PREFACE. AN apology is due to the public, for having delayed my volume on the State of Spain so long after its first announcement. In observing that I fully intended to produce a rapid and limited view of Peninsular affairs, immediately after my return from Madrid; it may also be proper to add, that when several literary friends hinted that the newspapers of Europe, had teemed with so many details, on the subject of my proposed publication, as to afford me but little chance of attracting notice, unless I could present something more solid than that which was served up by the purveyors to the diurnal press; prudence whispered, that I was bound to follow their advice. How far those who counselled delay were right, and whether they would not have acted a still more friendly part, in recommending an indefinite postponement, is for the public to decide. I can neither forget, nor be ungrateful for, the extreme indulgence shown towards me, ten years ago, by those from whom I could not expect so much courtesy. If the forbearance of some, and approbation of others, arose from a belief that the interests of my country had a greater share in urging me to incur the ordeal of criticism, than the vanity of authorship, it affords me an additional source of consolation. The tone of impartiality I have adopted now, as on every former occasion, and those modifications of opinion, suggested by a more careful examination of facts, will necessarily expose me to the censure of those, who think consistency in error to be the best criterion of virtue. Invariably actuated by a desire to promote the happiness of the greater number, I had no other course left, than the one I have pursued: satisfied, that the surest, perhaps the only way of diminishing those fatal effects, which the slavery of party and faction have, heretofore, exercised on the liberties of mankind, will be found in observing the strictest impartiality towards all those who divide political society, I have never lost sight of that object in the following pages; though this path neither leads to ministerial patronage, emolument nor place, yet it is that which honour and patriotism dictate. Let it not be imagined from the sketch I |