The English in Spain Author:Francis Duncan Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE ENGLISH IN SPAIN. CHAPTER I. The English Commissioner. TN September, 1834, Lord Palmerston, who then presided at - the Foreign Office of England, de... more »cided on sending " an " officer of rank and experience to the head-quarters of the " Army of Her Catholic Majesty employed in suppressing " the rebellion in the Northern Provinces of Spain." It was a happy resolution for the students of this period of Spanish history: and it was a wise resolution, as far as concerned the suffering inhabitants of a distracted country, and the wounded and prisoners of the opposing armies. It really appears to be impossible for any one, a party to a struggle, to give an accurate account of what takes place. The desire — one might almost say the necessity — of inspiring troops to renewed efforts, leads an interested and contemporary chronicler to give undue prominence to successes, and to forget reverses: if indeed his imagination does not carry him beyond the region of facts altogether. Special circumstances intensified this tendency in the War of Succession in Spain, which is to be discussed in these pages. Each party desired to stand high in the eyes of Europe, because each desired eagerly to obtain money from foreign lenders. The greater and more numerous the victories which each could claim, the easier would be the terms on which the capitalists of London, Paris, or Amsterdam would part with their hoards. Nor were the means of speedy contradiction so available as they are forty years later. Again, as success in the field rendered the position of ministers in either Court more secure, and as these ministers were practically the fountain of military promotion, the temptation to shed a roseate hue over their own movements, and to paint in the darkest colours the necessities of their op...« less