Author 
 
 Title 
 
 Imprint. 
 
 16— »7372-2 o 
 
THE 
 
 ANTI-GALLICAN SENTINEL, 
 
 BY 
 
 DON ANTONIO CAPMANY. 
 
 
 
 BEBICATEB TO ALL NATIONS* 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH, 
 
 BY A GENTLEMAN OF THIS CITY. 
 
 NEW-YORK; 
 PRINTED FOR EZRA SARGEANT 
 
 1809. 
 
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 AD VEB. TISEMENT. 
 
 This valuable little work was originally written 
 in Spanish, by a worthy patriot, Don Antonio cle 
 Capmany, to awaken the energies of his country- 
 men, and to unite them in the glorious cause of 
 their independence against the tyrannical usurper of 
 Europe. It was written for Spaniards, but it well de- 
 serves the particular attention of all nations, as it is 
 truly a Sentinel, who, watching their liberties, now 
 sounds the alarm on the approach of the enemy, 
 and points out to them the deceitful arts he makes 
 use of, in his attack against their political existence, 
 and the direful consequences of trusting to his words 
 and promises. Americans ! read it with attention, 
 and learn that your security depends more on a 
 perfect knowledge of his wily politics, and a firm 
 determination not to be deceived by them, than oti 
 the distance which separates you, at present from his 
 infernal grasp. 
 
THE 
 
 ANTI-GALLICAN SENTINEL. 
 
 This is not the time for a man who can brandish 
 his lance, to stand inactive with folded arms ; 
 nor for him who possesses the gift of speech, to 
 remain mute, when by using it, he can both in- 
 struct and animate his countrymen. Our pre- 
 cious liberty is threatened, our country is in danger, 
 and calls aloud for defence. Let us all from this 
 day be soldiers ; some with the sword and others 
 with the pen. The day has come, when the 
 th robbings of our hearts Gan be distinctly heard. 
 Happy am I that I have arrived at that time of 
 life, in which every good man and every virtu- 
 ous citizen, uninfluenced by the hope of fortune 
 and unshaken by the fear of death, should re- 
 main constant to himself, and faithful to his con- 
 science. Of me, what would my country say ? 
 What would my silence augur in the minds of 
 good men and of bad men ? That I should now 
 change ! That I, who, for so many years, have 
 never taken up my pen nor employed my zeal 
 but for the honor and glory of my country, that 
 I should now lie torpid, without a sign of life or 
 animation ! and this at the very moment, when 
 
6 
 
 the enemy of Europe threatens us with slavery, 
 and revolves in his mind our destruction ! To 
 arms, to arms, and may the blessing of God await 
 the noble design of so holy an undertaking. 
 
 Considering the variety of publications, in 
 prose and verse, issued both within and without 
 the court, since the retreat of the French troops, 
 what title could I give to my work, without re- 
 peating some of those already used at this epoch, 
 when the public mind was alleviating itself from 
 the burden which oppressed it ? Recollecting, 
 however, that among our pamphlets, there is one 
 entitled, Sentinel against Jews, I thought it a 
 proper title to apply to that against the French- 
 men of the present day, whose religious senti- 
 ments are worse than those of the Jews, and their 
 actions more cruel than savages, from the time 
 that they have permitted the impious and atroci- 
 ous Napoleon to conduct their regeneration. 
 Prostration at his vile feet, is by them esteemed 
 honor, happiness, and glory ; and gratifies in no 
 small degree their vanity and national pride. At 
 liis feet they adore his execrable name with fear 
 and trembling, and kiss with the most profound 
 respect, the imperial chains, with which his im- 
 perial majesty has gradually bound them into an 
 imperial fraternity. Their late republic and for- 
 mer Christianity he has banished from their 
 minds, and formed the great family of select 
 slaves, who at present compose the French em- 
 pire. Their august Emperor has remained free ; 
 the abortive offspring of a smaii island, the be- 
 nign disposition of whose inhabitants has become 
 
a proverb : they give no pardon until enclosed in 
 the arms of death. 
 
 Although the office of Sentinel may now ap- 
 pear unseasonable among my countrymen, who 
 by fatal experience have been undeceived with 
 respect to the depraved intentions of the atrocious 
 Corsican, who under the guise of an intimate al- 
 ly, had drained completely our resources, and 
 under that of protector, now wished to deprive 
 us of what little still remained to us ; it will not 
 be useless, nor untimely to prepare ourselves 
 against any fear or distrust, which the power of 
 his arms, the fame of his past victories, and the 
 decrees of his vengeance, might infuse into pusil- 
 lanimous minds. It will not be improper to ex- 
 clude every hope of peace or amnesty, proposed 
 by his perfidious policy, and supported by his in- 
 timate counsellors, whose iniquity equals that of 
 their master; for never has H. I. and R. majesty 
 been known to err in the choice of his ministers, 
 nor in that of his faithful generals, who execute 
 his odious precepts not only as good servants, but 
 as faithful slaves. 
 
 I well foresaw, some years back, upon consi- 
 deration of the system pursued by this fortunate 
 usurper, in the course of his conquests, that Spain 
 would not be the last object of his insatiable am- 
 bition ; that sooner or later he would invade her, 
 and would attempt this as soon as he had put to 
 death the other crowned heads, in order to invest 
 himself with the title of "King of kings ;" a 
 name assumed by the vain and proud Tygranes, 
 when dazzled by the resplendency of his own 
 
power. But I confess that I was mistaken, and 
 that I lost the game, although with a good hand, 
 by supposing that he would suspend his invasion, 
 through the fear of losing the dominions of the 
 two Americas ; particularly as that would stop 
 up the channel, through which, the gold and sil- 
 ver of the new world could alone flow into 
 France, during a general peace ; and through 
 which, its rich productions could be sent in return 
 for European manufactures. 
 
 But at length his natural impatience, his mis- 
 taken confidence, and the ignorance of his wise 
 counsellors, who breathe no other air than that 
 which he permits them, hurried him on to the 
 consummation of his wicked project, which, as 
 soon as he was freed from enemies on the conti- 
 nent, he hastened ; after having enjoyed, as 
 if it had been an estate of his own, the resources 
 of our treasury, under the sanction of that fatal 
 and disgraceful treaty of perpetual alliance, which 
 our ignorant and timid Godoy, concluded and 
 signed with the mercenary Directory, many years 
 previous to his turning traitor to his country. 
 The evils, misfortunes, and calamities which we 
 have and do still suffer, are dated from that im- 
 prudent and ignominious act, the prelude to the 
 wisdom and diplomatic sagacity of the bright 
 Prince of Peace. The helm of this great mon- 
 archy was committed to his inexperienced and 
 unpropitious hand ; and there it remained until 
 he himself wrecked both vessel and crew, and at 
 the same time sunk them to the bottom. 
 
 By that violent treaty, Spain remained for ever 
 
the slave and tributary of France. From that 
 time, this monarchy has been politically sub- 
 dued, and has ever 'been treated as such by the 
 government of France. Her ambassadors flat- 
 tered us upon their first arrival, next threatened 
 us, and finally took their leave ; after being loaded 
 with treasures and with presents, and rich in the 
 knowledge of our miseries, created by the igno- 
 rance and weakness of our government. This 
 was deposited with absolute power in the torpid 
 arms of that dissolute body guard, who only 
 opened them day or night, to enfold again the 
 charms of beauty prostituted to the lust of a 
 christened Ottoman, who sold, for such costly 
 sacrifices, the favors, the honors, and the offices 
 of the state. As the Corsican, whilst consul, and 
 afterwards, whilst emperor, was unwilling that 
 one alone should imlk the cow, he changed his 
 messengers very frequently, sending others with 
 new instructions and more insolent pretensions. 
 Thus he divided among many the fruits of his 
 interested missions, and each one carried home 
 to his beloved France, a part of the substance of 
 the despised Spain. 
 
 In consequence of that infamous treaty, we 
 have twice been obliged to make war with Eng- 
 land, suffering at each time incalculable losses 
 in our commerce, our navigation, our navy, and 
 our manufactures : interrupting our communica- 
 tion with the Indies, the patrimony of the Span- 
 ish empire, and separating the brothers of this 
 Peninsula from those of that hemisphere, after 
 
 B 
 
10 
 
 having inherited for three centuries the language, 
 the laws, the honor, and the religion of Spain. 
 
 By that infamous treaty we had to arm and 
 maintain auxiliary squadrons, to lose them in 
 every engagement, in which, by the orders of the 
 most wise Napoleon, we were to combine our 
 maritime forces with the French, or to protect his 
 extravagant naval projects, in which fortune was 
 less propitious to him than on land. His treach- 
 ery could there have no effect. To assist our 
 intimate friend and ally, our navy has in six 
 years been destroyed with the loss of eight three 
 deckers, twenty-six ships of the line, and as ma- 
 ny frigates ; our arsenals have been annihilated, 
 millions sacrificed, and the lives of upwards of 
 20,000 sailors thrown away. We shudder at the 
 very name of Trafalgar ; the ignorance, petu- 
 lance, and impatience of the French, supported 
 by the inconsiderate and irresolute Godoy, forced 
 us to engage in that fatal action. Bonaparte in- 
 cessantly pressed the departure of the great expe- 
 dition ; not to fight, but to carry our vessels to 
 Toulon : from the very moment they left Cadiz 
 they no longer belonged to Spain, nor were they 
 to return thither. Oh ! that the sea could swal- 
 low them, or fire consume them, if so many 
 thousands of souls could be saved, rather than 
 that our forces should augment those of the ty- 
 rant, who was afterwards to attempt our subju- 
 gation. In short, if it were possible for us to shut 
 our hearts against grief and compassion, we gain- 
 ed on that fatal day, a victory over Napoleon 
 who could not succeed in his perfidious plan of 
 
11 
 
 getting quiet possession of our vessels, of receiv- 
 ing our crews safe within his ports, and defray- 
 ing with our treasury the immense expenses of 
 maintaining them. This was a fresh leech, suck- 
 ing up the blood of our nation and which was to 
 fatten the Great Bandit of Europe. 
 
 In consequence of that infamous treaty, Na- 
 poleon extorted from us in money the subsidy of 
 troops, since at the annual rate of twelve millions 
 of dollars, he found it more to his advantage to 
 be paid in money than in provisions. He de- 
 manded of us those remittances, with a tone of 
 authority, like that of sovereigns towards their 
 subjects, and threatened us with conquest upon 
 the least delay. His pride, however, increasing 
 with his power, and our timidity with our weak- 
 ness, he took' from us our money, provisions, and 
 squadrons. 
 
 In consequence of that shameful treaty, Godoy 
 attacked on the one side by the British govern- 
 ment, who would not permit the dragon of 
 France to fatten upon our millions, and threaten- 
 ed on the other side with the anger of that dra- 
 gon in case of disobedience ; instead of denying 
 him with firmness, and calling to arms one hun- 
 dred thousand Spaniards, none of whom would 
 have been carried to the north, as they afterwards 
 were, and relying upon the forces of England 
 who would have made common cause with us ; 
 he preferred quarrelling with the English cabi- 
 net, and even proceeded so far as to have boasted 
 to the minister, who then resided in Madrid, that 
 he would send to Napoleon sixty thousand Spa- 
 
niards to assist in the invasion of England. What 
 incalculable misfortunes this first diplomatic con- 
 tention showered upon us ! In the first three 
 months of the war, the nation lost in vessels, car- 
 goes, and money, upwards of forty millions of 
 dollars. 
 
 But I will be told, how is it, that Godoy, who 
 was the instrument of our ruin, even before he 
 became a traitor ; who was provoking war, and 
 could not but see that an open rupture was at 
 hand ; who could not but perceive the danger of 
 war on the ocean, how is it that he did not send 
 advices in time and with secrecy, to America to 
 the Canaries to meet our return ships, with or- 
 ders to suspend all navigation and avoid so much 
 ruin ? But what could we expect from that idiot, 
 who took no counsel but from his own ignorance, 
 and who in three quarters of an hour, half stand- 
 ing, half sitting, his segar in one hand, and 
 pinching some beauty, to whom he was devoted, 
 with the other, dispatched the immensity of bu- 
 siness of the two worlds, some by word of mouth 
 like an oracle, and some by short and obscure 
 decrees like a tyrant ? 
 
