But neither the native nor the British supporters of the regent were at this time successful in the Basque provinces. Bilbao was for many months besieged, and was at length relieved only in the month of December, 1836, by the English forces co-operating with Espartero, who was created, for his share in the victory, Count of Luchana. The ministry of Count Toreno had lasted only from June to September (1835), when Mendizabal assumed the chief direction of affairs; and it was just two months later (November, 1835) that George Borrow first set foot on the soil of the Peninsula. Mendizabal continued to be Prime Minister until May, 1836, when he was succeeded by a coalition ministry of Isturitz, Galiano and the Duke of Rivas (see text, p. 181), under whose administration took place the military riots at Madrid (August 11, 12), which were most bravely repressed by General Quesada, the commandant of the city, as so graphically recorded by Borrow (pp. 202–205). Yet Quesada’s valour was of no avail. The decree of La Granja, of August 13 and 14, extorted from the fears of the queen regent by actual threats of military violence, was followed by the precipitate flight of Isturitz and Galiano to France, and of the Duke of Rivas to Gibraltar, and the assumption of power by Señor Calatrava, with Mendizabal as Minister of Finance. Quesada was murdered, as is said and sung on p. 206 of the text. If the _Cristino_ cause had made but little progress in 1836, there was even less encouragement to be found in the result of the military operations in the earlier part of 1837. General Evans was defeated at Hernani, near San Sebastian, in March, and although Lord John Hay with his English mariners took Irun, Don Carlos was allowed to march almost unopposed upon the capital. On September 12, he found himself within four leagues of Madrid, and had it not been for his own poltroonery and the jealousy and incompetence of those by whom he was surrounded, he might have ridden into the Puerta del Sol on the next day as King of Spain. But, _dis aliter visum_ and all undefeated, he turned his back upon La Corte, and marched northwards with no apparent reason or policy, closely pressed by the new commander-in-chief of the _Cristino_ forces, a man whose name is distinguished above that of any of his fellows in the contemporary history of his country.