Ballasteros, however, had altogether mistaken his own importance and popularity: budding Bonapartes must be able to rely on their own troops, and he--as the event showed--could not. The Cortes took prompt measures for his suppression: one Colonel Rivera, a well-known Liberal, was sent secretly to Granada to bear to Virues, the second in command of the 4th Army, orders to arrest his chief, and place him in confinement. And this was done without any difficulty, so unfounded was the confidence which Ballasteros had placed in his omnipotence with the army. Virues and the Prince of Anglona, his two divisional generals, carried out the arrest in the simplest fashion. On the morning of October 30th they ordered out their troops for a field day on the Alcalá road, save a battalion of the Spanish Guards, who had not belonged to Ballasteros’s old army, and had no affection for him. This regiment surrounded his residence, and when he issued out the picquet refused him passage, and Colonel Rivera presented him with the warrant for his arrest. There was some little stir in Granada among the civil population, but the army made no movement when Virues read the decree of the Cortes to them. Before he well understood what had happened, Ballasteros was on his way under a guard to the African fortress of Ceuta. He was afterwards given Fregenal in Estremadura as the place of his detention. But all this happened on October 30th, and meanwhile the Army of Andalusia had remained motionless, though Wellington had believed that it had marched for La Mancha as early as October 5th[78]. Nearly a month had been lost by Ballasteros’s perversity, and when he was finally arrested and his troops became available, it was too late; for Hill had been forced to retreat, and Madrid was about to fall into the hands of the French, who had advanced through La Mancha unmolested. The Fourth Army was put under the command of the Duke del Parque, the victor of Tamames, but the vanquished of Alba de Tormes in the campaign of 1809. It marched early in November to its appointed position at Alcaraz; but it was of no use to have it there when the enemy had changed all his positions, and had driven Hill beyond the Guadarrama into the valley of the Douro. Wellington’s arrangements for the defence of Madrid were therefore insufficient as the event proved, for three reasons. The diversion from Alicante was too weak--Suchet alone was able to keep Maitland in check. The main Spanish force which was to have co-operated with Hill never put in an appearance, thanks to the disloyal perversity of its general. And, thirdly, the autumn rains, which had so incommoded Wellington before Burgos, turned out to be late and scanty in New Castile. The Tagus and its affluents remained low and fordable almost everywhere.