 A few days before this precipitated rupture 
 with the British minister, which degenerated into 
 personal disputes and insults, this favorite, had he 
 not been destitute of sense, and devoid of judg- 
 ment, could have delivered Spain for ever from 
 the heavy yoke of that ruinous treaty, which he 
 himself permitted our necks to receive from the 
 French government, as much our friends then as 
 they are now. See with what uprightness of in- 
 
IS 
 
 tention their articles are worded, as laconic as 
 they are ambiguous, the better to conceal the 
 malice and deceit of their contexture, under a 
 studied brevity and apparent simplicity of clauses, 
 drawn out and dictated at Paris, the same as our 
 late wise constitution : without having given us 
 in either case any other trouble than that of 
 translating and signing them. Oh France ! 
 when Pagan, when Christian, when a monarchy, 
 when a republic, both enlightened and barbarous; 
 both free and enslaved, thou art always the sys- 
 tematic enemy of Spain ! And you Spaniards, ever 
 honorable and noble, you are always deceived ! 
 
 Magnanimous sons of this noble land, the 
 hour has now arrived when you must be regene- 
 rated by your own hands, and not by those of the 
 impious despot, who came here to rob you of 
 your liberty. The hour has now arrived, when 
 you can shake off the burden which crushed you, 
 by making war upon the great Napoleon : great 
 in pride, great in perfidy, and great in cruelty. 
 War alone could break the base and galling 
 chains which held you bound. 
 
 By war we shall avenge at once, the many in- 
 sults we have suffered for twenty years in suc- 
 cession, and the evils which had depressed us, 
 and nearly sunk our nation. Napoleon saw that 
 this fate was nigh at hand, as he himself informs 
 lis in his proclamations, that we might give to 
 him thanks for his bad news, and his consolation. 
 In fact, nobody could know our misery better 
 than he who had caused it: thus let him keep 
 for his own subjects the remedy which his innate 
 
14 
 
 beneficence, and notorious compassion had pre- 
 pared for us. How many of us would he alrea- 
 dy have destined to clean the boots of his brutal 
 cuirassiers, or light the pipes of his impure and 
 insolent Mamelukes. 
 
 War will open to us our ports, which have 
 been shut for three years, in obedience to the 
 barbarous and impolitic decrees of the enraged 
 Napoleon, who had turned into a gloomy desert, 
 all the harbors and sea-coasts of Europe, in order 
 to blockade and starve England, according to his 
 boasting decree ; whilst he left every sea both 
 known and unknown, open to her commerce and 
 subject to her power. How profound, how wise 
 a politician ! How nice a calculator : to take 
 out both his eyes, that he might deprive his ene- 
 my of one ! Lest the enemy should enter into his 
 house, shut up the doors, and remain locked in, 
 without being able to receive succor from without, 
 though deprived of subsistence himself, his friends 
 and allies. To this dreadful extreme he had redu- 
 ced us, without being our sovereign. That upon 
 the coasts of usurped France, he should order the 
 ports and gates to be shut, in the same manner as 
 he had already ordered the obedient slaves of his 
 despotism to shut their mouths ; this was no more 
 than using his supreme authority, derived from 
 their consent. But to exercise it in Spain, oblig- 
 ing us by a hasty decree dated at Varsovia, to 
 perish through hunger and misery, without any 
 communication, either directly or indirectly, 
 with any of the other nations of the world, re- 
 quires an uncommon degree of insolence and 
 
15 
 
 pride, in him to attempt it, and implies in our 
 miserable government, dishonored by the insen- 
 sibility of Charles, and the inability of his proud- 
 purled favorite, an humiliation and a degree of 
 patience, still more uncommon, to tolerate and 
 obey it. 
 
 War will renew to us our former commerce 
 and intercourse with England, joyous to be re- 
 conciled with us, knowing as she does, that we, 
 having become the sport of the caprice of a 
 monster, took no part either in the war, or in 
 peace: desirous also of receiving our produce 
 from either hemisphere, our productions of na- 
 ture and art our wool, our friendship, and our 
 frank and generous treatment, so congenial to their 
 own. We, relying on their power and assistance, 
 and she, upon our valor, constancy, and union, 
 we will form a natural and strong alliance, fo- 
 ment a common vengeance, and swear an eter- 
 nal hatred against the common enemy of the 
 continent, against that debased and dishonored 
 France, enslaved, impoverished, and wasted, by 
 an adventurous tyrant, who has converted her in- 
 habitants into armed robbers, the natural enemies 
 of mankind. 
 
 War will restore to us our navigation, refit our 
 shattered navy, repair our declining manufac- 
 tures, enliven our decayed industry, and restore 
 to us our traffic by sea and land. An end will 
 be put to the smuggling through the Pyrenees, 
 by converting our Peninsula into an island : we 
 will no longer see so many pale-faced mantua- 
 makers and pedlars, who infected our cities, like 
 
10 
 
 swarms of locusts. Our dear neighbors will no 
 longer import to us any of their superb manufac- 
 tures, no longer run in tobacco in their cannons 
 and howitzers, in the covered waggons and among 
 the equipage of their indecent generals, smug- 
 glers upon their entrance, and robbers upon their 
 departure from Spain. 
 
 This war, terrible but salutary, the instrument 
 of our eternal prosperity, will prevent the further 
 innoculation of their impious philosophy among 
 us, and stop the further progress of the corruption 
 of morals, exhaling from their poisonous books, 
 which have done so much damage to our youth, 
 transforming both men and women into mimics 
 of their language, their ideas, and their fictitious, 
 theatrical morality ; for among Frenchmen every- 
 thing is a farce, beginning with virtue. That set 
 of people whom we call wise and enlightened, 
 were all natives of Spain, but the hearts of a 
 great part of them were in France, that is, ena- 
 mored with their books, they had married their 
 authors ; and how could that marriage produce 
 defenders of their countries which they never 
 loved ? We will treat as friends with the Moors, 
 who neither hate nor despise us, and preserve to 
 us inviolate, a confidence unknown to the infa- 
 mous government of France. They will supply 
 us with wheat, poultry, and cattle, if we want it, 
 and furnish us with horses for war. They will 
 not come to deprive us of the bread which they 
 have to excess, nor of wine which they do not 
 drink, but will send us dates, honey, and wax, 
 instead of bullets, gall and flames given to us by 
 the most Christian French. 
 
if 
 
 ]§y this war we Will receive the produce and 
 treasures of America, Which have been detained 
 for four years ; We will again plough the ocean, 
 opening the communication between the two In- 
 dies, and renewing our maritime intercourse, of 
 which the barbarous Napoleon has deprived us, 
 since the time that he chained us to the car, of his 
 fatal and barren glory. 
 
 This war will make us true Spaniards again ; 
 that is, we will again be brave, again serious and 
 sedate. We will have a country, we will love it, 
 and defend it, without requiring that the tyranni- 
 cal protector of the confederation of the Rhine, 
 extend to us his protection. We will recover 
 Our former customs, those which rendered us in- 
 vincible by arms, or foreign policy. We will 
 Sing our own songs, dance our own dances, and 
 dress in our ancient style. Those who call them- 
 selves gentlemen, will ride noble spirited horses, 
 instead of playing the piano, and representing 
 sentimal dramas at their own houses, after the 
 manner of the French We will again speak the 
 pure language of our ancestors, which already 
 began to be corrupted in the midst of such great 
 richness, patched up with French jargon. Our 
 language will again become fashionable, when 
 the genius and abilities of the Spaniards produce 
 works Worthy of posterity, and when morality and 
 policy, whose jurisdiction we are going to estab- 
 lish, appear in the Spanish dress and language. 
 
 By this war, we will regain, not some transma- 
 rine possessions, which would occasion fresh 
 
 c 
 
IS 
 
 wars ; but what is more glorious and valuable, 
 our name, that name formerly so much respec- 
 ted, both by civilized and barbarous nations. We 
 will recover our former physical and moral 
 strength, which forms the political power of go- 
 vernments, and we will increase it by new funda- 
 mental laws, founded upon firm and eternal ba- 
 ses. We will give the example of wisdom to the 
 other nations of Europe, as we now do of fortitude 
 and valor, in the recovery of our lost liberty. In 
 this heroic enterprise we have the honor of being 
 the first who have attempted it. Let the nations 
 of the enslaved continent learn the art of break- 
 ing the galling chains, which they suffer. We 
 will teach them how to conquer, or how to die 
 rather than be conquered. 
 
 By this war, we will clear our calendar of the 
 filthy names of the reigning families of Napo- 
 leon, and of his crowned satellites. We will re- 
 cover the liberty of publishing our Court Gazette 
 of our own materials, or at our own will, and not 
 dictated at the pleasure of the French ambassa- 
 dors, who tied the hands of the composer, in all 
 articles concerning the political and military 
 news, of the rest of the world ; the lying Moni- 
 teur and Publiciste of Paris vyere servilely to be 
 copied, being the only papers which were per- 
 mitted to be read, or from which extracts might 
 be taken. This strict subordination, not to say 
 slavery, our government was for some years obli- 
 ged to suffer, and forced to keep the nation de- 
 ceived and in error, ignorant of the political state 
 of Europe, of those actions, which disfigured the 
 
19 
 
 public prints of France, and of those which the 
 same prints concealed ; mentioning nothing but 
 with the permission and in conformity with the 
 orders of their government. 
 
 By this war, the only safety of our country, 
 we will be freed from the dreadful danger of per- 
 ishing with hunger, to increase our misfortunes, 
 if heaven had not favored us with an abundant har- 
 vest, the last and present year. For the decrees 
 of the barbarous and furious enemy of England, 
 had shut our ports against every banner, before he 
 attempted to subdue us by arms. In case of ne- 
 cessity, we could hope for assistance neither from 
 Turks nor Christians, owing to the reprisals and 
 indignation of England. How dreadful was the 
 prospect, which presented itself to my imagination 
 when to increase the more my fears, I saw legions 
 of devils or of Frenchmen, coming in to devour 
 our substance ! 
 
 What would already have become of us, if the 
 scarcity and misery of the year 1804- had been 
 repeated, when we were charged with the addi- 
 tional weight of our sparing and compassionate 
 guests, from whose tables we might, like dogs, 
 have begged a crust of bread? For nine months, 
 before any sign of hostility, the two provinces of 
 Castile were burthened with them, at the daily 
 rate of 200,000lbs. of bread, 5000 bushels of bar- 
 ley, 70 tons of straw, and 100,000lbs. of beef. 
 To this must be added the waste, occasioned by 
 the violence of their arbitrary exactions. 
 
 This war will prevent our having any others, as 
 
w 
 
 for the two last centuries, they have all been either 
 for or against France. As her territory lies he* 
 tween ours and the other nations of Europe, we 
 will not be able to embrace them as brothers, but 
 we will extend to them our hands, by means of 
 the maritime ports, that the Spanish flag shall visit: 
 through these channels we will communicate to 
 them our efforts, our example and our eternal 
 friendship, against the common tyrant, the scan- 
 dal of the earth. 
 
 This war will free us from the vexation and dis- 
 gust of listening to a tiresome crowd of preswmpr 
 tiQus egotists, of philosophers, moralists and poli- 
 ticians, all at once ; who, without injury to those 
 which might afterwards come, were introducing 
 among us, central and elementary schools,, institutiss 
 and establishments of beneficence, new names in- 
 stead of the old Spanish ones, houses of benevo- 
 lence, piety or charity. Their object was to form 
 our minds and hearts after the modern French. 
 They had already introduced among us, as a 
 mistery of the second redemption of the human 
 race, a certain ioacchan,ical regeneration of youth 
 under the immediate protection of the puerile, 
 frivolous, vain and whimsical generalissimo of sea 
 and land : who, not satisfied with having debauch- 
 ed every male and female, who had any thing to 
 expect from his favor, wished at last that the mo- 
 thers should make fools of themselves and ma- 
 chines of their children. It was necessary that 
 they should have sticks and cards in order to 
 think and rule, and masters to jump like moun- 
 
21 
 
 fain goats, or climb like monkeys. How just 
 was the observation of a poor woman upon hear- 
 ing of these exercises and accomplishments ; 
 " This appears to me, to be a school for thieves." 
 To flatter his highness the protector, the parents 
 looked upon themselves as happy, if they could 
 secceed in committing their tender children, to 
 this bedlam of madmen, whence they would 
 come out, stupid, foolish, and distempered. And 
 shall we after this be surprised, that the ancient 
 Carthaginians, sacrificed so many children to the 
 idol Moloch to appease him ! But here our idol 
 became tired of holocausts, the same as they were 
 wearied of every thing, and sent off our altar and 
 dispatched our sacrificers. We only wanted that 
 another set of philanthropists should set up an 
 amphitheatre of cranealogy, that the female sex, 
 at court might have motives for philosophizing 
 or prattling. 
 
