I was unwilling to interrupt the reader upon a slight occasion; but I cannot refrain from adding here a word or two by way of comment.—­I have said at page 71, speaking of Junot’s army, that the British were to encounter the same men, &c.  Sir Arthur Wellesley, before the Board of Inquiry, disallowed this supposition; affirming that Junot’s army had not then reached Spain, nor could be there for some time.  Grant this:  was it not stipulated that a messenger should be sent off, immediately after the conclusion of the treaty, to Buonaparte—­apprising him of its terms, and when he might expect his troops; and would not this enable him to hurry forward forces to the Spanish frontiers, and to bring them into action—­knowing that these troops of Junot’s would be ready to support him?  What did it matter whether the British were again to measure swords with these identical men; whether these men were even to appear again upon Spanish ground?  It was enough, that, if these did not, others would—­who could not have been brought to that service, but that these had been released and were doing elsewhere some other service for their master; enough that every thing was provided by the British to land them as near the Spanish frontier (and as speedily) as they could desire.

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D (page 108).

This attempt, the reader will recollect, is not new to our country;—­it was accomplished, at one aera of our history, in that memorable act of an English Parliament, which made it unlawful for any man to ask his neighbour to join him in a petition for redress of grievances:  and which thus denied the people ’the benefit of tears and prayers to their own infamous deputies!’ For the deplorable state of England and Scotland at that time—­see the annals of Charles the Second, and his successor.—­We must not forget however that to this state of things, as the cause of those measures which the nation afterwards resorted to, we are originally indebted for the blessing of the Bill of Rights.

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E (page 159).

I allude here more especially to an address presented to Buonaparte (October 27th, 1808) by the deputies of the new departments of the kingdom of Italy; from which address, as given in the English journals, the following passages are extracted:—­

’In the necessity, in which you are to overthrow—­to destroy—­to disperse your enemies as the wind dissipates the dust, you are not an exterminating angel; but you are the being that extends his thoughts—­that measures the face of the earth—­to re-establish universal happiness upon better and surer bases.’

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     ’We are the interpreters of a million of souls at the extremity of
     your kingdom of Italy.’—­’Deign, Sovereign Master of all Things,
     to hear (as we doubt not you will)’ &c.