first British invasion of the River Plate. Although Artigas's unit was tasked with patrolling the frontier with Brazil, he requested to take part in the military expedition that Santiago de Liniers launched from Montevideo to drive the British out of Buenos Aires. His request was granted, and the British were defeated. After the recapture of Buenos Aires, he was tasked with returning to Montevideo and informing the governor Pascual Ruiz Huidobro of the result of the battle. A second British invasion was launched culminating in the Battle of Montevideo, which ended in the fall of Montevideo. Artigas was taken prisoner, but he managed to escape and took refuge in the countryside. He organized groups of gauchos and began a guerrilla war against the British. The British tried to capture Buenos Aires a second time. They were defeated by the local troops and returned Montevideo to Spanish control as part of the terms of capitulation. Artigas was promoted to captain in 1809. Oriental revolution The ideas of the Age of Enlightenment and the outbreak of the Peninsular War (from 1807 to 1814) in Spain, along with the capture of King Ferdinand VII, generated political turbulence all across the Spanish Empire. The absence of the king from the throne (replaced by the French Joseph Bonaparte) and the new ideas of the Enlightenment sparked the Spanish American wars of independence, between patriots (who wanted to establish republics or constitutional monarchies) and royalists (who wanted to keep an absolute monarchy). Artigas, who thought that the gauchos were not treated well, supported the new ideas. Buenos Aires deposed the viceroy in 1810, during the May Revolution, replacing him with the Primera Junta. Spain declared Buenos Aires a rogue city, and appointed Montevideo as the new capital, with Francisco Javier de Elío, who was an experienced hard-line colonialist from Cadiz, as the new viceroy. In February 1811, he declared war on Buenos Aires and this sparked the independence movement of Banda Oriental. Mariano Moreno, the Argentine secretary of war, wrote at the Operations plan that Artigas would be a decisive ally against the royalists in Montevideo, and called him for an interview. However, by the time Artigas arrived in Buenos Aires, Moreno had already left the government. He was still welcomed, but received little help. He was promoted to colonel and received some weapons, money and 150 men, very little to organize a rebellion at the