Arrived at length at San José, some three score miles distant from Montevideo, Lavalleja determined on an especially daring move that proved his appreciation of the value of prestige. From there he sent all his prisoners with a strong guard under Rivera to Durazno, and at Canelones, farther on, he detached another party to obtain recruits from the neighbourhood of Maldonado. He himself, accompanied now by no more than a hundred men, continued in supreme unconcern his march to Montevideo. Arriving upon the outskirts of the spot, he encamped on the Cerrito de la Victoria, whence, employing a colossal piece of bluff, he set himself to besiege the city. It is surely not often that a hundred men have sat down to invest a fortified town garrisoned by nearly two thousand soldiers. Yet it was in the amazing effrontery of the proceeding that success lay. On the very next day a strong force of the enemy, numbering over fifteen hundred men with four guns, sallied out from Montevideo. The hundred besiegers must doubtless have thought that all was lost; but, continuing the grim farce to the end, they opened fire to the best of their ability upon the advancing columns. The result more than fulfilled their most sanguine expectations. Convinced that the furious fusillade emanated from a powerful army, the Portuguese columns retired into the town, while the hundred men sat down again to continue the siege of Montevideo. But their number did not now long remain at this ridiculously inadequate total. By twos and tens and even by hundreds the Orientales escaped from the city, flocking to the tricolour banner until the patriot army had swollen to a degree that rendered it formidable in fact as well as in fancy. So successful, moreover, had proved Rivera's mission in the Campo that in a few days almost the whole of Uruguay was in arms against the enemy's forces in its midst. The work of the thirty-three had been extraordinarily rapid. So successful, indeed, had been the campaign that, in the place of disputing against another's authority, the moment had arrived for setting up their own, against which it should be treason to contend. In order to effect this Lavalleja withdrew personally from the siege of Montevideo, and established an independent government at the town of Florida to the north of the capital. Moved by a truly lofty sense of patriotism, he handed over his leadership to the new authorities, who responded by creating him General-in-Chief of the Army of Liberation, and by endowing Rivera with the rank of Inspector-General. On this occasion the titles conveyed some material significance, since the Uruguayan Army now amounted to two thousand five hundred men. The opening of this new Senate was attended by a dramatic incident. In order to be present at the assembly it was necessary for Lavalleja to leave the front of hostilities and to ride through rain and mud to Florida.