class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[Pg 25]"/>During the fall other English reinforcements arrived, and in January, 1807, Montevideo was taken by assault. As soon as the defeat of Beresford was known, General Whitelocke was sent to take command of the united English forces of the Plate, now some twelve thousand in number. He arrived in the spring. The reconquest of Buenos Aires now seemed an easy matter. It had been taken in the first instance by sixteen hundred men; there were now ten thousand available. On June 28 the British landed at the small port of Enseñada, forty-eight miles below Buenos Aires. The fighting continued on the outskirts of the city in a desultory manner and without any decisive action for several days. But finally, owing to the bad generalship and incompetency of Whitelocke, his troops got into such a muddle that half the force was captured or disabled. On July 6, Liniers decided to send a flag of truce with the proposal to surrender all the English prisoners, including those taken with Beresford, provided Whitelocke would evacuate the territory of Buenos Aires. One of Liniers' associates, Alzaga, insisted that the terms of surrender should include Montevideo. This demand seemed preposterous, but the clause was finally inserted, and to their surprise agreed to, so complete was the demoralization of the English. On July 7 the terms of capitulation were signed.[26] Thus through a lack of decision in the cabinet and a display of incapacity in the field, without parallel in British annals, the empire of the Plate was lost.[27]

With Napoleon's invasion of Spain in 1808, the Spanish-American question came to the front once more. Miranda returned to London and was detained there by the cabinet, as before by Pitt, with a view to using him if occasion should require. At the same time Castlereagh, now Foreign Secretary, had other solutions of the question in view. It was proposed, and the matter seriously discussed in the cabinet, to alienate the colonies from Spain, if possible, without revolution; and, instead of establishing republics according to Miranda's plans, to unite them all under a prince of the House of Bourbon. Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, was suggested as the most suitable person for the new crown. Some thirty years prior to this, immediately upon the recognition by Spain of the independence of the United States, Count de Aranda had advised Charles III to forestall the movement for independence, which must inevitably come in his own provinces, by establishing among them three great empires—one in Mexico, one in Peru, and one on the Main—each to be ruled by a prince of the royal family of Spain.[28]

Chateaubriand brought forward a similar plan several years later at the Congress of Verona. The present scheme was suggested by General Dumouriez in the interests of his friend, the Duke of Orleans. Several memorials on the subject, both by Dumouriez and the duke, were presented to the British government in 1807 and 1808.[29]

Napoleon's invasion of Spain constitutes at once the most contemptible and the most disastrous chapter in his career. In 1807, under the terms of an agreement with Godoy, the unworthy favorite of the queen and the virtual ruler of Spain, a French army was introduced into the kingdom for the nominal purpose of punishing Portugal for her refusal to join the continental system. The Portuguese royal family, fully appreciating the danger in which they stood, fled to America and founded the empire of Brazil, which in 1815 was declared independent of Portugal. The Spanish rulers attempted to follow their example, but their intended flight became known and they were prevented by the populace from leaving the capital. In the meantime a disgraceful quarrel having arisen between the old king, Charles IV, and Prince Ferdinand, Napoleon, whose troops were now firmly established in Spain, stepped in as arbiter between father and son and summoned them both to meet him on the northern frontier. Having purposely lingered in France beyond the appointed time, he succeeded in enticing them over the border to Bayonne, where he compelled both to renounce forever the crown of Spain and the Indies, which he forthwith bestowed upon his brother Joseph. When the truth dawned upon them, the Spanish nation rose to a man. Napoleon had unwittingly aroused the latent principle of nationality; he had put into action a force which was new and one which the statesmen of Europe had hitherto left out of account, but which was to prove the most potent factor in the new epoch of political history introduced by the French Revolution.

Provisional juntas were rapidly organized in the various provinces of the kingdom of Spain and affairs administered in the name of Ferdinand VII. The Junta, or as it is better known, the Regency of Cadiz, rapidly gained a position of national importance and became the chief executive body of the Spanish nation. The American provinces, which had long been restive under Spanish rule, now claimed the same right of self-government that the provinces of the Peninsula had assumed, and began to depose the Spanish governors and to set up juntas of their own, still acting in the name of Ferdinand VII. The Americans claimed that they were not politically a part of Spain, but connected only through the sovereign, and that with the removal of the sovereign the connection ceased. The Regency of Cadiz, on the other hand, maintained that the colonies were integral parts of Spain, and claimed, therefore, the right to govern them in the absence of the sovereign.

The first throes of revolution were felt in 1809, almost simultaneously in Upper Peru, Quito, and Mexico. These movements were quickly suppressed with great cruelty. In the year 1810 the revolution opened upon a vast scale. All the Spanish colonies on the mainland, with the exception of Lower Peru, revolted at the same time and proclaimed their independence of Spain, although still professing allegiance to Ferdinand VII, the dethroned king.

The colonial authorities were deposed in most cases by force of public opinion and without violence. The revolution was municipal in character, that is to say, the cabildos, or town councils, the only popularly constituted political bodies in the colonies, assumed the initiative in the work of revolution and named the juntas. The junta of the capital city in each province was usually recognized as the chief executive body for that province, and assumed for the time being all the functions of government. National conventions were then called in many cases to decide upon the form of government. These in most cases entrusted the executive power to regencies or triumvirates, almost all of which rapidly gave way to military dictatorships.

The Regency of Cadiz had anticipated trouble from the colonies and had recognized their rights as freemen by inviting them to send deputies to the national Cortes, but at the same time had abridged those rights by allowing them only a very limited representation, absurdly out of proportion to their population and commercial importance. Upon the