 In short, by this war, we will become better 
 Christians. Accustomed in adversity to lift up 
 our eyes to heaven to implore its favor, and in 
 prosperity to return to him thanks, true piety 
 will take root, will grow and will flourish, and 
 will be matured in our children. 
 
 Spaniards of all sexes, ages, and conditions, 
 I speak to you all. Do not think that in this 
 most holy war, we are working for our children 
 or our grandchildren. It interests us still more 
 intimately. We are fighting for ourselves and 
 for our own existence. Know, that Napoleon 
 hurries on so fast in military exploits, that he 
 may leave nothing for his successors to do ; 
 
and it appears that he labors to enjoy, during life, 
 the incense of posthumous fame. Let us quickly 
 cut the wings of the eagle. 
 
 This war differs materially from any we have 
 hitherto sustained, either at home or abroad, in 
 its nature, its object, its cause, and its conse- 
 quences. In its origin it is defensive ; and thus 
 it depends not upon our desires, nor can our 
 arms effect its continuance : its nature demands 
 more vigilance and constancy, and a great de- 
 gree of severity against the negligent, the waver- 
 ing, or the suspicious. We must conquer or live 
 in slavery. In the war of the succession with 
 which Spain was afflicted, the question was not to 
 defend either our country, our religion, our laws, 
 our constitution, our property, or our lives, 
 since none of these was endangered by the con- 
 test. The only dispute was, which of the two 
 pretenders to the crown of Spain should remain 
 in posession of it: under the supposition that it 
 could not but devolve upon one of the two ; the 
 male line of the reigning family being extinct. 
 The nation was divided into two parties, as there 
 were two rivals ; but no one was unfaithful to the 
 nation in general, nor the enemy of his country. 
 They called one another traitors and rebels, with- 
 out either being so in reality. They all were* 
 and wished to be Spaniards, as much those who 
 acclaimed Charles of Austria, as those who sup- 
 ported Philip of Bourbon. It was a family dis- 
 pute between two most noble princes, either of 
 whom was worthy to occupy the throne of Spain. 
 The nation lost neither its honor, its indepen- 
 
23 
 
 dence nor its liberty with one or the other of 
 them. The crown changed property, but the 
 monarchy remained unhurt. The question now 
 is, to lose the whole at the hands of an infamous 
 conqueror, who having robbed us of our legiti- 
 mate sovereign, deprives us of the right and the 
 use of national sovereignty. The' Romans in 
 their civil wars, defended the republic, not against 
 a tyrant, nor a foreign power, intending to im- 
 pose upon them the yoke of their arms and their 
 laws, but against some of their own citizens, who 
 aspired to raise themselves to the government. 
 The first might be disgraceful, the second might 
 be a misfortune. Civil war might be an internal 
 evil, the public liberty might be lost, but the Ro- 
 man people could not be conquered by another 
 power. Sylla and Marius, Cesar and Pompey 
 were Romans, they were companions and war- 
 riors. Cromwell, an Englishman, ruled over 
 Englishmen, but he did not come from without to 
 subdue them. Robespierre, a Frenchman, ruled 
 and tyrannized over the French nation ; and Bo- 
 naparte, a French general, usurped the supreme 
 command, without invading the territory of the 
 republic with foreign armies. It would be more 
 tolerable and less ignominious, that the vain Go- 
 doy should have raised himself to the monarchy, 
 by the assistance of our troops, gained over or de- 
 ceived by him, than that a foreigner assisted by 
 the troops of another power, should come to sub- 
 due a monarchy of no less importance, than the 
 glorious Spanish nation . The thoughts of it alone 
 insult and confound me. 
 
24 
 
 We have already seen the demeanor, disposi- 
 tions and conduct of the troops and generals* 
 whom the false Napoleon has sent to subject us. 
 They are worse than barbarians by birth, posses- 
 sing all the vices and malice of a civilized nation* 
 but destitute of the candor of savages. 
 
 I would look upon the Moors as less to be fear- 
 ed and less odious ; for they neither dissemble 
 what they are, nor feign what they are not. 
 They believe in God, and in eternal glory and 
 punishment. Some moral virtue can be expec- 
 ted from them. They would raise their mosques, 
 and would leave to us our temples and religious 
 exercises ; they would take from us our bells, 
 not through avarice, but through religion : we 
 would pay our tributes, and they would not pre- 
 vent our praying to the Lord ; neither would they 
 give us the impious example of incredulity. I 
 repeat it, that I would rather be conquered by 
 Moors than by Frenchmen ; for it is less mortify- 
 ing to suffer hatred than contempt. When the 
 Africans landed into Spain, they entered as 
 enemies, as conquerors, as propagators of the 
 Alkoran. They deceived us neither with pre- 
 tences nor with professions of friendship or pro- 
 tection. They broke no compact nor alliance, 
 as none existed between us ; they were not want- 
 ing in their word, as they had not offered it: 
 they took us unawares, but did not deceive us. 
 In addition to this, the invasion of the Moors was 
 effected by water, and their passage across being 
 once cut off by our naval forces, their hopes of 
 reinforcements from Africa were entirely baffled. 
 
26 
 
 Even in this situation, it took seven hundred years 
 to expel them finally from our country. Let 
 us now consider, when would Spain be able to 
 free herself from these unbelieving conquerors, 
 whilst their communication with their mother 
 country remained open, and upon the same 
 continent ? 
 
 On the other hand, it appears that Napoleon's 
 supply of soldiers will be inexhaustible, until Eu- 
 rope shall break off all communication with him. 
 We are perfectly aware, that his armies are not 
 composed of Frenchmen alone, but consist also of 
 the troops of those sovereigns, who are so fortunate 
 as to be his allies, or in other words, his feudato- 
 ries or slaves. They are also composed of the 
 conscripts of the states and republics of Italy, 
 whose impotency and weakness have induced him 
 to incorporate them in the territory of the French 
 empire, now extending to the limits of the Ot- 
 toman empire. In his armies, the military sys- 
 tem, the tactics, and the language in which or- 
 ders are issued, alone are French. The systema- 
 tic rapacity with which they plunder, their inhu- 
 man violence and the impiety of their sentiments 
 are truly French. 
 
 There is little reason to expect, as long ex- 
 perience can establish, that a Frenchman will be- 
 come weary of the fatigues and dangers of the 
 campaign. Take him from home in tears, and 
 he will return singing, and throwing out mena- 
 ces. Neither can we hope that the justice of 
 our cause will unbend him : war appears to be 
 
 D 
 
26 
 
 his element, it inspires him in battle. At one 
 time he exposes his life for the crown, at ano- 
 ther against it ; to-day in the cause of liberty, to- 
 morrow in the cause of despotism. He goes to 
 war like the horse ; he is encouraged by the 
 trumpet, and mounted by a Christian trooper, 
 flies against the Turk : the horseman is dismoun- 
 ted, the Turk jumps upon him, and he starts with 
 his new rider against the Christian. Among the 
 chiefs the case is different : yesterday they eat 
 with wooden spoons, and to-day are dissatisfied 
 with the service of plate, which their landlord 
 lays before them. Yesterday they were so low, 
 that they could not be distinguished in the dust, 
 and to-day are raised upon the shoulders of for- 
 tune to the summit of honors, and to the orien- 
 tal pomp of riches, the fruit of the rapines and 
 extortions, which cry out to heaven for ven- 
 geance. 
 
 Ask the French why they endured the first 
 acts of the absolute despotism of Bonaparte ; they 
 will answer, that tired of shedding the blood of 
 their children, their brothers, and their relations, 
 they suffered every thing rather than to be in- 
 volved in the horrors of another revolution. 
 Whilst they plead this dread, with a contradic- 
 tion truly characteristic of the French, they de- 
 liver up these same children, these same bro- 
 thers and relations, that a million of youth may 
 be sacrificed at a distance from their country ; 
 not for the glory nor the defence of their nation, 
 which is not attacked, but to satiate the fierce 
 ambition of an adventurous islander, who first 
 
27 
 
 subjected France, that he afterwards might sub- 
 due other kingdoms. 
 
 I am not now undeceived for the first time : 
 long since I prognosticated the fatal consequen- 
 ces, which our country might one day experi- 
 ence from the iniquity of this crafty tyrant. For 
 many years I have been a silent sentinel ; I saw 
 into the malignity and hypocrisy of his designs, 
 from the first peace of Campo Formio, when, 
 after having turned the republic of Venice into a 
 democracy, he delivered her up to the emperor 
 of Austria, at the very time that their proclama- 
 tions called all the Kings of the earth, Despots 
 and Tyrants. From that time I doubted the mo- 
 deration and the simplicity of his democracy. 
 This new general served the republic, that he 
 might afterwards subdue her with greater facility. 
 With this intention he remained in Italy, con- 
 verting it into miniature republics, deceiving and 
 robbing its inhabitants, and paying men of ta- 
 lents to run from one city to another, like so many 
 apostles of liberty. I still recollect the pathetic 
 harangue which one Monge delivered before the 
 little pacific republic of St. Marino. The great 
 calamities which his hypocritical heart might oc- 
 casion to those whom he had seduced, began 
 then to be feared, and since then have been veri- 
 fied with grief and terror. Where he planted 
 with so much ceremony the tree of liberty, he 
 has since erected gibbets to the memory of his 
 paternal kindness. Do you give thanks to him 
 for the felicity and tranquillity, which you now 
 enjoy, you Piedmontese, Genoese, Milanese, 
 
28 
 
 Venitians, Bolognese, and Parmesans, since he 
 has even deprived you of your name, in order 
 to confound you in the great herd of his sub- 
 jects. 
 
 The precipitate and ill-judged peace which 
 we concluded with the French republic in 1795, 
 gave to this intrepid adventurer, the command of 
 the French troops in Catalonia, which he was to 
 lead to the invasion of Italy. Here was the first 
 theatre of his talents, here his first military tri- 
 umphs were atchieved. They may in some 
 measure be attributed to the disposition of the 
 minds of those people, and to the unwillingness 
 of the troops to sacrifice themselves against a 
 cause, which flattered so much at first, those who 
 reasoned upon it, and those who were in suffer- 
 ing- 
 Burning with impatience and despairing to be 
 
 able to consummate his ambitious plans, he sets 
 out for Egypt, without any object in view, or any 
 motive for his voyage ; he takes Malta with the 
 noise of a dozen broad sides ; and owing to a 
 plan of treason, concerted with the French 
 knights, he leaves that island and city, which 
 under the order was impregnable, and exposes it 
 to be afterwards taken by his enemies the English. 
 He arrives at Alexandria, and loses his squadron ; 
 he goes up to Cairo, bathes in the Nile, visits the 
 pyramids, makes somegenuflexionsin the mosque, 
 and returns to Europe, perfectly scourged, in order 
 afterwards to become her executioner. 
 
 With the modesty of a Roman he proclaims 
 himself Consul at Paris, because the title of King 
 
29 
 
 or of Dictator would at that time have been de- 
 testable. But who conferred upon him this new 
 authority ? In the first place it was the bayonets 
 of his colleagues, and then a constitution draugh- 
 ted by himself, and drawn out and signed by a 
 dozen of his associates. To call himself First 
 Consul, when three were invested with this 
 ridiculous title, was calling himself in fact the 
 only one ; the other two being nothing more 
 than assistants. Under the pretext of treason and 
 conspiracies, he establishes his consulship for life ; 
 again under the pretext of others he renders it 
 perpetual and hereditary. 
 
 With gigantic steps he was advancing towards 
 a more pompous and more elevated title ; one 
 which might confer upon him greater power, 
 more vanity, and a better right to his ambition. 
 He wished to possess the control of Europe, and 
 convert her into a patrimony of the empire of 
 France. With the title of Consul alone, he could 
 not attempt it, since it did not extend without 
 the territory of the republic. Vain and perish- 
 able name ! Still preserved by a nation, which 
 soon after, called herseh 'great ; and which now 
 is a great herd of wild beasts, kept by Napoleon 
 the First. With the title of Emperor he conquer- 
 ed France and her dependencies : he invaded 
 and struck terror into every state, that could op- 
 pose him ; and using the more moderate, but 
 prouder name of Protector, he subdued those 
 nations, which he found it inconvenient to re- 
 duce with the former title. Under this cloak H. 
 T. M. protects other Royal Majesties, and Ducal 
 
Highnesses, who have the honor of being his 
 prime vassals. An aid-de-camp of his high con- 
 stable Savary may one day call them to Paris, to 
 put on his spurs and hold his stirrup on a day of 
 parade. 
 
