While Wellington was still engaged with the siege, the cortez made him commander of all the Spanish armies. He had before refused this responsible situation, but the circumstances were now changed, for the Spaniards, having lost nearly all their cavalry and guns in the course of the war, could not safely act, except in connexion with the Anglo-Portuguese forces, and it was absolutely necessary that one head should direct. The English general therefore demanded leave of his own government to accept the offer, although he observed, that the Spanish troops were not at all improved in their discipline, their equipments, or their military spirit; but he thought that conjoined with the British they might behave well, and so escape any more of those terrible disasters which had heretofore overwhelmed the country and nearly brought the war to a conclusion. He was willing to save the dignity of the Spanish government, by leaving it a certain body of men wherewith to operate after its own plans; but that he might exercise his own power efficiently, and to the profit of the troops under himself, he desired that the English government would vigorously insist upon the strict application of the subsidy to the payment of the Spanish soldiers acting with the British army, otherwise the care of the Spanish troops, he said, would only cramp his own operations. In his reply to the Cortez, his acceptance of the offer was rendered dependent upon the assent of his own government; and he was careful to guard himself from a danger, not unlikely to arise, namely, that the Cortez, when he should finally accept the offer, would in virtue of that acceptance assume the right of directing the whole operations of the war. The intermediate want of power to move the Spanish armies, he judged of little consequence, because hitherto his suggestions having been cheerfully attended to by the Spanish chiefs, he had no reason to expect any change in that particular, but there he was grievously mistaken.