The reader of the Duke's despatches will glean much of his character from the letters written from time to time to these persons; and, scattered through the extracts which form a part of this volume, will be found characters of both Spaniards and Portuguese, (that is to say in the civil service) that are not very flattering to the national vanity. Well may he say, in a letter to Mr. Villiers on the 25th of May 1811, "No man can appreciate better than yourself the difficulties with which I have had to contend; but I believe you are not aware of all of them. I persevered in the system which I thought best, notwithstanding that it was the opinion of every British officer in the country that I ought to embark the army; while, on the other hand, the Portuguese civil authorities contended that the war ought to be maintained on the frontier, for which they wanted not only physical force, but the means of providing for the force which they could produce in the field. I believe that nothing but _something worse than firmness could have carried me through_ the nine months' discussion with these contending opinions. To this add that people in England were changing their opinions almost with the wind, and you will see that I had not much to look to, excepting myself." Nothing could be more ignoble than the conduct of the people of Lisbon as to the billeting of the very soldiers who had saved them from the enemy. On one occasion the Duke writes to order his wine, &c. to be removed from the house of a Signor Bandeira, and to have a house taken for him, "in order," he says, "to mortify the people of Lisbon a little as to their conduct about billets. I am slaving like a negro for them: I have saved the people, in Lisbon particularly, from the enemy, and I take nothing from them, while they continually torment me with their frivolous complaints on subjects on which they ought to have no feeling. * * I shall not be sorry if the government and principal people of Lisbon know the reason why I take this house; viz., that I will not lay myself under obligation to any of them." Strong language this, from a man of the Duke's impassible temperament. But unfortunately there was too much reason for this, and indeed, for much more animadversion on more serious subjects, as regards many of the chief men of the Peninsula. Nor were these the only annoyances he had to submit to. In the early part of his service in the Peninsula, before he had by his brilliant deeds utterly silenced for the present and the future the cavillings of the envious, he was subjected to repeated attacks in Parliament, to predictions of failure--to everything in short that was calculated to dispirit him and his army. The government, too, seemed hardly to have "backed him up" as they might have done, either with respect to the force at his command, or their approval of his plans.