 The same power that conferred upon him the 
 consulship made him likewise emperor. Every 
 one knows how he planned this violent, illegal 
 and pretended election. He called himself then, 
 and still calls himself emperor of the French, and 
 not of France. What can be the object of this 
 name, for all his words contain some mistery ? 
 Can it be to flatter the vanity of his new subjects, 
 who he knows can be easily deceived by appear- 
 ances. Can it be, that under this name he wish- 
 es to rule in all those countries through which 
 his numerous and roving troops are dispersed and 
 extended ; for there is no territory in Europe, 
 which is not defiled with the footsteps of his sol- 
 diers ? And almost every nation of Europe con- 
 taining some armed Frenchmen, who have the 
 command of their towns, Napoleon becomes in 
 fact the emperor of them all. 
 
 Spain and Portugal alone were wanting to the 
 number of happy countries comprehended with- 
 in the imaginary and unlimited circuit of the 
 French empire. Napoleon, to whom the world 
 already appears too small (though he might be 
 thrust into a mouse-hole,) could not suffer that 
 the west should still remain free and independent, 
 and not acknowledge him as Lord. He sent 
 troops; they entered into Spain, and as they ne- 
 ver travel for nothing, they first take possession 
 
31 
 
 of one kingdom and then of another, without 
 either declaring war or even threatening hostili- 
 ties. They are actuated alone by that principle 
 of new-established right ; that wherever French 
 soldiers put their foot, their emperor must com- 
 mand. 
 
 The whole world knows, and can yet scarcely 
 believe the iniquity and violence, with which this 
 emperor, without either honor or conscience, 
 seized upon Portugal. His perfidy and baseness, 
 in the usurpation of the crown of Spain, are still 
 more incredible. Without having put his foot 
 in the country, he makes it over, like a paternal 
 inheritance, to his beloved brother Joseph, under 
 the feigned title of King : since, in fact, he was 
 but vice-king, receiving his troops without the 
 power of ordering a sargeant, his laws without 
 daring to alter them, his orders without daring 
 to disobey them, and his instructions without 
 the power of interpreting them. Madrid would 
 be the ostensible court, Paris would be the me- 
 tropolis. There would be the ambassadors be- 
 tween the two courts, since etiquette demand 
 it. The French one, would be an overseer 
 and a zealot in our cabinet, and a boatswain 
 over the people ; the Spanish, an assistant at the 
 imperial throne, and as a great mark of distinc- 
 tion would have the honor of attending on pa- 
 rade, with his hat in his hand, during the sun- 
 shine and rain. Public treaties would be made, 
 which would rather be the secrets between the 
 Emperor of Spain in Paris, and the Vice-King of 
 Spain in Madrid. It is easy to infer, that the 
 
32 
 
 Sultan would dictate to Beglier-Bey, and that we 
 would take no other part, in all these diplomatic 
 arrangements, than to translate them into Spa- 
 nish. 
 
 After having seized upon Spain in a military 
 manner, and delivered up to his brother the royal 
 lieutenancy, it is not to be supposed that he would 
 leave him intrusted to the fidelity of the Spa- 
 niards, as much suspected, as they had been in- 
 jured. As much for his personal safety as for the 
 tranquillity of the people, so necessary to him, 
 and above all, to preserve our ports and coasts 
 against the invasions of England, so much decried 
 the common enemy ; he was willing to protect us 
 with two hundred thousand men, to be left with- 
 in our Peninsula in cantonments and garrisons, 
 maintained, clothed and fed by new contribu- 
 tions : this could be done without breaking any 
 article of our constitution, because it contained 
 none relating thereto. For this reason the great 
 Amurat consoled us in an article in one of his 
 Madrid papers, saying, that we should neither 
 pay the fifths, nor raise levies in any of our pro- 
 vinces. This is evident, for we were to have no 
 national army, according to the arrangements for 
 security made by the conqueror. 
 
 As in this undertaking and plan of the Empe- 
 ror and King, the very Christian-like and charit- 
 able plan of uniting the two nations was intend- 
 ed ; it is to be presumed that there would have 
 been reserved, at least, a military road from Bay- 
 onne to Lisbon, cutting ofT a strip, like the ox 
 hide of Strabo, of more than five or six leagues in 
 
33 
 
 breadth, for his troops to pass and re-pass. In 
 Poland he reserves to himself one of the same 
 kind, for his communication with Saxony, where 
 he has another crowned Vice-King. 
 
 By this simple and convenient arrangement, 
 and owing to the necessity of continual reinforce- 
 ments of his troops for our defence, he did not 
 break the promise he had given, of preserving 
 the indivisibility of this monarchy, and maintain- 
 ing its independence. It is true, he did not dis- 
 member any province, nor cut off any part either 
 of our coast or frontier, to incorporate with the 
 French territory, or cede to any other sovereign; 
 but he might easily reserve to himself, as a sort 
 of provisional deposit and security, fortresses, 
 posts, and mountains, and still keep up in ap- 
 pearance that indivisibility. By maintaining also 
 his armies here, in the quality of auxiliaries, he 
 left the word independence in its natural significa- 
 tion. But whose independence was meant by 
 that ; was it of the crown or of the subjects ? 
 
 If the two nations were united, it would but be 
 just, that as France sent to us her warlike youth 
 for our protection, we should return her the fa- 
 vor, by putting ours at the disposal of her Empe- 
 ror, and thus repay her example of generosity. 
 The only disadvantage in these exchanges would 
 be, that fortune having given to the Spaniards a 
 benign climate, and a country fertile in bread, 
 wine, oil, and delicious fruits, this union would 
 be their destruction ; that is, they would go to 
 perish under the wings of the imperial eagles, 
 
 E 
 
34 
 
 or perhaps waste away their lives in some coun- 
 try, where they would neither eat bread, taste 
 wine, nor see the face of the sun for eight months 
 during the year. This is the most cruel and bar- 
 barous of tyrannies. 
 
 History does not afford an instance of any 
 conqueror's having compelled his captives to arm 
 themselves, and forced them to fight against his 
 enemies. It is infinitely better to give no quar- 
 ters to such invaders, or die sword in hand, rather 
 than afterwards use it in the service of so unmer- 
 ciful a conqueror. 
 
 The Turks alone chain their Christian prison- 
 ers to the oar, but they do not force them to bear 
 arms. Neither did the Saracens, who over-ran 
 Spain, carry off the vanquished to make them 
 fight in any of the wars, which they waged, 
 either within or without our peninsula. Bona- 
 parte either sells the prisoners of war, makes them 
 serve under his banners, destines them to the 
 public works as if they were bought slaves, or 
 leaves them to perish with hunger and misery. 
 It is not his custom to permit, that those unfor- 
 tunate persons, who fall alive into his hands, 
 should become a charge to him. This was the 
 case when the laws of nations^ were known and 
 regarded ; but this ferocious tyrant has put an 
 end to every law, and wishes to annihilate all 
 nations. 
 
 Execrable prodigy of nature ! Amphibious 
 between man and beast, Napoleon has rescued 
 Caligula and Nero from infamy. Excess of pow- 
 er corrupted the latter, and yet he was six years 
 
35 
 
 breaking through the laws of decency and hu- 
 manity. So long did it take for the goodness of 
 his disposition and education to be perverted. 
 But Napoleon, it seems, was bad before he had 
 learned to be so, before he could be so, and even 
 before he wished to be so. Engendered by 
 Chaos, he conceals from us his father : he is the 
 child of his own works alone. Oh Letitia !* 
 what joy you announced to the world, on the 
 day of your prodigious delivery ! Before usurp- 
 ing the supreme command, he was a despot, and 
 before a despot, he alreadywas a tyrant. 
 
 He was born for the destruction of the human 
 race. He saw that he had nails ; he immediate- 
 ly assayed them for destruction, as the tyger does 
 from a whelp. No human effort can tame him. 
 He is not a domestic animal, he soon flies to 
 the mountain and to the forest, he cannot live 
 among people. He seeks the field of battle as 
 the haunt of his ferocity, for the palace was not 
 built for him. The field is his delight, and a re- 
 gale to him ; the smoke of powder is to him in- 
 cense ; the sight of dead bodies recreation ; he 
 sleeps upon mattresses of dead bodies ; and we 
 shall one day hear, that he eats human flesh, 
 since he has not yet stopped in his career of bar- 
 barous pastimes. This inhuman wretch pro- 
 claimed to Europe, and was believed by the stu- 
 pid Frenchmen, that in war he was seeking 
 peace. I believe, that when he no longer has, 
 with whom to make war, he then will have 
 peace, except with himself. Then wretched he ! 
 
 * The mother of Bonaparte was called Letitia. 
 
36 
 
 Idleness would consume him. How would he 
 pass his time, with one hand over the other ? 
 He has but one passion, and that drowns all 
 others. He wishes to rule over the earth, even 
 should he remain in it alone: he then will beg 
 wings from the devil, and fly up to conquer the 
 moon. 
 
 Some wise men have said, that life is very- 
 short, considering what man has to learn ; but I 
 add that it is very long for what we have to suf- 
 fer. What would become of us, if the life of 
 this tyrant were not subject to the common fate 
 of mortality ? From his children the world will 
 have nothing to fear. Nature has already taken 
 care that all monsters should be unfruitful. 
 
 He acknowledges no curb to his perfidy and 
 cruelty : he neither has any religion to restrain 
 him, a conscience to accuse him, nor a shame to 
 make him blush ; the hatred of nations does not 
 terrify him, as he wants not their good opinion, 
 since, in his eyes, they no longer exist. He will 
 say to himself, since 1 can get all I will have all. 
 He reckons upon fortune, as Caesar did ; but Bo- 
 naparte takes better care of his life than Caesar. 
 Among the other favors which he owes to for- 
 tune, is the health which he enjoys ; in a suffi- 
 cient degree to deprive the whole world of its 
 quiet. He lives sickly, yet is never sick ; and 
 thus the sobriety which in another would be a 
 virtue, is in him necessity or constitution. 
 
 They say that he eats fast : a property of 
 wolves and of foxes. They say also that he 
 sleeps but little, I do not doubt it ; it is the tor- 
 
37 
 
 merit of all tyrants, to see at all hours a sword 
 suspended above their heads, threatening them 
 every moment with destruction. The same hap- 
 pens with misers, who in general are early risers ; 
 for they are ever on the watch against thieves, 
 and fly from their own shadow. 
 
 He can love no country, nor no nation ; they 
 all belong to him, and none is his own. Where- 
 ever he can find soldiers, that is his country. If 
 he were expelled to-morrow from France, to pre- 
 serve his command, he would go with his army, 
 if he could, to Morocco. Did he not go to Egypt, 
 to proclaim himself Sovereign, and to swear up- 
 on the Alcoran, so as not to subject himself to the 
 Directory ? He neither has a determined coun- 
 try, or religion ; he makes use of any which can 
 answer his ends. 
 
 He has the impudence to call himself Emperor 
 by the grace otGod, whom he neither loves, fears, 
 nor acknowledges : he would do better to say, by 
 the patience of God and of men. He gave himself 
 his title, and put, with his own hands, the impe- 
 rial crown on his head. He has made himself 
 what he is, and how sorry he must be, that he 
 cannot make himself a corpulent Nembrot, to 
 frighten with his figure, and strike dead, when he 
 should get angry, three ministers one day, three 
 senators another, and three generals a third. 
 His Imperial and Royal Majesty, they say, some- 
 times rages like a wild boar, and the roughness 
 of his words and his voice well declare his mild- 
 ness and amiability. 
 
His device is an eagle, when it should be a 
 tyger ; and the eagle is so poorly represented, 
 that it appears more like a kite darting upon its 
 prey, than like a noble and generous bird. It is 
 a proper symbol of the rapacity of his mischiev- 
 ous heart. He changes his first name and then 
 his sirname ; and the new name he afterwards 
 converts into an eternal sirname for his most au- 
 gust family, and his relations in the transverse, 
 diagonal, and adopted lines ; with the design of 
 making Napoleons of all the crowned heads, 
 which he intends to leave, or spawn upon the 
 face of the earth. 
 
