But here, again, you must understand me.  When I speak of Princes whose talents are known not to be brilliant, whose intellects are known to be feeble, and whose good intentions are rendered null by a want of firmness of character or consistency of conduct; while I deplore their weakness and the consequent misfortunes of their contemporaries, I lay all the blame on their wicked or ignorant counsellors; because, if no Ministers were fools or traitors, no Sovereigns would tremble on their thrones, and no subjects dare to shake their foundation.  Had Providence blessed Charles iv. of Spain with the judgment in selecting his Ministers, and the constancy of persevering in his choice, possessed by your George iii.; had the helm of Spain been in the firm and able hands of a Grenville, a Windham, and a Pitt, the Cabinet of Madrid would never have been oppressed by the yoke of the Cabinet of St. Cloud, nor paid a heavy tribute for its bondage, degrading as well as ruinous.

“This is the age of upstarts,” said Talleyrand to his cousin, Prince de Chalais, who reproached him for an unbecoming servility to low and vile personages; “and I prefer bowing to them to being trampled upon and crushed by them.”  Indeed, as far as I remember, nowhere in history are hitherto recorded so many low persons who, from obscurity and meanness, have suddenly and at once attained rank and notoriety.  Where do we read of such a numerous crew of upstart Emperors, Kings, grand pensionaries, directors, Imperial Highnesses, Princes, Field-marshals, generals, Senators, Ministers, governors, Cardinals, etc., as we now witness figuring upon the theatre of Europe, and who chiefly decide on the destiny of nations?  Among these, several are certainly to be found whose superior parts have made them worthy to pierce the crowd and to shake off their native mud; but others again, and by far the greatest number of these ‘novi homines’, owe their present elevation to shameless intrigues or atrocious crimes.

The Prime Minister—­or rather, the viceroy of Spain, the Prince of Peace—­belongs to the latter class.  From a man in the ranks of the guards he was promoted to a general-in-chief, and from a harp player in antechambers to a president of the councils of a Prince; and that within the short period of six years.  Such a fortune is not common; but to be absolutely without capacity as well as virtue, genius as well as good breeding, and, nevertheless, to continue in an elevation so little merited, and in a place formerly so subject to changes and so unstable, is a fortune that no upstart ever before experienced in Spain.