It was in the midst of the operations of the Spanish war, which Napoleon directed in person, that he learned Austria had for the first time raised the landwehr.  I obtained some very curious documents respecting the armaments of Austria from the Editor of the Hamburg ‘Correspondent’.  This paper, the circulation of which amounted to not less than 60,000, paid considerable sums to persons in different parts of Europe who were able and willing to furnish the current news.  The Correspondent paid 6000 francs a year to a clerk in the war department at Vienna, and it was this clerk who supplied the intelligence that Austria was preparing for war, and that orders had been issued in all directions to collect and put in motion all the resources of that powerful monarchy.  I communicated these particulars to the French Government, and suggested the necessity of increased vigilance and measures of defence.  Preceding aggressions, especially that of 1805, were not to be forgotten.  Similar information probably reached the French Government from many quarters.  Be that as it may, the Emperor consigned the military operations in Spain to his generals, and departed for Paris, where he arrived at the end of January 1809.  He had been in Spain only since the beginning of November 1808,’ and his presence there had again rendered our banners victorious.  But though the insurgent troops were beaten the inhabitants showed themselves more and more unfavourable to Joseph’s cause; and it did not appear very probable that he could ever seat himself tranquilly on the throne of Madrid.

—­[The successes obtained by Napoleon during his stay of about three months in Spain were certainly very great, and mainly resulted from his own masterly genius and lightning-like rapidity.  The Spanish armies, as yet unsupported by British troops, were defeated at Gomenal, Espinosa, Reynosa, Tudela, and at the pass of the Somo sierra Mountains, and at an early hour of the morning of the 4th December Madrid surrendered.  On the 20th of December Bonaparte marched with far superior forces against the unfortunate Sir John Moore, who had been sent to advance into Spain both by the wrong route and at a wrong time.  On the 29th, from the heights of Benevento, his eyes were delighted by seeing the English in full retreat.  But a blow struck him from another quarter, and leaving Soult to follow up Moore he took the road to Paris.]—­

The Emperor Francis, notwithstanding his counsellors, hesitated about taking the first step; but at length, yielding to the solicitations of England and the secret intrigues of Russia, and, above all, seduced by the subsidies of Great Britain, Austria declared hostilities, not at first against France, but against her allies of the Confederation of the Rhine.  On the 9th of April Prince Charles, who was appointed commander-in-chief of the Austrian troops, addressed a note to the commander-in-chief of the French army in Bavaria, apprising him of the declaration of war.