like the soldiers of a purely national army.  On the other hand, the military genius at his command has never been surpassed in any age or country:  his officers were accustomed to victory, and his own reputation exerted a magical influence over both friends and foes.  The pecuniary resources of the vast empire were great, and they were managed so skilfully by Buonaparte that the supplies were raised within the year, and in a metallic currency.

His ancient enemy was omnipotent at sea; and if the character of her armies stood at the moment much lower both at home and abroad than it ever deserved to do, this was a mistake which one well-organised campaign was likely to extinguish.  England possessed at this time a population of twenty millions, united in the spirit of loyalty and regarding the Spanish cause as just, noble and sacred:  a standing army of 200,000 of the best troops in the world, an immense recruiting establishment, and a system of militia which enabled her to swell her muster to any limit.  Her colonies occupied a large share of this army; but there remained at her immediate command a force at least equal to that with which Buonaparte had conquered Austria and Prussia.  Her credit was unbounded; and her commerce not only supplied means of information altogether unrivalled, but secured for her the secret goodwill of whole classes in every country.  England possessed Generals worthy to cope with the best of Buonaparte’s Marshals, and in the hour of need discovered that she possessed one capable of confronting, and of conquering, the great Emperor himself.  Finally, she possessed the incalculable advantage of warring on the side of justice and freedom, against an usurper, whose crimes were on the same gigantic scale with his genius.  The remembrance of their leader’s perfidy weighed heavily on the moral strength of the French army throughout the approaching contest; while a proud conviction that their cause was the right sustained the hearts of the English.

Upon them, ultimately, the chief burden and the chief glory of the war devolved:  yet justice will ever be done to the virtuous exertions of their allies of the Peninsula.  At the moment when the insurrection occurred, 20,000 Spanish troops were in Portugal under the orders of Junot; 15,000 more, under the Marquis de Romana, were serving Napoleon in Holstein.  There remained 40,000 Spanish regulars, 11,000 Swiss, and 30,000 militia; but of the best of these the discipline, when compared with French or English armies, was contemptible.  The nobility, to whose order the chief officers belonged, were divided in their sentiments—­perhaps the greater number inclined to the interests of Joseph.  Above all, the troops were scattered, in small sections, over the face of the whole country, and there was no probability that any one regular army should be able to muster so strong as to withstand the efforts of a mere fragment of the French force already established within the kingdom.  The fleets of Spain had been