Charles IV ascended the throne at the mature age of forty. The nation entertained great expectations from their new king. His first measures confirmed the hopes of those who confined their views to a continuation and increase of the benefits conferred during Charles III’s reign, if not the expectations of those who desired bolder innovations or of those who regretted the days of inquisitorial omnipotence. He confirmed Florida-Blanca in his post, and, at his suggestion, remitted considerable arrears of taxes incurred by indigence, suspended the alcabala upon wheat, and adopted economical reforms for the purpose of saving out of the annual expenditure of the country the means of liquidating the still unpaid debts of the crown.

Charles further showed his good sense by amicably settling a dispute that had arisen with England, at the price of partially abandoning a useless extension of the monopoly claimed by Spain along the western coasts of America. But from this period the history of Spain, as of every other country in Europe, becomes involved with the extraordinary events taking place in France on account of the French Revolution.b For a full account of these events one must look in the history of France, only those being recounted here which have a close bearing on Spain.a

The relations of these neighbouring and long-allied countries, France and Spain, were now of the strangest character. Hereditary affection attached the two royal families to each other, and they were furthermore united by ties of blood and community of interests. The king and especially the Spanish ministers poured their fear-mingled hatred upon the national assembly and the principles of the Revolution on every occasion.

France and the assembly which personified it had no more deadly enemy than Florida-Blanca. He allied himself in turn with the emperor Leopold in order to dictate to the French people the measure of reform they required, and with the northern cabinets to force the assembly to destroy its work with its own hands, and re-establish the absolute monarchy as it existed before the Revolution. Finally he tried to reconcile the Grand Turk with the empress Catherine to permit of Russia’s joining the other continental monarchies in building a dike to resist the rush of the revolutionary torrent.

But, during the interval, events had progressed; for after the French king’s flight and his arrest at Varennes, the situation had become most serious. Royalty was dead, but the king still lived, and an imprudent step might compromise the threatened life. Florida-Blanca realised this and refused to associate Spain with a counter-revolutionary plot which was being organised in the south of France. But at the same time he sent the national assembly a letter and pleaded the cause of the fugitive king, prisoner in his own palace, in a tone which sounded more like a threat than a prayer. The assembly, its dignity hurt, replied with a scornful order of the day; and the breach between the two governments, whose principles were so opposed, widened more than ever.

Not daring to declare war upon France, the imprudent minister declared it at least upon the French in his own country; a decree ordered all foreigners resident in Spain to take an oath of allegiance to the Catholic faith, to the monarch and laws of the country, and to renounce their nationality and call themselves Spaniards. This tyrannical measure, apparently directed at all foreigners, was in fact aimed at the French alone, who were established in the peninsula to the number of thirteen thousand. The assembly was not deceived, and realised that, from that time on, it had an avowed enemy in the Spanish minister.

The Pyrenees were frequently crossed by French emissaries charged with the spreading of revolutionary doctrines to the peninsula. Florida-Blanca, hard pressed, finally established a quarantine on the frontier with the object of protecting Spain against the incendiary propaganda. Under this pretext he was able to keep a sufficiently large body of troops on the whole line of the Pyrenees to gain France’s respect, lend a hand to anti-revolutionary plots in the south, and, in case of invasion by northern powers, keep up a useful diversion in the south and complete the blockade of France.c

THE RISE OF GODOY

It becomes now necessary to disclose a scene of licentious turpitude, such as we have long been spared in the annals of the court of Madrid. Maria Louisa the queen of Charles IV had, from the very moment of her marriage, betrayed a total disregard for the laws of conjugal fidelity, and her notorious gallantries could scarcely be checked even by the austerity of Charles III. That king, however, uniformly banished his daughter-in-law’s lovers, as soon as the rumour of a new intrigue was brought to him, whilst the prince of Asturias remained so blind to his wife’s guilt that he frequently, though always in vain, supplicated his father to recall persons whose society was peculiarly agreeable to the princess. One of the paramours thus exiled was Luis de Godoy, the eldest son of a noble but decayed family of Estremadura, who was serving with his brothers in the ranks of the horse guards; and this young man, anxious not to lose in absence the affections of the princess, employed his brother, Don Manuel, to deliver secretly letters expressing his constant passion and his lamentations over his banishment.

