Urged by Miranda, Pitt determined to lend active military assistance to the South American colonists. Many of these were now openly demonstrating their sense of discontent, yet none, it must be said, had so far shown any inclination or desire to go to the length of taking up arms against the Mother Country. It was, nevertheless, entirely on this latter supposition that the British forces sailed for the River Plate. The first expedition consisted of some 1,600 troops, under the orders of General Beresford, which were transported to Buenos Aires by a fleet under Admiral Home Popham. On June 27, 1806, Buenos Aires was captured. The Viceroy, Sobremonte, demonstrated remarkably little warlike ardour, fleeing in haste before the advancing British. A French naval officer in the service of the Spanish, Don Santiago Liniers, organized an army of relief at Montevideo, to which all the South American volunteers, officers and troops, flocked. The local forces, now powerfully recruited, crossed the River Plate, attacked Buenos Aires, and won the city back for the Spanish Crown on August 12. Admiral Popham, notwithstanding this, remained in the River Plate with his fleet, and, having blockaded the estuary, received reinforcements from the Cape of Good Hope. By means of these the town of Maldonado was captured. A little later more important bodies of British troops arrived on the scene. Commanded by General Auchmuty, these attacked Montevideo, which fell into the hands of the invaders on February 3, 1807. Determined to pursue its operations in this quarter of the world, the British Government now despatched General Whitelocke with a formidable army to the River Plate. Twelve thousand of the finest British troops were now established at Montevideo preparing for the expedition which was to bring Buenos Aires within the British Empire. The attempt, however, failed completely, and a terrible disaster ensued, the cause of which is imputed entirely to the crass folly of Whitelocke, who sent his regiments to march through the streets of the town, to be shot down in hundreds by the determined defenders congregated on the housetops. In many instances the result of this extraordinary piece of strategy was mere slaughter, since the British troops, many of whom had been charged to use nothing beyond the bayonet and to refrain from firing, could adopt no retaliatory measures whatever. In the circumstances total defeat was inevitable, and at the end of the engagement the General found himself a prisoner in the hands of the South Americans. On this Whitelocke signed a treaty agreeing to evacuate the River Plate Provinces altogether, and within two months not a British soldier was left in Buenos Aires and Montevideo. On his arrival home Whitelocke underwent a court-martial, and was cashiered with well deserved and bitter censure.