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THREE:Soult sent on Marshal Victor, without delay, to surprise and seize Cadiz. But the Duke of Albuquerque, with eight or ten thousand men, had been called at the first alarm, and, making a rapid march of two hundred and sixty English miles, reached the city just before him. The garrison now consisted of twenty thousand men��British, Spanish, and Portuguese��commanded chiefly by General Graham, an officer who had distinguished himself at Toulon, at the same time that Buonaparte first made his merit conspicuous. The British troops had been offered by Lord Wellington, and, though insolently refused by the Junta before, were now thankfully accepted.[602] Some were hastened from Torres Vedras, under command of the Hon. Major-General Stewart, and some from Gibraltar. The British, independent of the Portuguese under their command, amounted to six thousand. The Spanish authorities, having their eyes opened at length to the value of the British alliance, now gave the command of their little fleet to Admiral Purvis, who put the ships, twenty in number, into tolerable order, and joined them to his own squadron. With these moored across the harbour, he kept the sea open for all necessary supplies; and though Soult, accompanied by King Joseph, arrived on the 25th of February, and sat down before the place, occupying the country round from Rota to Chiclano, with twenty-five thousand men, he could make no impression against Cadiz, and the siege was continued till the 12th of August, 1812, when the successes of Wellington warned them to be moving. It was an essential advantage to Wellington's campaign that twenty-eight thousand French should thus be kept lying before this place.Toryism had now lost two of its main pillars, the Marquis of Londonderry and the Duke of York. They had worked together for many years, one directing the foreign policy of the country while sustaining the chief burden of a great war against France, the other at the head of the British army, whose valour ultimately triumphed at Waterloo. A third of those pillars, Lord Liverpool, was now struck down; and the fourth, Lord Eldon, was not destined to survive very long. On the 17th of February a stroke of paralysis terminated the public life of the Prime Minister, though he survived till December 4th in the following year (1828). He was born in 1770, and as Mr. Jenkinson and Lord Hawkesbury had been a firm supporter of Mr. Pitt; his Premiership commenced on June 9th, 1812. He had acquired from his father an extensive knowledge of monetary and commercial affairs, and this, combined with the experience of a protracted official career, gave him a great advantage in Parliament, making him master of the leading principles and facts. Amiable, exemplary, frank, and disinterested in his private character, he secured the attachment of his friends, and conciliated the good-will of his political opponents. He was not distinguished for superior statesmanship, power in debate, or originality of mind; but as a political leader he was what is called a safe man��cautious, moderate, plausible, and conciliatory. His Cabinet was weakened by division, the most agitating topic of the day being an open question with its members��Eldon, Wellington, and Peel voting with him on one side, Canning and his friends on the other. His practical wisdom was shown in so far yielding to the spirit of the times as to admit Mr. Canning into the Cabinet on the death of Lord Londonderry, though he found great difficulty in overcoming the repugnance of the king to this arrangement. In the same spirit he had admitted the Grenvilles to a responsible share in the Administration. Had he been a man of more decision of character and more energetic will, he would have been more one-sided and straightforward, and that would not have suited a time of great transition and changes of political currents. During his long tenure of office new ideas were fermenting in the public mind. The people had become impatient of class legislation, and were loudly demanding greater influence in the legislation of the country, greater security for their rights, and freer scope for their industry. They had the most powerful advocates in the press and in Parliament, where Henry Brougham stood foremost among their champions, incessantly battling for their cause. The Conservatives were entrenched behind the bulwarks of monopoly, which were assailed with a frequency and determination that, it was foreseen by the wisest of their defenders, nothing could ultimately resist. Lord Liverpool, with great tact and prudence, managed to postpone the hour of surrender so long as he was in command of the fortress. He had yielded one outwork after another, when resistance was no longer possible, but the value of his services in retaining the rest was not fully appreciated till he was disabled and placed hors de combat. Without any far-reaching sagacity, he could estimate the relative value of existing social and political forces, and, weighing all the circumstances, determine what was the best thing to be done, the best of several courses to adopt here and now. He felt that Catholic Emancipation and Parliamentary Reform might be still safely resisted, and here he was loyal to his party; but on questions of currency, Free Trade, and navigation, he went readily with his Liberal supporters.