Spanish Prime Minister Leopoldo O'Donnell, who has…

Spanish Prime Minister Leopoldo O'Donnell, who has just been named to replace Narvaéz, orders Admiral Pareja to withdraw, but the Spanish admiral chooses to ignore and disobey his direct orders.

Since he has no troops with which to attempt a landing, he decides instead to impose a blockade of the main Chilean ports.

Even so, his plan is doomed, for in order to blockade Chile's eighteen hundred miles (twenty-nine hundred kilometers) of coastline, Pareja would need a fleet several times larger than what he has at his disposal.

The blockade of the port of Valparaiso, however, causes such great economic damage to Chilean and foreign interests, that the neutral naval warships of the United States and the United Kingdom will lodge a formal protest.