Don Manuel availed himself of the opportunity his office as letter-carrier afforded him, to supplant his absent brother, and thenceforward he held the exclusive possession of Maria Louisa’s heart. She introduced her new favourite to the prince of Asturias, who soon appeared to share his wife’s attachment for him; and when the death of Charles III removed the only restraint upon her conduct, the queen hoped to place Godoy at the head of the government. Charles IV would not, however, violate the respect he owed to the memory of his father, by displacing his minister. Florida-Blanca, as has been stated, retained the supreme authority, and, for a while, Godoy was obliged to rest content with inferior honours, unbounded influence over the queen, and the wealth lavished upon him by both herself and her royal consort.

This state of affairs lasted till 1792, and during those three years Florida-Blanca’s caution combined with Charles’ fears for Louis XVI’s safety, to preserve peace between France and Spain. But the restrictions imposed upon the intercourse between the two countries, by inconveniencing trade, had created great dissatisfaction amongst the Spaniards; and the queen and Godoy took care that not only their murmurs, but various accusations, true or false, of malversation and oppression, laid to the minister’s charge, should reach the king’s ear. In February, 1792, Florida-Blanca, upon these imputations, was deprived of his high office, and thrown into prison. As soon as it was thought no danger existed of his recovering the king’s favour, he was released from confinement.

The fall of Florida-Blanca did not at once make way for Godoy’s exaltation to his post. The count De Aranda, in his seventy-fourth year, succeeded to the vacant premiership, May, 1792, and as a disciple, or at least an admirer of French philosophy, urged his royal master to pursue a more liberal course, to cultivate more zealously than heretofore the friendship of then constitutional France. De Aranda repaid the queen’s patronage by his concurrence in that showering of court favours upon Godoy,[106] which his predecessor had offended her by opposing.b

But in the meantime events were developing so rapidly that diplomacy followed them with difficulty. The two fatal days of June 20th and August 10th caused that phantom of royal will still present in France to disappear. Prussia and Austria, which had no interests to guard, declared war on France immediately. The latter replied by doing away with royalty, by beginning the trial of the king, a prisoner in the temple, and thus broke, in the face of the whole world, with all the monarchies in declaring herself their mortal enemy.

Charles IV, devoted like his father to the French royal family, was broken-hearted over the insults and disgrace heaped upon the unfortunate Louis XVI. De Aranda, whose connection with the French encyclopædists wounded the double cult of the Spanish people for religion and monarchy, found himself daily more estranged from his former friends. The French ambassador, who had ceased all relations with the Madrid cabinet, summoned Spain to choose between war and peace, and to make her choice known.

The state council took up the questions and was not long in deciding in favour of war. But France was acting while Spain was preparing to act, and the blood-stained pages of this terrible history were unfolding one after another. The massacre of prisoners in September was the Jacobins’ reply to the attacks of the allied monarchs, as well as the high-handed challenge thrown to whosoever dared try to stop the progress of the revolution. While waiting to be attacked from the south its arms were triumphing in the north; the duke of Brunswick, in spite of his warnings and proclamations, had been driven to shameful flight. In the face of such a situation De Aranda drew back. Certainly it was neither courage nor determination which failed him, but for him there was one matter which overruled everything else, and that was the danger threatening the life of the unhappy monarch. The minister of foreign affairs, Le Brun, showed himself disposed to treat with Spain, but the convention exacted before anything else that the Madrid cabinet should recognise the republic.

For Charles IV to acknowledge the republic was to sanction the fall of the Bourbons and the ruin of one of the princes of that family; it would betray his affections and his dearest interests. Hard pressed by disguised threats, the Spanish minister, in spite of his white hairs, went so far as to declare that, if the sacred soil of his country was invaded, he, the oldest officer in the army, would ask of his king a drum and go from town to town sounding the call to arms. In the meantime Charles IV had thought the matter over, and the desire to save Louis XVI’s life overruled every other consideration. He decided to keep a strict neutrality towards France. Moreover he was not ready for war, and an army is not created in an instant, especially in Spain where everything is done slowly and at great cost.c But at any rate the time now seemed ripe to dismiss De Aranda from his post and call Godoy to his place, De Aranda being permitted to keep the presidency of the council. It was late in 1792 that the queen’s favourite became the king’s chief agent.a