 This hero, so called by his vile and mercenary 
 editors, (as he could not become a man) adds fe- 
 rocity to vanity. As he can never be contented 
 nor satiated with decorations and titles, to-mor- 
 row he will call himself Napoleon-Kan, a Tartar 
 name, which he has for a long time merited. 
 Augustus Casar is a name which is very well 
 known, and much handled by students. Pha- 
 raoh and Nebuchadnezzar sound like holy writ. 
 Sultan and Caliph savour of the Arabic, and 
 he preserves against those people a certain resent- 
 ment for some joke in Egypt. Let him call 
 himself at once King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, 
 and let this be the last blasphemy of his ambition 
 and arrogance. The title, which his actions most 
 justly entitle him to, is the scourge of God, which 
 nobody can dispute with him, and which he de- 
 serves more than the atrocious Attila. 
 
 I have said it, and I now repeat it, that the 
 
39 
 
 three terrible epochs in the annals of the world 
 are, the deluge, the birth of Mahomet, and the 
 birth of Bonaparte. The former pretended to 
 convert all religions into one, and the latter all 
 nations, that he might be at the head of it. The 
 former preached the unity of God with the cy- 
 meter, and the latter does not name him either as 
 containing one or three persons ; but only preach- 
 es or causes to be preached his own divinity, per- 
 mitting himself to be called all-powerful, by his 
 infamous and sacrilegious adorers, the French pe- 
 riodical editors. He at length thinks that he is so, 
 and the cowardice and meanness of those nations, 
 who have permitted him to subdue them has made 
 him believe it. Spain alone has forced him to 
 see and acknowledge to himself, that he was before 
 and is now but a man, and a very little man, 
 whom blind fortune has made great in the eyes of 
 nations, terror-struck by the dread of his name, 
 who reckon the greatness of power by the mea- 
 sure of atrocities. 
 
 A stone falling from a neighboring mountain, 
 knocked down the colossal statue of Nebuchad- 
 nezzar : it struck against the feet, where it was 
 weakest. It is worthy of remark, that the only 
 persons who have hitherto taken down the pride 
 of the wisdom and power of this military hero, 
 are precisely those whom he most despised, or 
 whom he feared the least : a man at St. Jean 
 D'Acre, who appeared more like a monk than a 
 soldier ; the barbarous and undisciplined Mame- 
 lukes ; the rustic and brutal Cossacks ; and the 
 timid, lazy, and superstitious Spaniards, whom the 
 
40 
 
 French intrepidity and confidence, thought to be 
 asleep. Europe sees it, and can scarcely believe 
 it : our enemies thought that we were asleep, and 
 it was they who were themselves dreaming it. 
 
 This is a kind of warfare, new to his victorious 
 tactics : it is a domestic war, it is a national war, 
 it is a religious war, and finally, it is a war of men 
 who were brave before they were soldiers. In 
 Italy and Germany at the summons of a trumpet, 
 the most respectable fortresses of Europe surren- 
 dered, as in Jericho, without having the walls de- 
 stroyed. At all their posts and military encamp- 
 ments, they surrendered themselves prisoners, six 
 thousand men in one place, ten thousand at ano- 
 ther, fifteen thousand at another, and at Ulm 
 thirty thousand. What I say of the Austrians, I 
 say also of the Prussians. Bonaparte dispatched 
 in eight days the whole Prussian army consisting 
 of 200,000 infantry and 40,000 cavalry ; and be- 
 fore the end of a month, there neither existed a 
 King of Prussia, nor a Prussian monarchy. Most 
 astonishing and unheard of catastrophe, the cause 
 of which it is not difficult to conceive : they were 
 disaffected, they were cowards and traitors : 
 there was an army, but there was no nation. 
 Within Spain, those same troops, and victorious 
 generals, cannot take open towns, defended by 
 women and peasants badly armed, and only half 
 clothed ! 
 
 Let us at once be undeceived : all the fortres- 
 ses have been taken, like Pampelona, Barcelona, 
 and the citadel of Figueras, by bribes, or by trea- 
 son. Thus fell Magdeburgh, Spandau, Stetin, &c. 
 
41 
 
 This is again the caprice of fortune, which is not 
 yet tired of Napoleon. He does not know such 
 a thing as a traitor, who would make him lose in 
 one day, the fruit of a whole campaign. Even 
 the slaves serve him with the strictest fidelity. 
 Whilst the republic had so many domestic ene- 
 mies, so many traitors, so many emigrants, and so 
 many deserters from the patriotic standards, des- 
 potic tyranny has no reason to doubt the fidelity 
 of its subjects ! We could well perceive, that the 
 emigrants, who found so much charity and so 
 generous an hospitality among us, did not see that 
 this was the hour to return to France, to recon- 
 cile themselves with the new tyranny ; the na- 
 tion, to whose distracted bosom they were return- 
 ing, not being the same as that which they had 
 before abandoned. 
 
 I do not only speak as to the armies ; but nei- 
 ther in the cities nor in the political govern- 
 ments, has he suffered, nor does he fear the at- 
 tempts, or even the intentions of a traitor. Even 
 the strangers, whom he has dragged from their 
 houses in irons, serve at his will and caprice. 
 There is no longer in France, either a madman, 
 a drunkard, a furious man, nor a fanatic, like 
 those, who in other times sent four of their legiti- 
 mate kings into the other world. Atrocious 
 deeds, which the history of no other country 
 mentions. 
 
 For eight years past, he has been promising 
 peace to the French, and every day he departs 
 more from the ways which lead to it. Notwith- 
 
 F 
 
42. 
 
 standing this, he is not ashamed to permit him- 
 self to be flattered with the renown of Pacifier of 
 the continent, and Arbiter of Europe. This last 
 title flatters him the most. For one whole year 
 he kept his new subjects, whom he did not then 
 dare to call by this name, engaged and in un- 
 certainty with respect to the plan of his invasion 
 of England. He knew the difficulty and empti- 
 ness of the project, but he wished to entertain the 
 people, that they might neither have the time, 
 the opportunity, nor a motive for plotting against 
 his person and his consular despotism. It was 
 Paris and France that he wished to subdue ; he 
 succeeded, and secured from that moment, his 
 usurped and tottering throne, from whence he was 
 afterwards to rise to imperial sway. 
 
 Never was there a man, who promised more, 
 and who has fulfilled less than Napoleon. He 
 has not yet complied with his promise of engra- 
 ving in letters of massive gold, the names of those 
 brave men, who fell at Austerlitz, Jena, and 
 Eyland. He probably did not think at that time, 
 that the list of the killed would be so great ; or 
 perhaps has found out since, that those who had 
 received favors would not complain. Consider- 
 ing the anxiety and voracity with which his 
 troops and generals threw their sacrilegious hands 
 upon our treasures, we must imagine, that as he 
 supposed all the gold, collected from his mines 
 besides that collected by rapine, insufficient for 
 so great an expense, he expected to make up a 
 sufficient sum, by despoiling the temples of Spain 
 and Portugal. , 
 
43 
 
 How could you expect, too kind and generous 
 Spaniards, that they who treated with so much 
 cruelty, the inoffensive and pacific Portuguese, 
 who had not even fired a musket against their 
 unjust invaders, would use more pity towards 
 you if you surrendered, or more clemency, if you 
 resisted ? This example of his inhumanity, prac- 
 tised at the very doors of your houses, and his 
 former cruelties in Italy and Germany, and other 
 countries subject to the perfidy and violence of 
 his arms, could not take from before your eyes, 
 nor banish from your memory, the fate which 
 awaited you. 
 
 Persons, undoubtedly, were not wanting, who 
 blindly and credulously believed, even after the 
 French troops had, by stratagem and surprise, 
 taken possession of the fortresses on our frontier, 
 that they were coming in peace and friendship. 
 As to the former, 1 do not doubt it, because they 
 wished to subdue us, without conquering us : to 
 hope the latter from the common enemy of all 
 nations is an absurdity. It was a still greater ab- 
 surdity to believe, that the armies were going to 
 the field of Gibraltar. Bonaparte thought as 
 much upon the siege of that place, as the Sophi 
 of Persia did : and was it for this that he inun- 
 dated us with 150,000 men, besides 30,000 of 
 our troops whom he could count upon as auxili- 
 aries ? Was it for this purpose, that he brought 
 so great a train of field artillery, and so numer- 
 ous and chosen a cavalry : preparations for scout- 
 ing armies, and not for besiegers ? 
 
44 
 
 The idea of these forces being directed against 
 Africa, is no less extravagant ; but for what pur- 
 pose r Against whom ? With what transports, 
 or when would they have been able to effect the 
 passage of the Strait, without one ship or one 
 frigate, in sight of the English squadrons, which 
 would have given, as food to the fishes, every 
 madman who embarked ? Spain was the Africa, 
 and we the Africans. 
 
 When we saw the military stations which they 
 took in Castile, the hostile motion of their canton- 
 ments, their subsequent inaction, and the provi- 
 sion of biscuit, which they made among their 
 friends and allies, as they called us, and in the 
 granary of Spain, which supplied them with 
 fresh bread, could we for a moment doubt that 
 they came disposed for a war, both offensive and 
 defensive, since their preparations were equal to 
 their precautions ? It is true, they neither put 
 the men to death, nor violated the women ; nei- 
 ther plundered nor profaned the temples : but 
 this was because it was not then their interest to 
 irritate the people, but to impose upon them. 
 
 Some even believed, a little before Murat en- 
 tered into Madrid, that the citadels on our fron- 
 tier had been delivered up, as a deposit, to ensure 
 the good treatment of the friends, who came to 
 our assistance. The most artless and the most 
 prejudiced, immediately perceived that treason 
 had opened our doors to robbers. The infamy 
 was too manifest for the minds to be at rest. Un- 
 happy Spain ! What nation has ever been so 
 
Ad 
 
 unfortunate, as that the shepherd himself should 
 kill the dogs, and let the wolf safe into the sheep- 
 fold I 
 
 Take courage, and trust in God, you people 
 of Barcelona ! Genius and valor will bring am- 
 ple assistance to you, and deliver you from the 
 bitter oppression, which you suffer. Your case, 
 certainly, is singular and most lamentable : future 
 ages will wonder at it. Your restoration and the 
 preservation of that beautiful city, now prostituted 
 by the impure feet of those base soldiers of the 
 treacherous Napoleon, is a duty of the brave and 
 valiant Spaniards, and claims the assistance of our 
 generous allies. 
 
 Every reflecting Spaniard, instructed by the 
 political events, which have happened in Europe 
 since the year 1800, ought to have known, from 
 the line of conduct pursued by Napoleon, what 
 we had to fear from his designs, when his armies 
 were extending through our provinces. I fore- 
 saw the storm at a distance. The conduct of 
 those spurious Spaniards, Izquierdo, and Herbas, 
 who were enamored with France, and possessed 
 estates there, showed that the country which gave 
 them their being, their riches, and their honors, 
 was become to them a place of dangerous resi- 
 dence. 
 
 Moreover it was lately fashionable in Paris, 
 to learn the Spanish language, to wish to be in- 
 formed with respect to our literature, and the 
 state of our sciences : the editors of the periodi- 
 cal papers solicited a correspondence with the 
 wise men of our country. I also observed, that 
 
46 
 
 they no longer despised us, nor threw out against 
 us, as they formerly were accustomed to do, the 
 epithets of ignorant and superstitious. This sud- 
 den and uncommon moderation and courtesy, 
 was in my mind a most certain proof of their new 
 policy ; for the writers in France always act at 
 present with the advice of its rulers. 
 
 For some years back, they have bought our 
 books ; a thing before unknown, as the book- 
 sellers of Madrid can testify. They began aiso 
 to translate into their language, some of our au- 
 thors ; a custom which had been lost during the 
 first years of the reign of Louis XIV. I also 
 observed that some French travellers came to 
 visit us, who showed great curiosity about every 
 thing of ours : some as physical economists, and 
 others as lovers of the noble arts : some came to 
 measure degrees of the meridian, and perhaps 
 were exploring our mountains, and our rough 
 roads : others to seek out our mines of metals ; 
 some to study the keeping of our Marino sheep, 
 and others the raising and breed of our horses : 
 whilst others examined our public establishments, 
 our libraries, our museums, the collections of our 
 famous painters, and the remains of the Roman 
 and Arabic antiquities. They sought for infor- 
 mation, and took notes and copies with so much 
 eagerness, that they seemed rather to be making 
 inventories, than satisfying their curiosity. 
 
