188 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1809. 



the energies of the country. They 

 were greatly deficient in ability or 

 talents, and equally so in pure pa- 

 triotism, or a desire topromotenot 

 only the political independence, 

 but the general interests of all 

 classes of the Spanish nation. They 

 were more desirous of acquiring 

 places and power or patronage for 

 themselves, than of effecting any 

 good in which the people might 

 participate. They seemed in fact to 

 be more afraid of riots, and even 

 of ideas and designs of innovation 

 among the mass of the people 

 than of the enemy. For defence 

 against the latter they relied prin- 

 cipally on the exertions of Great 

 Britaia and in the progress of time 

 and events, those of Austria, than 

 their own plans. Yet they thought 

 they did great things, by issuing 

 from time to time the most ar- 

 dent proclamations for rouzing 

 the energies of the people; as if 

 popular or individual energies 

 could have tended to any thing 

 but tumult, disorder, and distrac- 

 tion, if not harmonized by go- 

 vernment, that is, by themselves, 

 into a system of action. And 

 above all things, they appeared to 

 besolicitous to suppress what they 

 considered as the most immediate 

 danger to their own power, the 

 spirit of liberty among the people 

 by the suppression of newspapers 

 and other productionsof the press, 

 and to keep them in the same 

 state of ignorance and slavery 

 under the junta, as they were 

 under their late monarchs. 



The want of activity and 

 ability on the part of the junta 

 and of timely concert and co- 

 operation on the part of that 

 council and its allies, had been 



fatally experienced in the case of 

 Sir John Moore. The English 

 ministry were not insensible how 

 necessary it was both to arouse - 

 the exertions of the Spaniards, 

 and to give and urge, as far as 

 could be done without offence, 

 advice for their proper direction ; 

 and for this purpose they made 

 choice of the marquis of Wel- 

 lesley, than whom a fitter per- 

 son indeed could not have been 

 chosen in the British empire. But 

 this was not done in time. The 

 appointment of the marquis as am- 

 bassador extraordinary to Spain 

 did not appear in the London Ga- 

 zette until the first of May, nor 

 did he arrive at Cadiz till the 31st 

 of July ; two months after the 

 British general had taken the field, 

 and exactly at the moment when 

 that general, for whom the British 

 ambassador had come to concert 

 a plan of operations, victorious in 

 battle, but defeated in the war, 

 began his retreat on Portugal. 

 This long delay between the ap- 

 pointment of the marquis and his 

 arrival in Spain, did not arise from 

 any inclemency of weather or any 

 other accident by land or sea; 

 for he arrived at Cadiz on the 

 seventh day from his embarkation 

 at Portsmouth. It was occasioned 

 by the private contentions of mi- 

 nisters about the great offices of 

 state, to one of the most impor- 

 tant of which the marquis had an 

 eye, and which he afterward ob- 

 tained. But though the marquis 

 of Wellesley did not arrive in Spain 

 in time for influencing the issue of 

 the campaign of 1809, which, 

 though there were some battles 

 after that of Talavera, was in 

 fact decided by the retreat of the 



British 



