These changes were due entirely to foreign intervention and not to domestic unrest. The first sign of this was when Francisco Miranda, a Spanish-American who had fought under Washington, conceived the idea of freeing his fellow-countrymen, and took steps toward that end by founding a “Gran Reunion Americana” in London in 1806. But so unresponsive were the inhabitants of the Spanish Main that the first active movement of the league resulted in dead failure. It attracted the sympathy and support, however, of two active and capable men, Bolivar and San Martin, who were destined to do so much for the emancipation of South America from European bondage, and whose advent brought a rapid change in the feeling of indifference with which the movement was regarded. Still, the loyalty of the colonists might have been proof against their blandishments had the government of Ferdinand VII., established at Cadiz in opposition to that of Joseph Bonaparte, shown itself in any way conciliatory toward them. Loyal though the Spaniards at home were to the Bourbon dynasty, they were only willing to rally round it on condition of the carrying out of many important reforms in consonance with the spirit of the age; and the colonists likewise demanded that, as the price of their adhesion, they should be put upon an equality with Spain, and be accorded perfect liberty in their agricultural and manufacturing industries; that trade should be thrown open between all the countries on the American Continent and with the Philippines; and that all restrictions and monopolies should be abolished, and fixed duties substituted in their place. Reasonable though these demands now appear, they were indignantly rejected, and with one consent nearly every country in Spanish America was ablaze with revolution.