 I also observed, that the first few days after the 
 arrival of Murat at Madrid, some of his military 
 and civil officers bought up all the Spanish and 
 French dictionaries and grammars that could be 
 
47 
 
 found in our book-stores. The officers of the 
 revenue particularly bought geographical maps, 
 and inquired for statistic plans. What greater 
 love or friendship could be wished from our 
 neighbors, who would not leave a corner of our 
 house, nor a piece of furniture, without visiting 
 it with inexpressible satisfaction ? I remarked 
 that even men, whose appearance proved that 
 they did not want to be instructed in these branch- 
 es, asked for statements of our manufactures, or as 
 they called them, des tableaux des manufactures. 
 
 This is very good, said some of the Spaniards 
 at that time ; very bad rather, said I, who did 
 not ascribe to any affection, so much interest dis- 
 guised under the veil of curiosity. Every one 
 must know that Bonaparte has sworn in his irrevo- 
 cable decrees, the extermination of the reigning 
 branches of the Bourbon family. Thus he be- 
 gan with Naples, Parma, and Etruria, and has 
 gone on with Portugal. Knowing this, how 
 could we hope that Spain, the principal branch of 
 the family, should be free from this ruin, nor that 
 he could think of preserving it by ingrafting it 
 with a shoot, which he was stripping completely I 
 I confess, however, that between hope and 
 doubts, I was led to believe, that he might possi- 
 bly put it into execution, since it was the only 
 means of preventing the loss of the Americas. 
 
 On the other hand, I saw the strange anxiety, 
 evinced by a Frenchman to obtain the editing of 
 our Court Gazette, offering an annual indemnifi- 
 cation to the royal printing office. It appeared 
 to be a mercantile speculation of some individu- 
 
48 
 
 als, and it was nothing less than a plan, contrived 
 with great policy, by the French government, 
 cloaked under the appearance of a private con- 
 cern. But the solicitude of the ambassador 
 Beauharnois, and his official letters in favour of 
 the agents of this undertaking, and of the intro- 
 duction of a new periodical paper, entitled, La 
 Abeja Espanola, published at Paris, plainly disco- 
 vered the true designs of this hypocritical ambas- 
 sador, a most faithful executor and co-operator in 
 the perfidious and malicious designs of his august 
 master and brother-in-law, the Emperor. This 
 part he has fulfilled, from the day he entered 
 Madrid like an indecent vagabond, until that in 
 which, after having just fitted up a new house 
 with great pomp, and oriental splendor, he sud- 
 denly disappeared like a villain, who has just 
 committed a crime. In fact, he had now con- 
 cluded his last commission. 
 
 Were not all these acts preludes to the ap- 
 proach of that hour, when we would be deprived 
 of the faculty of speech, and of the liberty of 
 writing; and when, to aggravate our misfortunes, 
 they would leave us nothing but the power of re- 
 flecting on them. This happened as soon as 
 Murat entered into Madrid. In a few days he 
 takes possession of our Gazette, and of the daily 
 paper, and puts it in the hands of some of bis hun- 
 gry satellites, half learned, and half military men, 
 who were to pocket the profits, and distribute a 
 small recompense among some renegade Spa- 
 niards, who assisted them, partly in secret, and 
 partly with barefaced effrontery, in so patriotic a 
 
49 
 
 work. The whole of them have already disap- 
 peared, pronouncing themselves their sentence 
 and the punishment of their crime, by their 
 flight from court to the French army. It is to 
 be lamented that some hundreds more did not 
 go with them. The author of La Abeja has 
 also fled. He had returned to his country, under 
 the protection and safe-guard of its enemies : he 
 was another of those emissaries who came here 
 to preach up to us, the felicity which awaited us, 
 and with which we were unacquainted, and the 
 flight which Spanish genius would wing, when 
 protected by the tutelary Genius of France. 
 
 The unhappy lot, which I saw falling to the 
 other nations of Europe since the year 1 805, made 
 me anticipate my fears about the fate which 
 threatened Spain. Even the countenances of the 
 French pedlars, who walked our streets, and fre- 
 quented our coffee-houses, proclaimed their joy 
 in the hopes of some good fortune. Some em- 
 phatic words which they threw out, between pity 
 and admiration, announced to me, one or even 
 two years before the French troops entered, that 
 we were destined as an inheritance to them. 
 
 In suspicion, caution, and malice, the lame 
 ex-bishop and Prince of Benevento, (called in the 
 present age Talleyrand) the right hand of Napo- 
 leon, has gained no advantage over me ; neither 
 have I been deceived by the mysterious artifices 
 of those cunning oracles of the French diploma- 
 cy, those intimate advisers of the perfidy of the 
 imperial Fox, He deigns to speak to them, and 
 
60 
 
 consults them at pleasure or through necessity : 
 but who could hear me, when withdrawn to my 
 study, and keeping secret what there engaged my 
 attention ? Who dare question me, during the 
 reign of the universal governor of this monarchy ? 
 Nobody opened his lips in his presence, not even 
 those whose duty it was to assist at his office, and 
 who could advise him, what was proper for the 
 honor and preservation of the crown. All others 
 were only permitted to breathe, very moderately, 
 the air of his anti-chambers or his stables : and 
 their only duty was to applaud with humble and 
 reverential laughter, the jests of His Excellency, 
 and the insolence of His Highness. His remarks 
 were looked upon as the proverbs of Solomon, by 
 those insects, to whom he had granted the privi- 
 lege of seeing him in small clothes, or whose 
 adulation he had already bought with offices, or 
 expectations, which were the most that some re- 
 ceived. 
 
 When I could no longer doubt the fatal des- 
 tiny which was approaching us, and that the in- 
 activity and unskilfulness of this ignorant and 
 fickle-minded favorite, were accelerating our 
 ruin, I had the patriotic freedom to send the two 
 letters, which shall here be inserted, in order to 
 restrain his habit of writing proclamations, in 
 which he wished to show to the present and fu- 
 ture generations, how great was his popular elo- 
 quence. A specimen of them, among many 
 previous ones, is that ridiculous, foolish and im- 
 politic proclamation, which he issued in his 
 name to the nation, in order to inflame and call 
 
Si 
 
 her to the field of Mars, without telling her who 
 was the true or the supposed enemy. Learn 
 readers, that Napoleon was the true enemy, and 
 that we were just entering into the coalition of 
 the north. But the battle of Jena made him re- 
 pent, and he remained ill with every body. In 
 order to expiate the design of that imprudent and 
 untimely proclamation, he was forced to consent 
 to the cruel sacrifice of those 20,000 men, whom 
 the service of Napoleon sent to the north, as 
 hostages of our future submission. This was the 
 beginning of that blow which he aimed at our 
 military forces, that we might not be able to op- 
 pose any invasion. For this reason, though at 
 Varsovia, he pressed the quick departure of our 
 troops, with so much earnestness and even with 
 threats. 
 
 I had already foreseen what would happen, 
 and frequently said among my friends, Godoy, 
 as his line of conduct fully proves, aspires to the 
 regency, or to the crown, and he calculates upon 
 the assistance of Napoleon, who by his example 
 has inspired him with such lofty designs. The 
 Corsican, I added, keeps him up in his ambitious 
 plan, and after having permitted him to plunge 
 himself into an abyss of attempts, and to annihi- 
 late the power of the nation, he will kick him 
 away, and proclaim himself our liberator ; for 
 this is the most barefaced and quiet mode of con- 
 quering. I now ask, whether those blind and in- 
 fatuated Spaniards, who celebrated the victories 
 of Napoleon in the north, or related them with 
 heart-felt satisfaction, knew that each one was a 
 
m 
 
 pitched battle against Spain ? Undoubtedly they 
 did not ; and it is this brutal ignorance, which 
 must nowkeepthemin confusion and repentance: 
 but if they did, they deserve that their country 
 should know them, and deliver them up to public 
 vengeance. Since then, I have looked at his 
 successes through a telescopical glass, and have 
 clearly seen, what others would not or could not 
 discern. The French thought that because we 
 were dumb, we were also deaf and blind. 
 
 In the midst of these fears and presages, which 
 crowded around my anguished heart, I had the 
 grief and mortification to see posted up in hand- 
 bills, and published in our papers, Napoleon's 
 Code — Life of Napoleon — Catechism of Napoleon, 
 translated into Spanish, and sold by retail. Shame- 
 ful to our nation ! I saw, and was ashamed to 
 see, the book-stores and print-shops, with their 
 doors and walls defiled with portraits of Napoleon, 
 of all sizes, some illuminated, and others not. I 
 saw there crowds of idiots, some in riding coats, 
 some with wigs and others with crowns, who 
 were admiring and gazing with their mouths 
 wide open, when they should have looked with 
 horror, at the image of the hero, who was soon 
 to send to us 100,000 bayonets, and '20,000 cut- 
 lasses, that we might enjoy a happiness, with 
 which we were unacquainted, and which we 
 have already begun to taste. And what w T as all 
 this, but gradually familiarizing us, with the 
 sight of this tyrant, and acquiring a certain love 
 for him from our very admiration ? Did not these 
 demonstrations call him, in a manner to us, and 
 
65 
 
 acclaim him in weak and corrupt hearts ? The 
 translators, reviewers, printers, book-sellers, en- 
 gravers, and purchasers have greatly offended 
 their country. In that street, which was the 
 principal theatre of such scandalous scenes, 
 a funeral pile should be raised, where those exe- 
 crable monuments of our weakness or treachery 
 should publicly be burnt. 
 
 To return to that epoch of my fears and pre- 
 sages, of which I have spoken above, the first 
 letter I then sent to the generalissimo Godoy 
 was the following — " Sir, if your excellency 
 should think, that in the present circumstances 
 my zeal and my person can be of any utility, I 
 cheerfully place both at your disposal, and offer 
 every assistance in the power of a good Spaniard 
 and a faithful subject. I have a country and I 
 love her : not with my tongue as is the case with 
 many, but with my whole heart. If my years do 
 not permit me to handle my sword, the pen has 
 not yet fallen from my hands. I offer to my king 
 and country as much as 1 ought, for I offer all I 
 can, and to your excellency profound veneration 
 and obedience. May God preserve the important 
 life of your excellency many years. — Madrid 8th 
 November, 1806." 
 
 I know that my offer and zeal did not displease 
 him. The latter however could not remain 
 satisfied, with this passive approbation, which 
 I was able to wrest from him. Four days after 
 I wrote him another letter, which, although it 
 might not awaken him from his lethargy, might 
 inform him what he could still do with us, before 
 
u 
 
 We were sacrificed like the other nations of Eu- 
 rope. It was as follows : — " Sir, my love for 
 my country, not being satisfied with the small 
 offer I made Your Excellency, and being cer- 
 tain that whatever sentiment the spirit which an- 
 ni mates me may breathe, it cannot offend one, 
 who knows the goodness of my intentions ; I 
 take the liberty of suggesting to the comprehen- 
 sive mind of Your Excellency a few ideas, the 
 offspring of my ardent wish, that Spaniards may 
 recover their former sentiments and character, 
 which they have been unfortunately losing, for 
 some years back. They are disgracing that re- 
 putation which their ancestors knew how to 
 maintain in peace and war, and which rendered 
 them respectable among foreign nations and 
 among enemies. 
 
 u It is not the physical strength of the body 
 alone, but also the moral strength of the mind, 
 which constitutes the strength of a nation. Force 
 of arms, and dexterity in managing them, are 
 not sufficient to constitute the power of a mon- 
 archy, if courage, confidence and spirit are want- 
 ing in those who are to defend it ; and if those 
 who are to contribute to the means of its defence 
 are deficient in zeal and good will. 
 
