. Nothing but good would
result from such conduct. The well-disposed would rely more confidently
upon a Government which thus proved that it had confidence in itself.
Men, less zealous, and of less comprehensive minds, would soon be
reconciled to measures from which at first they had revolted; the remiss
and selfish might be made servants of their country, through the
influence of the same passions which had prepared them to become slaves
of the Invader; or, should this not be possible, they would appear in
their true character, and the main danger to be feared from them would
be prevented. The course which ought to be pursued is plain. Either the
cause has lost the people's love, or it has not. If it has, let the
struggle be abandoned. If it has not, let the Government, in whatever
shape it may exist, and however great may be the calamities under which
it may labour, act up to the full stretch of its rights, nor doubt that
the people will support it to the full extent of their power. If,
therefore, the Chiefs of the Spanish Nation be men of wise and strong
minds, they will bring both the forces, those of the Government and of
the people, into their utmost action; tempering them in such a manner
that neither shall impair or obstruct the other, but rather that they
shall strengthen and direct each other for all salutary purposes.

Thirdly, it was never dreamt by any thinking man, that the Spaniards
were to succeed by their army; if by their _army_ be meant any thing but
the people. The whole people is their army, and their true army is the
people, and nothing else. Five hundred men, who in the early part of the
struggle had been taken prisoners,--I think it was at the battle of Rio
Seco--were returned by the French General under the title of Galician
Peasants, a title, which the Spanish General, Blake, rejected and
maintained in his answer that they were genuine soldiers, meaning
regular troops. The conduct of the Frenchman was politic, and that of
the Spaniard would have been more in the spirit of his cause and of his
own noble character, if, waiving on this occasion the plea of any
subordinate and formal commission which these men might have, he had
rested their claim to the title of soldiers on its true ground, and
affirmed that this was no other than the rights of the cause which they
maintained, by which rights every Spaniard was a soldier who could
appear in arms, and was authorized to take that place, in which it w