The immediate object of the alliance was rapidly achieved. The junction of a Spanish army under General Rodil with the constitutional forces, operating in Tras-os-Montes, was followed, on May 16, by a decisive victory over Dom Miguel at Asserceira. A week later both Pretenders capitulated at Evora Monte. Dom Miguel agreed to accept a small pension[338] and to retire to Italy, whilst Don Carlos, at his own request, was conveyed to England on board H.M.S. _Donegal_. But the elation of the allies at the rapid success which had crowned their operations was of brief duration. After a stay of little more than a week in London Don Carlos departed secretly, and, contriving to cross France undetected, reached Spain, where he appeared at the head of his followers in Biscay on July 9. This new development, both the French and British governments agreed, must be met by an extension of the scope of the Quadruple Treaty. Certain additional articles were, accordingly, formally annexed to it, on August 18, 1834. By the first of these, the King of the French undertook to hinder supplies and arms from reaching the Carlists from his southern provinces. By the second, His Britannic Majesty pledged himself to furnish Her Most Catholic Majesty with arms and ammunition and, in case of need, to supply naval succour; whilst by the third, the Regent of Portugal promised to render whatever military assistance it might be in his power to give. In thus deciding to afford Queen Isabella material assistance, the French and English governments appear to have been strangely oblivious of their loudly proclaimed principle of "abstention from interference in the affairs of other States." It was, doubtless, the inconsistency of their conduct in this respect which elicited from Talleyrand his cynical definition of the word non-intervention as "_un mot métaphysique et politique qui signifie à peu près la même chose qu' intervention_."[339] Both governments had, unquestionably, excellent reasons for desiring to put an end to a state of civil war and anarchy, which interfered with English trade, and had a disturbing effect upon the internal condition of France. In addition, there was the consideration, to which Palmerston attached much weight, that the Quadruple Treaty, by proclaiming the intimate union of the Liberal Powers, would counterbalance the league which the absolute Courts had, in the previous autumn, concluded at Münchengrätz.[340] Martinez de la Rosa, Christina's chief minister, had been engaged in framing a constitutional Charter and the _Estatuto Real_,--the result of his labours--was about to be made public. Spain might, therefore, claim to be numbered among the Liberal Powers of Europe. But there would seem to have been another, and a more exclusively national reason, for the support which the English government decided to extend to the cause of constitutionalism in Spain. For the past century Spain had