“This opinion, formed with the utmost circumspection, is not only a regular inference from the ill success of my past endeavors, which have hitherto produced only palliations, and which have latterly failed to produce these, but a direct consequence of the most authentic information that the Emperor does not, on this subject and at this time, exercise even the small degree of patience proper to his character.”[259] Finally Armstrong summed up the results of Jefferson’s policy so far as France was concerned, in a letter[260] dated August 30, which carried candor to the point of severity:-- “We have somewhat overrated our means of coercing the two great belligerents to a course of justice. The embargo is a measure calculated above any other to keep us whole and keep us in peace; but beyond this you must not count upon it. Here it is not felt, and in England ... it is forgotten. I hope that unless France shall do us justice we will raise the embargo, and make in its stead the experiment of an armed commerce. Should she adhere to her wicked and foolish measures, we ought not to content ourselves with doing this. There is much, very much, besides that we can do; and we ought not to omit doing all we can, because it is believed here that we cannot do much, and even that we will not do what we have the power of doing.” Fortunately for Jefferson, the answer made by Spain, May 2, to Napoleon’s orders was not couched in the terms which the United States government used on the same day. Joseph Bonaparte, entering his new kingdom, found himself a king without subjects. Arriving July 20 at Madrid, Joseph heard nothing but news of rebellion and disaster. On that day some twenty thousand French troops under General Dupont, advancing on Seville and Cadiz, were surrounded in the Sierra Morena, and laid down their arms to a patriot Spanish force. A few days afterward the French fleet at Cadiz surrendered. A patriot Junta assumed the government of Spain. Quick escape from Madrid became Joseph’s most pressing necessity if he were to save his life. During one July week he reigned over his gloomy capital, and fled, July 29, with all the French forces still uncaptured, to the provinces beyond the Ebro. This disaster was quickly followed by another. Junot and his army, far beyond support at Lisbon, suddenly learned that a British force under Arthur Wellesley had landed, August 1, about one hundred miles to the north of Lisbon, and was marching on that city. Junot had no choice but to fight, and August 21 he lost the battle of Vimieiro. August 30, at Cintra, he consented to evacuate Portugal, on condition that he and his twenty-two thousand men should be conveyed by sea to France.