Once in office, Abascal promoted educational reforms, reorganized the army, and stamped out local rebellions.

This expedition, named for its head, Doctor Francisco Javier de Balmis, was propagating smallpox vaccine throughout the Spanish Empire.

[citation needed] On December 1, 1806, an earthquake lasting 2 minutes shook the towers of the city of Lima.

In 1812 and 1813 occurred the great fire of Guayaquil that destroyed half the city, a hurricane in Lima that uprooted trees in the Alameda, and earthquakes in Ica and Piura.

(These provinces had been separated from Peru when the Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata was created in 1776.)

He fought hard to suppress the independence movements in Spanish America, converting Peru into a center of royalist reaction.

After the proclamation of the liberal Spanish Constitution of 1812 in Spain, Abascal fought to keep its provisions from being applied in Peru.

[citation needed] In 1812 Abascal gave his support to a plan for a company organised by Francisco Uville to import steam engines made by the Cornish engineer Richard Trevithick so the silver mines at Cerro de Pasco could be pumped out and worked at much greater depths.

[2] On April 24, 1814, a Spanish force under Rafael Maroto disembarked at Callao to fight the rebels in the colony.

When they arrived on the island of Chiloé, they were joined by a large number of other men, and they also gained reinforcements in the cities of Valdivia and Talcahuano.