Answers innumerable might be given to these arguments--and that I was far from allowing them great weight on my mind I can clearly prove, by my presence in the capital of Andalusia. But I cannot endure that blind, headlong, unhesitating patriotism which I find uniformly displayed in this town and province--a loud popular cry which every individual is afraid not to swell with his whole might, and which, though it may express the feeling of a great majority, does not deserve the name of public _opinion_, any more than the unanimous acclamations at an _Auto da Fé_. Dissent is the great characteristic of liberty. I am, indeed, as willing as any man to give my feeble aid to the Spanish cause against France; but I feel indignant at the compulsion which deprives my views of all individuality--which, from the national habits of implicit submission to whatever happens to be established, forces every man into the crowd, so that nothing can save him but running for his life with the foremost. I repeat, that I need not an apology for my political conduct on this momentous occasion. Feelings which will, indeed, bear examination, but on which I ground no merit, have brought me to the more honourable side of the question. Yet I must plead for candour and humanity in favour of such as, from the influence of the views I have touched upon, and in some cases, with a more upright intention than many an outrageous patriot, have opposed the beginning of hostilities. The name of traitor, with which they have been indiscriminately branded, must cut them off irrevocably from our party; and even the fear of being too late to avoid suspicion among us, may oblige those whom chance or the watchfulness of the Madrid Government, has hitherto prevented from joining us, to make at last, common interest with the French. To escape from Madrid, after the news of the insurrection of Andalusia had reached that capital, was, in fact, an undertaking of considerable difficulty, and, as I have found by experience, attended with no small danger. Dupont’s army had occupied the usual road through La Mancha, and no carriages were allowed by the French to set off for the refractory provinces. My decision, however, to join my countrymen, had been formed as soon as they took up arms against the French; and though my friend shuddered at the idea of casting his lot with the defenders of the Pope and the Inquisition, he soon forgot all personal interest, in a question between a foreign army and his own natural friends.