spirit of ultra democracy which was threatening to sweep every thing before it. The nearest approach to an honorable deed to which Ferdinand ever came, was in the very questionable act of revealing the plot to the French Government. Rolli was arrested and sent to Vincennes. The democratic leaders in Cadiz were so incensed against what Alison calls "the orderly spirit of aristocratic rule in England," that, burying their animosity against the French invasion, they almost welcomed those foreign armies, who bore everywhere upon their banners "Equal Rights for all Men." They opened secret negotiations with Joseph, offering to surrender Cadiz to the French troops, and to secure the entire submission of the whole peninsula to the government of Joseph if he would accept the radical Constitution of 1812 in place of the more moderate Republicanism of the Constitution of Bayonne. The hostility of the Spanish generals and soldiers to Wellington and the English troops was bitter and undisguised.[W] [Footnote W: Napier, v. 406, 407.] But more bloody scenes soon ensued. Napoleon, deeming the war in Spain virtually ended, had been induced to withdraw large numbers of his troops, and to embark in his fatal campaign to Moscow. Thus Russia became allied to England, and a new opportunity, under more favorable auspices, was afforded to renew the war in Spain. England concentrated her mightiest energies upon the Peninsula against the remnants of the French army which Napoleon had left there. The Emperor, with all his chosen troops, composing an army of over five hundred thousand men, was on the march thousands of miles toward the north. On the 9th of May, 1812, the Emperor left Paris, to place himself at the head of his troops in Dresden. The war in Spain was now urged by the British Government with renovated fury. The mind is wearied and the heart is sickened, in reading the recital of sieges, and battles, and outrages which make a humane man to exclaim, in anguish of spirit, "O Lord, how long! how long!" Equal ferocity was upon both sides. French, English, Spanish, and Portuguese soldiers, maddened by passion and inflamed with intoxicating drinks, perpetrated deeds which fiends could scarcely exceed. Tortosa, Tarragona, Mauresa, Saguntum, Valencia, Badajoz, Ciudad Rodrigo, and a score of other places, testified to the bravery, often the tiger-like ferocity, of the contending parties, and to the misery which man can inflict upon his brother-man.