The British government, though not unwilling to forgive the perfidy of its former confederate, was powerless to strike a blow on his behalf until it was too late. Indeed, the only warlike operation undertaken by Great Britain in Europe during the year was in the extreme south of Italy. Ferdinand, King of the Two Sicilies, had been driven out of his capital to make way for Joseph Bonaparte, who entered Naples on February 15, and the exiled monarch took refuge in the island of Sicily. In accordance with the shortsighted policy of small expeditions, a British force under Sir John Stuart was landed in Calabria to raise the peasantry, and on July 4, defeated the French at the point of the bayonet in the battle of Maida. This action shook the confidence of Europe in the superiority of the French infantry, and saved Sicily from France, but the French troops remained in possession of the Italian mainland. The prestige of Great Britain was raised by the conquest of the Dutch colony of the Cape of Good Hope in January by a naval and military force sent out by Pitt under the command of Sir Home Popham and General, now Sir David, Baird, but was damaged by a futile expedition to South America, undertaken by Popham without orders from the home government. The city of Buenos Ayres was taken, indeed, in June by General Beresford, but it was retaken by the Spaniards in August, and soldiers who could ill be spared from the European conflict now impending were lavished on a chimerical project on the other side of the Atlantic.