422 PENINSULAR WAR [1808. 



the Junta have been too sanguine and supine, that 

 they have not been half revolutionary enough, and 

 that the moment is irrevocably gone when the 

 people might have been made to save the country. 

 Allen's last letter to Sydney Smith admits that the 

 Junta has acted with shameful remissness, and that it 

 childishly thought Joseph's flight was the end of the 

 business. 



" But our ministers are more to blame than even 

 I had thought, for they squandered away the golden 

 opportunity, which now appears to have been so 

 short and so irretrievable. 



" The ministry give all up for lost, and seem re- 

 solved to abandon the nonsensical plan of a stand 

 in Portugal. A stand in Andalusia may still be at- 

 tempted. William Harrison (of the Treasury) abuses 

 them loudly, and declaims against them for blind- 

 folding the country, and the country for liking to be 

 blindfolded. He allows all our blunders in the exe- 

 cution as well as the plan, and cries out for a Span- 

 ish revolution as the only salvation of Europe. Such 

 rebellious talk in the Treasury is ominous ; in truth 

 Ave see at present an odd spectacle the Government 

 deserted by all, even its own followers and friends, 

 \vho only rest its case on the unpopularity of their 

 adversaries. I trust that the ensuing session will 

 remove this only prop of the ministry. You have 

 the game in your own hands, and I doubt not that 

 both the constituent parts of the great body which you 

 lead, will agree in such a view of the subject as may 