 " Character governs all men ; and this I see 
 is nearly extinguished among my countrymen, 
 who appear to have forgotten their noble origin, 
 the greatness of their country, and the glory of 
 her ancient exploits, since they have lost their 
 own customs, usages, habits, dress, language, and 
 even their prejudices, which sometimes assist 
 
85 
 
 very much in conquering an enemy, or at least, 
 prevent themselves from being conquered. Men 
 are always in want of an idol, to which they may 
 sacrifice their repose, their fortunes and even 
 their blood. Formerly, religion gave rise to pro- 
 digies of valor : the name of Spaniards, inflamed 
 and animated warriors, because it rendered them 
 vain ; and the recollection of country y infused a 
 desire of preserving her into the minds of the no- 
 ble, the peasant, and the clergyman. But now, 
 that with the inundation of French books, cus- 
 toms, and fashions, that severity of the Spaniards 
 has become effeminate ; their manners have un- 
 dergone a great change, and produced a kind of 
 aversion to the mode of life of their fathers ; now, 
 that we read neither our histories, our comedies, 
 nor our songs, but look upon them all as bar- 
 barous and ignorant ; now that it is fashionable, 
 stylish, and good breeding to admire every thing 
 which comes beyond the Pyrenees, and affectedly 
 to forget whatever resembles our own land, and 
 even to despise what nature has given us with so 
 bountiful a hand ; now, I say, we have no other 
 means of making ourselves respectable and pow- 
 erful but by inspiring the people with confi- 
 dence, and those of high rank with shame at 
 their degradation. Of what consequence would 
 it be to a king to have subjects, if he had no na- 
 tion ? A nation is formed, not by the number of 
 individuals, but by the union of the wills, the 
 conformity of laws, customs, and language, which 
 maintain and keep them together, from genera- 
 tion to generation. For this reason, upon which 
 
56 
 
 few have reflected, T preached so often in all my 
 writings and conversations, against those who as- 
 sist by their example and practice, in every thing 
 they say, write, and translate, in annihilating our 
 language : my object was rather political than 
 grammatical. Wherever there is no nation, there 
 is no native country. Italy and Germany fully 
 prove that, at this very time. If the Italians 
 and the Germans, who are divided and distressed 
 with so many different interests, customs and go- 
 vernments, had formed one people, they would 
 neither have been invaded nor dismembered. 
 They are great regions described and marked down 
 on the map ; but they are not nations, although 
 they speak the same language. The universal cry 
 of Germans ! Italians ! does not inflame the mind 
 of any individual, for none of them belongs to a 
 whole body. Man ought to regulate his con- 
 duct by the precepts of the bible ; but nations 
 by the laws of self-preservation. There is no 
 friendship between them : reciprocal hatred 
 keeps them without fearing or envying one ano- 
 ther, and gives rise to emulation, the mother of 
 great actions. Any nation which is in love with 
 another, is already half conquered, leaving little 
 to be done in an invasion to force of arms. 
 
 " The French armies are possibly indebted in a 
 great measure, to this fatal disposition of their 
 enemies for their rapid triumphs. If the sense of 
 character is weakened, it must be enlivened by 
 means directly opposite to those, which brought it 
 to a state of decline. The poets, who hitherto 
 have only dedicated themselves to singing love 
 
51 
 
 songs and victories in heroic and lyric composi- 
 tions, might exercise their talent in popular 
 poems, which might awaken notions of honour, 
 courage and patriotism, by relating the exploits 
 of our brave captains and soldiers in the two 
 worlds, at one time against the Indians, and 
 at another against the enemies of Spain in 
 Africa, Italy, and Flanders, for history teems 
 with their heroic deeds. . With these songs re- 
 peated in our dances, entertainments and thea- 
 tres, a delicious treat would be given to the people, 
 until their present indolence would be shaken off, 
 and they would entirely lay aside their former 
 collection of dances and songs — The bull feasts 
 might also contribute towards maintaining this 
 national spirit, and in our present circumstances I 
 would be glad they were not abolished. As I 
 have always looked upon this public amusement, 
 as originating in Spain, only exercised among 
 Spaniards, and inimitable in foreign kingdoms, I 
 formerly wrote an apology in its favour, against 
 the Spaniards of the new school, beings, who are 
 now dead to their country. " I prefer this Spanish 
 ferocity as it is called, which can make us be 
 feared, to that philosophical effeminacy and friv- 
 olity of the present day, which has rendered us 
 despicable in the eyes of those very persons, who 
 have ingrafted it in us. With this motive, and in 
 order that your Excellency may see what I 
 thought at that time, in what I said or rather fore- 
 told, I take the liberty of including to you the 
 three newspapers in which, I six years ago, gave 
 my opinion, anonimously, lest I should be stoned 
 
 H 
 
' . 5S 
 
 to death by people of taste. I beseech your Ex- 
 cellency to pardon my boldness and my errors, 
 if such can be called, the overflowings of a sound 
 and patriotic heart, which earnestly wishes for the 
 glory and happiness of your Excellency ; whose 
 important life, I pray God may preserve many 
 years. — Madrid, Pith Nov. 1806." 
 
 I know that he also read this letter, and very 
 attentively, upon his return from the walk ; but 
 without ever having produced any effect. I 
 wished to copy in this place these two monu- 
 ments of my patriotic zeal and my foresight, 
 concerning the state of political infirmity, in which 
 my country was, and which could not now be cured 
 by the exhortations nor the sermons of an idiot, 
 who was himself the cause of his approaching 
 misfortunes, and whose person was detested even 
 by those who were indebted to him for their 
 fortunes. What must have been the tribulation 
 of my unquiet mind, disturbed by such fatal pre- 
 sages, when others could only see straight before 
 them, and were not deprived of their rest by the 
 triumphs of Napoleoq ! Oh ! happy souls, who 
 slept at your ease, until the trumpet of Murat 
 called you to judgment ! But it was my mis- 
 fortune to suffer before I could feel, and to un- 
 dergo death before I died. 
 
 Oh ! unwary Spaniards ! I believe that you 
 have not yet feared as much as you reasonably 
 might, from the iniquitous^ heart of Bonaparte, 
 \vere he become the master of Spain. You fore- 
 saw these revolutions^ contributions, conscrip- 
 tions, the abolition of your laws, the ruin of 
 
59 
 
 your holy religion, the loss of the Americas, &c. 
 &c. But were you sure, that, he would not put 
 Spain upon the same footing with the other na- 
 tions, which he governs, mediately or immedi- 
 ately ? Were you sure, that taking organized 
 France for his model, he would not divide you 
 into departments, districts, prefect-ships, &c. 
 Taking from your provinces their name and po- 
 litical existence, he may also abulish that of 
 Spain, calling her perhaps Iberia, or Hesperia, 
 according to the pedantic whim of his transfor- 
 mations, in order that our grand-children may 
 not recollect the country, in which their ances- 
 tors were born ? 
 
 And do you know whether, as a greater pun- 
 ishment, his indignation will not have prepared 
 for us another species of mortification and insult ? 
 Whether he will not send Godoy to us again, in 
 all his pomp and magnificence ? 
 
 Spaniards, be on your guard ! expect neither 
 friendship nor humanity from Frenchmen : 
 place no confidence in their words, and detest 
 their actions. On another occasion as a favor to 
 them, I said, that we must read their books, but 
 burn to death their authors, for their hearts have 
 never been in unison with their lips. Their dis- 
 position renders them seditious at home, and their 
 policy makes them revolutionary abroad. In no 
 condition can they remain quiet, but are always 
 engaging in plots and intrigues. An old proverb 
 of theirs gives a true description of them : — 
 Quand le Frangais dort le diable le berce, (when a 
 Frenchman sleeps, the devil rocks the cradle.) 
 
60 
 
 Is not this the same as telling us, that the devil 
 wishes he should not awake, lest he should de- 
 prive him of his office ? 
 
 With what philanthropic energy they pro- 
 claimed to us, that upon their entrance into Italy, 
 they would abolish that vile practice of castrating 
 persons trained up to music, being, they said, the 
 greatest degradation of the human species. These 
 were empty promises of their pompous philoso- 
 phy. The humanity of Napoleon wants com- 
 plete men, who may propagate slaves for his 
 wars, the theatre of his diversions. 
 
 Spaniards, I repeat it, be on your guard ! Do 
 not trust to what the French tell you, either 
 when they flatter or when they threaten you. 
 Their maxims and boastings have been the per- 
 dition of the world. When they declared war 
 against the Emperor of Russia, they called him 
 an inexperienced, pusillanimous Prince, surroun- 
 ded by weak counsellors, and heaped upon the 
 nation the epithets of barbarous and ferocious 
 Scythians, threatening every state of Europe. 
 The war is ended ; an alliance concluded, and 
 Alexander has already become a young hero, his 
 court the centre of refinement, his government 
 illustrious, his troops brave, and his nation respec- 
 table. As they write upon every subject in a mas- 
 terly style, some of their modern military charac- 
 ters openly affirm, that fortified towns are use- 
 less, according to the modern system of warfare ; 
 but in the mean time they guard their own very 
 carefully, garrison and fortify those which they 
 take, or rather those which their enemies deliver 
 
61 
 
 up to them. If they are of no use, why did 
 they take possession of all those on the Rhine and 
 on the frontier of Holland, in order to form an 
 impenetrable barrier, round the confines of 
 France ? If they are of no use, why did the 
 first article, which they exacted from the traitor 
 Godoy, require that Pampelona, Figueras, and 
 Barcelona should be delivered up to them ? Why 
 do they guard them so unremittingly ? These 
 hypocrites well know, that if these fortresses had 
 not been in their hands, they would not have 
 dared to enter into Spain, and that long since, 
 Catalonia and Navarre would have been cleared of 
 Frenchmen. Would they remain in these two 
 provinces without having these places to fall 
 back to and recruit ? 
 
 You have seen with indignation, and treated 
 with contempt, the treachery of Napoleon, his 
 envenomed professions of friendship and pros- 
 perity made to us in his proposals, and the exhor- 
 tations addressed to us by those whom he has ap- 
 pointed to execute his insidious designs. 
 
 Ask France, what prosperity her invincible 
 emperor has acquired for her during his reign ? 
 What tranquillity and ease families enjoy ? What 
 eminence in her arts ? What progress in the 
 sciences ? What increase of population ? What 
 activity in. the manufactures? What riches in 
 her commerce ? and what enlargement in her 
 navigation ? She will answer you, that every 
 thing is annihilated ; that that flourishing king- 
 dom has become a barrack for soldiers, and that 
 in her formerly beautiful cities, there reigns only 
 
. 62 
 
 the rigor of a civil and military despotism. The 
 remains of the population, which survived the 
 first war, still lament the blood of more than one 
 million of victims ; and the shoots which have 
 sprouted from the ashes of the immense destruc- 
 tion, caused by the axe of the French revolution, 
 have grown, and do still grow, to be pulled up 
 and transplanted in the bloody and horrid field of 
 death. Consider Spaniards what fate awaited 
 you, who were the objects of the avarice and 
 ambition of this wild monster, when he has sacri- 
 ficed to his mad triumphs, those whom he calls 
 his children, and for whom he has been exert- 
 ing himself, as he says, eight years past ? Truly 
 his subjects fight, he alone triumphs, and his 
 sluggish connexions enjoy the victory. 
 
 On the other hand, could you doubt the mo- 
 deration of the supreme arbiter of your destiny ? 
 He told you, I will not reign over your provin- 
 ces, I will leave you your religion and preserve 
 your independence and the indivisibility of the 
 monarchy. Could there exist a more insolent 
 conqueror : granting these things to the van- 
 quished, by capitulation, or through clemency? 
 By this it would seem, that he could prohibit the 
 exercise of our religion, make us over or sell us 
 to another tyrant, as is his custom, or cut Spain 
 into slices. 
 
 One cause, whieh he alleged for coming to re- 
 form us, was, that our monarchy was old, that is, 
 it was not like the French — what an insulting 
 joke ! He came to repair our dilapidated and 
 exhausted treasury : and in order to ease her. 
 
63 
 
 put the small weight of 120,000 armed men, 
 upon the lank ribs of the poor old creature. He 
 saw our misfortunes he said, and wished to reme- 
 dy them, after having caused them, and been an 
 accomplice in the villany of our domestic rob- 
 ber. He wished to give to Spain, the splendor, 
 glory and power which she formerly enjoyed. 
 What would become of France and of her concei- 
 ted emperor, if we were to recover our former 
 strength ? He took compassion on our weak- 
 ness, and could not bear to see the decline of a 
 neighbour, by his own bad government. It is 
 false, thou barefaced villain : it is this dissipa- 
 tion, this weak government, which has given 
 thee the strength and audacity to come and in- 
 sult us. A most ridiculous assertion ; it will 
 never again be mentioned in history, that one 
 power should exert itself to increase the strength 
 and prosperity of its neighbors : since all govern- 
 ments for their own preservation or preponder- 
 ancy, avail themselves of the weakness, the one 
 of the other, and even occasion it, as France 
 whilst a republic, and since whilst a monarchy, 
 has done with Spain. 
 
