This was due, partly, to a slight betterment in his health, which he at this time mentions; chiefly, it would seem, to the prospects of a Spanish war.

This, by doubling the number of his enemies and the quarters whence they might come, contributed to the pleasurable excitement that was always a tonic to his physical frame, and roused the eager desire for conspicuous action, which was his most prominent passion.

Indications also assured him that the expectation of the French coming out, in which appearances had so often deceived him, was now on the point of being realized; that Bonaparte's projects, whatever they were, were approaching maturity.

His "guess," founded on the reports before him, was wonderfully penetrative.

He did not see all the way through the French mill-stone, but he saw very deep into it; his inference, indeed, was one in which intuition and sagacity bore equal shares.