[136] Napier (iv. p. 50) overrates the damage that Morillo suffered. He was not ‘completely defeated’ by Treillard, because he absconded without fighting. In his elaborate dispatch he gives his whole loss as two killed and nine wounded. See his life by Rodriguez Villa, appendices to vol. ii, for an almost daily series of letters describing his march. SECTION XXXI: CHAPTER III POLITICS AT CADIZ AND ELSEWHERE The military operations in the South during the winter of 1811-12 were inconclusive, and only important in a negative way, as showing that the initiative of the French armies was spent in this direction. But it must not be forgotten that while Soult had been brought to a standstill, Suchet’s operations were still progressing: January, indeed, saw the last great Spanish disaster of the war, the fall of Valencia, so that the spirits of government and people still ran very low. It was not till the sudden irruption of Wellington into the kingdom of Leon had ended in the capture of Ciudad Rodrigo (January 19), that there was any great occasion for hopefulness. And for a long time after that event its importance was not fully understood. That the central turning-point of the war had come, that for the future the allies were to be on the offensive, and the French on the defensive, was not realized till Badajoz had fallen in April, a blow which shook the whole fabric of King Joseph’s power throughout the regions where he seemed to reign. Nor was it only the state of affairs in the Peninsula which, during the winter of 1811-12, seemed sufficiently gloomy both for the present and for the future. The news from the Spanish colonies in America grew steadily worse: in most of the viceroyalties of the Western world there was now a nucleus of trouble: the name of Ferdinand VII was still used by the insurgents as a rallying cry, except in Venezuela, where Miranda had proclaimed an independent republic in July 1811. But in La Plata and Chili lip-loyalty to the sovereign was accompanied by practical secession from the Spanish state: the _Cabildos_ or Juntas paid no attention to orders received from Cadiz. In Mexico, though the capital and the greater part of the country were still in the hands of the constituted authorities, there was a lively insurrection on foot since September 1810, under the priest Hidalgo--he was captured and executed in 1812, but his death did not crush his faction. The Viceroyalty of Peru was almost the only part of Spanish America which still remained loyal. The Cortes at Cadiz made elaborate attempts to conciliate the Americans, but was unable to satisfy their expectations or to end their discontents. The deeply-rooted belief of the Creoles that they and their country were still being exploited for the benefit of Spain, could not be removed by any declaration that they were now to be Spanish citizens with full rights, or by giving them representation in the Cortes. The idea of