The government and generals of Spain, at the period of the battle of Talavera, were more than usually tardy and feeble in all their measures. After the battle, Sir A. Wellesley was disabled from pursuing his advantages, and (when he was obliged, by General Cuesta’s extraordinary conduct, to retreat,) his army was almost exhausted, for want of those means of transport which the Spanish authorities had liberally promised him, and which, in fact, they could have furnished in sufficient abundance. While the guns taken at Talavera were in the possession of the English, the Spanish General could not be induced to afford the means of drawing them; but when, on this account, the English were forced to abandon them, the Spaniards easily found cattle for their conveyance. So, when the British army laid down its ammunition for want of means to carry it, the Spaniards found no difficulty in bringing it away for their own use[2]. The correspondence between Sir A. Wellesley, Lord Wellesley, and M. de Garay, in 1809, afford many similar proofs of the _coldness_ of the government of our allies; though it is now clear that it did not exist (as Sir J. Moore seems to have supposed) in all classes: the lower orders, and not a few of the higher, have all along exhibited irrefragable proofs of the warmest enthusiasm, and the most patriotic devotion. There have been, and there still are, a great number of persons in Spain, who, to say the best of them, are inclined to _temporize_; and too many of this class have found means to influence the national operations.--In spite of them, however, the spirit of the people may save their country; and I shall not despair, however ‘Princes and Lords may flourish or may fade,’ of the cause of Spain, till ‘the bold peasantry, its country’s pride,’ shall have passed under the usurper’s yoke. St. VIII. l. 14.--_The agony of fame._ This expression, and another in the last line of the XXVIIth Stanza, are borrowed from a splendid passage of Mr. Burke’s, in which, speaking of Lord Keppel, he says, ‘With what zeal and anxious affection I attended him through his trial, _that agony of his glory_--with what prodigality I _squandered_ myself in courting almost every sort of enmity for his sake,’ &c. _Burke’s Works_, v. 8, p. 54. St. VIII. l. 21.--_Factious spite._ The calumniators of Sir Arthur Wellesley have been so industrious in publishing their malignity, that it is unnecessary to recal to the public observation any particular instance of it. In reading their base absurdities, one cannot but recollect the expression of Marshal Villars (I think it was) to Lewis XIV. ‘Sire, je vais combattre vos ennemis, & je vous laisse au milieu des miens.’--Sir Arthur, much worse treated than M. de Villars, says nothing about it, but beats his country’s enemies, and despises his own. St. XIV. l. 1.--_But, tyrant, thou._