Was not their hope in this--twofold hope; from the weakness of him who had thus counteracted himself; and a hope, still more cheering, from the strength of those who had been disburthened of a cleaving curse by an ordinance of Providence--employing their most wilful and determined enemy to perform for them the best service which man could perform? The work of liberation was virtually accomplished--we might almost say, established. The interests of the people were taken from a government whose sole aim it had been to prop up the last remains of its own decrepitude by betraying those whom it was its duty to protect;--withdrawn from such hands, to be committed to those of the people; at a time when the double affliction which Spain had endured, and the return of affliction with which she was threatened, made it impossible that the emancipated Nation could abuse its new-born strength to any substantial injury to itself.--Infinitely less favourable to all good ends was the condition of the French people when, a few years past, a Revolution made them, for a season, their own masters,--rid them from the incumbrance of superannuated institutions--the galling pressure of so many unjust laws--and the tyranny of bad customs. The Spaniards became their own masters: and the blessing lay in this, that they became so at once: there had not been time for them to court their power: their fancies had not been fed to wantonness by ever-changing temptations: obstinacy in them would not have leagued itself with trivial opinions: petty hatreds had not accumulated to masses of strength conflicting perniciously with each other: vanity with them had not found leisure to flourish--nor presumption: they did not assume their authority,--it was given them,--it was thrust upon them. The perfidy and tyranny of Napoleon '_compelled_,' says the Junta of Seville in words before quoted, 'the whole Nation to take up arms and _to choose itself a form of government_; and, in the difficulties and dangers into which the French had plunged it, all--or nearly all--the provinces, as it were _by the inspiration of Heaven_ and _in a manner little short of miraculous_, created Supreme Juntas--delivered themselves up to their guidance--and placed in their hands the rights and the ultimate fate of Spain.'--Governments, thus newly issued from the people, could not but act from the spirit of the people--be organs of their life. And, though misery (by which I mean pain of mind not without some consciousness of guilt) naturally disorders the understanding and perverts the moral sense,--calamity (that is suffering, individual or national, when it has been inflicted by one to whom no injury has been done or provocation given) ever brings wisdom along with it; and, whatever outward agitation it may cause, does inwardly rectify the will.