They commenced beneficially. O’Donnel was friendly to the British alliance, and proposed a military feast, to restore harmony between the English and Spanish officers; he made many changes in the department of war, and finances; consulted the British generals, and disbanding several bad regiments, incorporated the men with other battalions; he also reduced many inefficient and malignant colonels, and striking off from the pay lists all unemployed and absent officers, it was found, that they were five thousand in number! Ballesteros was appointed captain-general of Andalusia and received the command of the fourth army, whose head-quarters were prudently removed to Algeziras; the troops there were encreased, by drafts from Cadiz to ten or twelve thousand men, and a new army was set on foot in Murcia. Finally, to check trading with the French a general blockade of all the coast in their possession, from Rosas to St. Sebastian, was declared. But it was soon discovered that the secret object was to obtain a loan from England, and as this did not succeed, and nothing good was ever permanent in Spanish affairs, the old disputes again broke out. The democratic spirit gained strength in the cortes; the anti-English party augmented; the press abounded in libels, impugning the good faith of the British nation, especially with respect to Ceuta; for which however there was some plausible ground of suspicion, because the acquisition of that fortress had actually been proposed to lord Liverpool. The new regency, also as violent as their predecessors with respect to America, disregarded the mediation, and having secretly organized in Gallicia an expedition against the colonies, supplied it with artillery furnished from England for the French war, and then, under another pretence, demanded money of the British minister to forward this iniquitous folly. [Sidenote: 1811.]