Page:Modern poets and poetry of Spain.djvu/167

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JUAN BAUTISTA DE ARRIAZA.

the state of public feeling in England, on the several particulars respecting which he was writing.

A third pamphlet he wrote in English, and published it in London in 1810, where he was then sent on the part of the Spanish government. This he entitled 'Observations on the system of war of the Allies in the Peninsula;' and he endeavoured in it to urge the English to send more troops to the Peninsula, at certain points, where he considered they would be of most avail in disconcerting the plans of the French, and assisting the Guerrilla warfare the Spaniards were carrying on. He explained the determined fidelity of the Spaniards to the cause of their independence, but showed they would be insufficient to effect it, without the assistance he came to seek. This pamphlet was favourably received in England, and was noticed in Parliament; and the author had the good fortune to hope that his efforts had been successful, as he says, "The English government then sent greater reinforcements to their army, which emerging from its inaction, acquired the superiority preserved until the happy conclusion of the war."

For these and other writings, Arriaza received the thanks of the Regency in the name of the king, and had just cause to consider that a sufficient counterbalance to the misrepresentations made of his conduct in France, and elsewhere, by the opposite party. In a note affixed to the last edition of his poems, he complains that in a work published in France, ’Biography of Contemporary Characters/ there was an article respecting him "full of errors, even regarding the most public circumstances of his life," which he seems to have considered written from party feeling. If his surmises were correct, it is the more to be regretted that he did not take the best means of correcting those misrepresentations, by giving an authentic biographical account of his career in reply. He might