 He would not, he says, take the government 
 from Godoy, whom he calls, a man without ta- 
 lents or morals, lest he should grieve Charles his 
 friend and ally : he then treats this friend with 
 the greatest insult and treachery, deprives him 
 and his first born son and legitimate successor, 
 our ever beloved Ferdinand VII. of their crown 
 and their liberty. He at the same time patroni- 
 
64 
 
 ses and protects this wretch whom he before stig- 
 matized as inept and immoral. 
 
 As our laws are old, he came to give us new 
 ones: This is the last degree of tyranny and hu- 
 miliation, which a conquered nation can suffer 
 from the conqueror. How great must be the 
 presumption and vanity of Napoleon who makes 
 himself our legislator before he subdues us ! Let 
 the new Constitution of Spain, presented to us by 
 his wisdom and beneficence, explain it ; this scan- 
 dalous monument of our future slavery. He 
 wished us to subscribe blindly to a miserable pam- 
 phlet of 34 pages 12mo. in which short space 
 was written the eternal destiny of Spain ; as if he 
 were making a provisional regulation for a new 
 colony of negroes upon a barren island. The 
 smallness of the volume forms its principal insult, 
 and the brevity of its articles its greatest injury, 
 with the most malice. Our patience is very 
 great if our indolence is not greater. Among so 
 many learned and patriotic men, how happens it 
 that no pen has appeared, to crumble, crush and 
 pulverize this code of deceptions, snares, perfidies 
 and nonsense ? What is contained therein is not 
 so bad as what is omitted. In theory, the volume 
 is short : but in practice how grievous and weighty. 
 
 If we resist the violence of this unjust invader) 
 they call us rebels, because wo are unwilling to be 
 slaves : if we make no resistance we are treated as 
 such, disarmed, threatened, robbed, and loaded 
 with contributions. A musket shot from a village 
 is expiated by fire and sword. Tamerlane did 
 not issue the decree of death against the towns 
 
65 
 
 which he laid siege to until the third day. The 
 first day he hoisted a white flag, the second a red, 
 and the third a black one. He deceived no one: 
 the intimation was as clear as it was concise. 
 
 Bonaparte has fought, until now, against armies 
 and not against nations. The maxims of particu- 
 lar policy which he has formed, do not respect 
 those, who fight for their homes, or in their own 
 houses. Who has told him that those do not en- 
 joy the rights of war, who defend their country or 
 their homes with their hands, or with arms ? 
 Every peasant becomes a soldier, when he oppo- 
 ses those who come to rob him of his property 
 and liberty: the want of uniform does not de- 
 prive him of this quality, he is a soldier by 
 birth. 
 
 Did Napoleon think that penetrating into Spain 
 "was the same as traversing Swabia, Saxony, and 
 Westphalia, whose peasantry remain asleep whilst 
 walking ? Those good people, are accustomed in 
 every war, to pass from the yoke of one Sovereign 
 to that of another, without preserving a love for 
 any. But besides these political causes, what with 
 divisions, what with incorporations and transfers 
 of vassalage, without the power of calling then- 
 country, either the land which they lost on the 
 one side, or gained or exchanged on the other ; 
 in every state and condition the people were ser- 
 vile by habit, and servile by birth. 
 
 We should fear, that the artful Bonaparte, after 
 having found that the plan of despotism, which 
 he is extending throughout Europe, had succeed- 
 
 T 
 
66 
 
 ed in France, would come to establish it in Spain. 
 This is what he calls regenerating; that is, civi- 
 lizing nations after his manner, until they en- 
 tirely lose their former character, and the memo- 
 ry of their liberty. To make every thing even, 
 uniform, simple, and organized, are words very 
 flattering to theorists, and particularly so to ty- 
 rants. When every thing is smooth and solid, 
 and all the parts are confounded into a homogene- 
 ous mass, governing is more expeditious, because 
 obedience is more expeditious. If a hundred 
 balls, all of the same weight and matter, be ar- 
 ranged on a plane in the form of a solid sphere, 
 by slightly touching the centre ball, they will all 
 be moved at the same instant, even to the cir- 
 cumference. How easily the despot then rules ! 
 The shaking of a finger puts the whole machine, 
 however great, into motion ; and by merely 
 opening his mouth, or arching his eye-brows, like 
 the Jupiter of Homer, the earth shakes, and the 
 sons of men tremble. 
 
 Napoleon is this despot, and the French are 
 the balls of the sphere. In organized France, 
 that is, in fettered France, there is but one law, 
 one shepherd and one flock, destined constitution- 
 ally to the slaughter. For this reason this shep- 
 herd does not meet with any contradiction to his 
 whims, nor any obstacles to his wishes. His will 
 is the supreme law, to which all others must be 
 subservient. Fie can calculate upon the blind 
 obedience of more than forty millions of souls, 
 who in his eyes form but one. This is an 
 event which the Emperor Caligula desired so 
 
67 
 
 much, but could not obtain ; wishing that the 
 the whole Roman people had but one head, that 
 he might put them all to death with one blow. 
 
 When the fortunate Bonaparte usurped the 
 Consular, and afterwards the Imperial dignity, he 
 found every thing already done. He was born 
 a giant, and made immediate use of his strength. 
 There were no longer in France either clergy, 
 nobility, parliaments, or provinces : she main- 
 tained both within and without 400,000 veteran 
 soldiers, and fifty experienced generals, of whom 
 he could make immediate use. He abolished 
 every monument commemorative of the repub- 
 lic : but whatever could further his designs, that he 
 preserved : it was thus with our treaty of alliance, 
 which ought no longer to have subsisted, when 
 the government and constitution of France were 
 changed. But who could make any opposition, 
 or where could an appeal lie against this injus- 
 tice and violence ; the omnipotent Napoleon be- 
 ing both party and judge in this cause, and exe- 
 cutioner upon the verdict? 
 
 In France there are neither provinces nor na- 
 tions ; their territories and even their names are 
 blotted from their maps. Like sheep who have 
 no individual name, except the common mark 
 of their owner, he has allotted to them certain 
 spaces of ground, divided either by streams, 
 rivers, or mountains, under the name of depart- 
 ments, or pasture grounds, and these divided into 
 AxsincXs ox sheep-cots There is no fixed country for 
 Frenchmen ; for the country in which they, their 
 fathers or their mothers were born, has no indi- 
 
68 
 
 vidual name. They are born and brought up in 
 the fields, and die upon the field of battle. They 
 are all culled Frenchmen in a mass, like sheep, 
 subject to the crook of the great imperial herds- 
 man. It is thus that his throne is secured, with- 
 out the dread of insurrection or discontent among 
 the provinces, which may one day vie with one 
 another, in being the first to hoist the standard of 
 impatience, against so heavy a yoke. 
 
 This unity and indivisibility which was then so 
 fortunate for the despotic directory, has since 
 been still more fortunate for the despotic Bona- 
 parte. This is called simplifying, systemizing a 
 government, and regenerating a nation, till man 
 is degenerated from his first destination, and the 
 bands of the natural and social affections rent and 
 broken asunder. The unborn fruit of the mo- 
 ther's womb, are there destined to be the assassins 
 of their fellow-creatures. 
 
 The tyrant did not wish to frighten us, when 
 he spoke of regeneration, under which name he 
 cloaked the violence of so terrible a transforma- 
 tion. One of the brothers has already told us in 
 his paternal counsels, of his sincere wishes that 
 the nation should not suffer those disasters to which 
 the convulsions of the provinces would expose her. 
 Be it known to His Imperial and Royal Majesty, 
 and to the eloquent expounders of his adorable de- 
 crees and pacific sentiments, that the convulsions of 
 our provinces have restored them to health, and 
 have saved the entire nation. This weak and de- 
 spaired of body could not be moved from the pit 
 into which he had thrown it, without having some 
 
of its limbs electrified. Each province has rou- 
 sed and has taken off the yoke, in a manner pe- 
 culiar to herself. What would already have be- 
 come of the Spaniards, were there no Arrago- 
 nians, Valentians, Murcians, Andalusians Astu- 
 rians, Gallicians, Catalonians, Castillians, &c ? 
 Each of these names inflames our anger and our 
 pride, and of these small divisions, is composed 
 the mass of the great nation, which our wise 
 conqueror was unacquainted with, although he 
 ever had upon his sideboard an open map of 
 Spain. 
 
 Do not forget, my beloved countrymen, that a 
 Frenchman is an indescribable animal : he preach - 
 es up virtue and has none ; humanity, and he 
 knows not what it is; he wishes peace, and he 
 seeks for war ; he destroys with one hand, what 
 he builds up with the other. A Frenchman pos- 
 sesses the vivacity and the docility of the horse, 
 who with equal joy and equal patience, permits 
 himself to be mounted either by Trajan or Napo- 
 leon. 
 
 Oh ! happy are you, ye inhabitants of islands, 
 who, surrounded by the sea, do not partake of the 
 uneasiness and the horrors of the continent! Oh ! 
 Sicilian vigils, so famous in history, when will we 
 be able to accompany you, that the angels may 
 sing praises in heaven ! Fie had also decreed you 
 to slavery. Not satisfied with the land, he wish- 
 es to rule over the water, and deprive England of 
 her power over the seas, by his vain efforts, call- 
 ing her the common enemy, in order to excite the 
 indignation of all nations against her, as - if love or 
 hatred could be impressed by imperial decrees. 
 
70 
 
 What would have become of the world, if En- 
 gland had not arrested his steps and clipped his 
 wings in this element! What invasions of con- 
 querors! What descents of bloody pirates from 
 pole to pole ! This furious and ill-advised hero 
 pretending to crush the power of England, has 
 destroyed his own navy, and that of every other 
 power. 
 
 Be upon your guard, my loyal and brave 
 countrymen ! Do you be sentinels against the 
 French, and against those Spaniards, who are 
 afraid of them, or do not detest them; for if an 
 opportunity should present itself they would as- 
 sist them to-morrow. Have you not seen with 
 horror and amazement, how they have been ser- 
 ved by some, who seeing their country in servi- 
 tude and affliction, under the expectations of re- 
 ceiving an office, have solicited to be made the 
 overseers of our enemies, that they might exer- 
 cise some authority over their countrymen? This 
 perversity can only be found in the regencies of 
 Barbary,where those who order and beat the 
 Christian captives, tie them to the oar, and cut 
 their arms if they do not row, are the renegadoes, 
 who in order to possess some authority over their 
 wretched companions, strip themselves of the re- 
 ligion of their ancestors, the love of their country 
 and every sentiment of shame or humanity. 
 
 Spaniards be on your guard : permit these 
 Transpyrenean madmen to call you barbarians, 
 provided they acknowledge you to be invincible. 
 They complained of our roads and our inns ; 
 but would to God they had not been so conve- 
 
71 
 
 nient for their reception, either in peace or war, 
 nor that so many of our youth had been able to 
 pass our frontier ! We should have prepared for 
 them the inns of Arabia and the roads of moun- 
 tain goats ; and instead of spacious turnpikes 
 paved with stone, have given them breaks and 
 passes cut through rocks, that they might neither 
 be able to run their posts, nor move their artillery. 
 Civilization is sometimes the death of nations. 
 From the time that the Duke of Savoy opened a 
 magnificent road, by cutting through immense 
 rocks, he ceased to be the porter of Italy. 
 
 Illustrious Spaniards : provinces honored by 
 this glorious name, when joined together you 
 form the power of Spain, and, confining to one 
 object your wishes, you will make the power of 
 your nation invincible ; preserve, therefore, your 
 union, fraternity and constancy. Every move- 
 ment, which leads you from these three points, 
 is a breach, which you open to the attack of our 
 enemy: this is the only victory which he ex- 
 pects, which his arms cannot obtain, and which 
 can only be effected by our own hands. The 
 crafty Napoleon is not asleep ; be on the watch 
 therefore to clear the sacred territory of Spain of 
 disloyal subjects, of hypocrites and of persons dis- 
 affected to the common cause. Our sovereign is 
 a prisoner in France, but our sovereignty is free 
 in Spain. His royal palace expects you and 
 awaits your arrival, you deputies of the supreme 
 union and authority, that those doors may be 
 opened, which national sorrow has closed. 
 
 FINIS.