Shortly after the outbreak of the revolution Artigas, who at the time was in the Spanish service, joined the patriot ranks after a violent quarrel with his brigadier. The Oriental fled across the river to Buenos Aires. Here he received a warm welcome, and was supplied with armed men and financial aid in order to foment the movement in his native country. Beyond this he received the official rank of lieutenant-colonel in the Army of Independence. In the meanwhile the first stirrings of the war that was to come had already shaken Uruguay. With its capital, Montevideo, now the seat of the viceroyalty, the small province had remained more or less quiescent, lying, as it were, directly beneath the eye of Imperial Spain itself. But the awakening, when it occurred, was followed by a strenuous outbreak of activity. The first important rising took place at Paysandú, on the banks of the Uruguay River. This was crushed by the aid of the Spanish war vessels that lay in the stream. But the inhabitants, not in the least discouraged by this first check, rose again in greater numbers than before. A body of one hundred gauchos, ill-armed as it was, captured the town of Mercedes, and then, with augmented forces, marched on Soriano, which surrendered to them. This success was the signal for a general rising throughout the country. At the beginning of 1811 the Spanish garrison found themselves in the midst of a definitely hostile population. From one frontier to another bodies of men were gathering together, forging weapons from agricultural tools, and arming themselves as best they could in order that they might take their share in the struggle for liberation that was already in active being. In March the towns of Maldonado, San Carlos, and Minas rose, and the country just to the east of Montevideo itself threw off the Spanish authority and came into possession of the insurrectionist companies. On the 11th of April, 1811, Artigas returned to Uruguay in command of 150 men of the regiment of Patricios, and disembarked in the neighbourhood of that hub of all strife, Colonia. Here he was welcomed by a great number of armed countryfolk, who acclaimed him as chief of the Orientales. The movement now fairly under way, he established his headquarters at Mercedes. In the meanwhile the germ of future combinations had already been created by the appointment on the part of the Buenos Aires patriots of Rondeau as commander of the Uruguayans. Belgrano, first named for the post, had, disgraced, been deprived of it since his defeat by the Paraguayans. Artigas's first collision with the royal forces occurred at Paso del Rey, the Spanish army being completely defeated. Reinforced by a second victorious column, under Benavidez, the Uruguayans followed up the retreating regulars, and forced them to surrender.