The rising was at once national in its grand spontaneity and local in its intensity.
Province after province rose in arms, except the north and centre, where 80,000 French troops held the patriots in check.

In the van of the movement was the rugged little province of Asturias, long ago the forlorn hope of the Christians in their desperate conflicts with the Moors.

Intrenched behind their mountains and proud of their ancient fame, the Asturians ventured on the sublime folly of declaring war against the ruler of the West and the lord of 900,000 warriors.
Swiftly Galicia and Leon in the north repeated the challenge; while in the south, the fertile lands of Andalusia, Murcia, and Valencia flashed back from their mountains the beacon lights of a national war.
The former dislike of England was forgotten.

The Juntas of Asturias, Galicia, and Andalusia sent appeals to us for help, to which Canning generously responded; and, on July 4th, we passed at a single bound from war with the Spanish Bourbons to an informal alliance with the people of Spain.
Napoleon now began to see the magnitude of his error.

Instead of gaining control over Spain and the Indies, he had changed long-suffering allies into irreconcilable foes.