These measures, of course, exasperated the priests and the nobles. Unfortunately the people were too ignorant to appreciate their full value. As Joseph returned to Madrid, under the protection of the arms of his imperial brother, though the bells rang merrily, and pealing cannon uttered their voices of welcome, and though the most respectable portion of the middle class received him with satisfaction, there was no enthusiasm among the populace, and the clergy and the nobility received him with suspicion and dislike. The Emperor, upon his departure, had confided to Joseph the command of the army in Spain. But the great generals of Napoleon, ever ready to bow to the will of the Emperor, whose superiority they all recognized, yielded a reluctant obedience to Joseph, whom they did not consider their superior in the art of war. Sir John Moore continued his precipitate flight, vigorously pursued by Marshal Soult. "There was never," says Napier, "so complete an example of a disastrous retreat. Abandoning their wagons, blowing up their ammunition, and strewing their path with the debris of an utterly routed army, they finally, with torn, bleeding, and greatly-diminished columns, escaped to their ships." The new coalition in Germany against Napoleon rendering it necessary for him to withdraw a large part of his troops from Spain, greatly encouraged the foes of the new regime. The British Government, animated by its success in inducing Austria again to co-operate in an attack upon France, and sanguine in the hope of drawing Russia and Turkey into the coalition, which would surely bring the armies of Prussia into the same line of battle, redoubled its efforts in Spain and Portugal. Emissaries were sent everywhere to rouse the populace. Gold was lavished, and arms and ammunition were transmitted by the British fleet to important points. A central junta was assembled at Seville. It issued a proclamation, calling upon the people everywhere to rise in guerrilla bands. The whole male population was summoned to the field. Death was the penalty denounced upon all those who, by word or deed, favored the French. Twenty thousand troops in Portugal were taken under British pay, and placed under British officers, so that, while nominally it was a Portuguese army, it was in reality but a British force of mercenaries. Numerous transports conveyed a large body of troops from England under Sir Arthur Wellesley, which was landed in Lisbon.