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This is not to say that the relationship with Portugal was trouble-free. On the contrary, Wellington bombarded its administration with demands for such measures as a forced loan, an increase in the property tax, the introduction of a graduated income tax, the reinforcement of local government and a purge of the commissariat, only to find that his demands were simply ignored. Nor was British control especially popular: the powerful Sousa family set itself up as the voice of protest, and at various times caused much trouble. Yet, although it grew in inverse proportion to the reduction in the threat of French invasion, such discord was limited and the situation much better than it was in Spain. By the middle of 1809 there were simply not the reserves of hard cash necessary to meet the Spaniards’ demands. Encouraged by the Portuguese example, Canning began to turn the screw on the Patriot camp. As early as the summer of 1808, it had been intimated that no more financial aid would be forthcoming unless some form of central government was brought into being, while attempts had also been made to press for the appointment of a commander-in-chief. Angered by the failure of the Talavera campaign of 1809, which he put down entirely to Spanish mismanagement, Lord Wellesley, now ambassador to the then Patriot capital of Seville, went still further and openly advocated the need for political, administrative and social reform:

It is evident that the independence of a nation must rest on the basis of her own internal force and public spirit, and that no country can attain or preserve happiness or glory by implicit reliance on foreign aid. For these great objects I should view with the most lively satisfaction any regular, deliberate and systematic attention to the increase and management of the military resources of Spain, and to the augmentation, composition, discipline and efficiency of the Spanish armies . . . But the source of every improvement must be the efficiency of the executive power, which can never possess sufficient force or activity without the direct assistance of the collective wisdom of the nation, and without the aid of that spirit which must arise from the immediate support of a people animated by equal sentiments of loyalty and freedom.18

The ideas contained in this note were developed further in a series of private conversations with the general secretary of the Junta Central, Martín de Garay. What Wellesley required, it transpired, was the replacement of the Junta Central, which numbered more than thirty members at full strength, by a council of regency, the election of a national assembly or cortes, a general redress of grievances with respect to the governance and taxation of both metropolitan Spain and her foreign dominions, and the incorporation into the new Spain of the American colonies through a fair system of political representation. But the expression of such views was extremely indelicate. It was all very well to suggest that Spanish America was on the verge of revolution, but in 1809 there were few signs that a general convulsion was nigh in Spain’s American possessions. Although a small rebellion broke out in Upper Peru (today Bolivia) in the summer of 1809, this was easily suppressed and appears to have been as much directed against rule from Buenos Aires as it was against rule from Spain. Less than two years before, British troops had invaded present-day Uruguay and Argentina, and it should not be forgotten that a British force had been available for service in the Peninsula within weeks of the rising breaking out because the Portland administration had returned to the idea of an American adventure. Faced by the French takeover in Spain, its initial response had been to resolve that a division should be sent to what is now Venezuela to support the adventurer, Francisco de Miranda, and stir up an insurrection that, if it spread, would put the riches of the Indies beyond the reach of Napoleon once and for