The restoration of Ferdinand VII to his throne in 1814 encouraged the liberals of Spain, no less than the loyalists of Spanish America, to hope that the "old King" would now grant a new dispensation.

Freedom of commerce and a fair measure of popular representation in government, it was believed, would compensate both the mother country for the suffering which it had undergone during the Peninsular War and the colonies for the trials to which loyalty had been subjected.

But Ferdinand VII was a typical Bourbon.

Nothing less than an absolute reestablishment of the earlier regime would satisfy him.

On both sides of the Atlantic, therefore, the liberals were forced into opposition to the crown, although they were so far apart that they could not cooperate with each other.