The former Council of Regency, nominated by the Prince Regent before his departure, was re-established at Lisbon, and at once began to quarrel with the “junta” of Oporto, but both bodies perceived how dependent they were on the English Government, and the Regency sent Domingos Antonio de Sousa Coutinho to London to ask that an English ambassador with full powers should be accredited to Lisbon, and that Sir Arthur Wellesley might be appointed to reorganize their army. In compliance with these requests the Right Honourable J. C. Villiers was sent as ambassador to Lisbon, and, as Sir Arthur Wellesley could not be spared, Major-General Beresford, who had learnt the Portuguese language, when governor of Madeira, was sent to command and discipline the Portuguese troops. Meanwhile, Portugal was again exposed to the attacks of the French; when Sir John Moore advanced to Salamanca, he had left very few English troops behind, and Napoleon ordered three French armies to invade the country by different routes. Of these armies only one actually entered Portugal, that from the north under the command of Marshal Soult. Parties of the Lusitanian Legion, under Sir Robert Wilson and Baron Eben, made a spirited resistance, and even the unorganized Portuguese levies, under General Antonio de Silveira, showed courage, if not discipline; but their efforts were in vain, and Soult occupied Oporto. Fortunately for the Portuguese, Soult, like Junot, was led away by the idea of becoming King of Portugal, and did not advance on Lisbon, while Lapisse and Victor did not support him by entering the Beira and the Alemtejo, as they had been ordered to do, and this delay gave time for Sir Arthur Wellesley to reach the Tagus with a powerful English army. On the 12th of May, 1809, he drove Soult out of Oporto, and into Gallicia; and after this success he invaded Spain, and defeated Joseph Bonaparte and Marshal Victor at the battle of Talavera.