Time wore on, and spring matured. The surface of England began to look pleasant: her fields grew green, her hills fresh, her gardens blooming; but at heart she was no better. Still her poor were wretched, still their employers were harassed¹. Commerce, in some of its branches, seemed threatened with paralysis², for the war continued; England's blood was shed and her wealth lavished—all, it seemed, to attain³ most inadequate⁴ ends. Some tidings there were indeed occasionally of successes in the Peninsula, but these came in slowly; long intervals⁵ occurred between, in which no note was heard but the insolent⁷ self-felicitations of Bonaparte on his continued triumphs. Those who suffered from the results of the war felt this tedious, and, as they thought, hopeless struggle against what their fears or their interests taught them to regard as an invincible⁸ power, most insufferable. They demanded peace on any terms. Men like Yorke and Moore—and there were thousands whom the war placed where it placed them, shuddering⁹ on the verge¹⁰ of bankruptcy—insisted on peace with the energy of desperation.