wavering Spanish garrison. About this time, however, General
Graham, with his British corps, sallied out of Cadiz, and beat the
French on the heights of Barrosa, which lie in front of Cadiz, which
city the French were then besieging. Encouraged by the successes of
our regular armies, the Spanish Guerillas became more and more
numerous and daring. By the end of 1811 Joseph Bonaparte found so
many thorns in his usurped crown that he implored his brother to put
it on some other head. Napoleon would not then listen to his
prayer. In the course of 1811 a plan was laid for liberating
Ferdinand from his prison in France and placing him at the head of
affairs in Spain, but was detected by the emissaries of Bonaparte's
police. Ferdinand's sister, the ex-Queen of Etruria, had also
planned an escape to England. Her agents were betrayed, tried by a
military commission, and shot--the Princess herself was condemned to
close confinement in a Roman convent.--Editor of 1836 edition.]--

The Continental system was the cause, if not of the eventual fall, at
least of the rapid fall of Napoleon. This cannot be doubted if we
consider for a moment the brilliant situation of the Empire in 1811,
and the effect simultaneously produced throughout Europe by that system,
which undermined the most powerful throne which ever existed. It was the
Continental system that Napoleon upheld in Spain, for he had persuaded
himself that this system, rigorously enforced, would strike a death blow
to the commerce of England; and Duroc besides informed me of a
circumstance which is of great weight in this question. Napoleon one day
said to him, "I am no longer anxious that Joseph should be King of Spain;
and he himself is indifferent about it. I would give the crown to the
first comer who would shut his ports against the English."

Murat had come to Paris on the occasion of the Empress' accouchement, and