Note 37 — Chapter V

Azanza and O’Farrill say that they were confirmed in this opinion by the arrival of Perez de Castro, a day or two afterwards, from Bayonne, who assured them that Ferdinand and his friends had been in the greatest alarm lest the Junta should have begun to act upon these instructions, or lest they should by any means have fallen into the Emperor’s hands. (Memoria, sec. 85.) This is very possible, after the renunciation had been made, and they had submitted to their fate. But when the apology proceeds to say how well and bravely the instructions would have been acted upon had they arrived in time, the writers give themselves credit for a higher degree of virtue than was evinced either by their conduct then or afterwards. (Id. sec. 90, 91.) Among the inconveniences of resisting the French, they represent the necessity of putting the English in possession of certain maritime posts, and the probability that England would have retained those posts for herself, to be another reproach to the Spaniards like Gibraltar! (Id. sec. 89.)