GODOY AS MINISTER, AND THE WAR WITH FRANCE

The new minister’s task was far from easy. The ability of the most experienced statesman would scarcely have been able to cope with the events taking place in France with too rapid strides. The trial of the unfortunate Louis XVI had begun and his life hung by a thread. The great, the sole question for Charles IV was to save him. Godoy proposed to offer France the mediation of the Madrid cabinet between herself and the northern powers in place of De Aranda’s neutral policy; the basis of negotiations to be the abdication of Louis XVI and the delivering of hostages as a sign of good faith. An unlimited credit was opened for Spain’s representative at Paris in order to buy up judges. But all was useless. A letter from the Spanish minister to the convention was returned by order of the day.

“France,” said a member, “can only treat with powers that have recognised the republic.” Danton thundered against the audacity of the Spanish government, and not even the reading of the letter was allowed. The members who had held out their hands for Spanish gold were the first to vote the death of the king. Finally, at the last moment, the Castilian chargé d’affaires having again tried to intercede in favour of the royal victim, Danton in anger proposed for this alone to declare war on Spain, to punish her for daring to interfere in the affairs of the republic.

The king’s death on January 21st, 1793, of course cut short all negotiations. The whole of Spain rose in horror and indignation at the news. Godoy, not very scrupulous himself in matters of national honour, exclaimed on learning the fatal news, “To-day a treaty of peace with France would be an infamy; it would make us accomplices of a crime that thrills Spain as it does the whole world.” De Aranda alone remained faithful to his system of neutrality and to that utilitarian morale of which England presents the most finished type. He addressed the king a long memoir on the danger of a war for which Spain was not prepared. But neutrality was but a dream in the present condition of minds and things in Spain as well as in France.

The day after the king’s execution the French minister of foreign affairs ordered his agents to declare war on every country which refused to recognise the republic or treat with her. Thus did the Revolution throw its challenge to Europe, and attacked so as not to be itself attacked. It was no longer with kings but with peoples that it wished to deal. As for Spain, neutrality and disarmament on both sides—that was the ultimatum which Bourgoing offered Godoy, reserving to France the right to maintain garrisons in the strongholds on the frontier.

The convention was the first in its declaration of war, drawn up by Barère in the style of the period. “The intrigues of the court of St. James,” it said, “have triumphed at Madrid. The papal nuncio has sharpened the dagger of fanaticism in the states of the Catholic king. The Bourbons must vanish from the throne they usurped, thanks to the blood and gold of our ancestors.”

Spain responded by a firm but altogether moderate declaration of war. A royal decree banished from the peninsula within three days all the French who were not resident there. Moreover, this war, which De Aranda himself was powerless to prevent, had become popular in Spain before it had been declared; the gazettes were full of offers and contributions; there was an outbreak of enthusiasm quite on a par with that of France.c

Toulon proclaimed the dauphin, as Louis XVII, according to the constitution of 1791, and invited the united English and Spanish fleets under Lord Hood and Don Juan de Langara, to take possession of their town, port, and fortifications in his name. Charles likewise prepared to invade France by land. A powerful Spanish army commanded by Ricardos, governor of Catalonia, and reinforced with the Portuguese auxiliaries, crossed the Pyrenees, and entered Roussillon. On the 22nd of June, 1793, they took Bellegarde, one of the strongest frontier fortresses, afterwards occupying several places of less note, leaving them to winter in force on the French territories. The Portuguese troops displayed great gallantry in all these actions.

But it was only in this southwestern portion of France that the ill fortune of the republicans continued to the end of the year. In the course of the autumn they everywhere else recovered their losses. Toulon likewise was retaken.

In the year 1794, whilst France seemed most completely disorganised and enfrenzied by Jacobinical fury and terror, her armies, rendered well-nigh innumerable by the masses of population poured into her camps, and led by generals, often of names till then unknown, who started up either from the ranks or from professions and trades the least akin to arms, were almost uniformly victorious. The prodigious reinforcements sent, in the very beginning of the year, to the southwestern provinces turned the fortune of war against the Spaniards and Portuguese. Early in February they suffered two severe defeats near St. Jean-de-Luz. In April the Spaniards were similarly vanquished in Roussillon, but still occupied their principal conquests. Towards the latter end of that month, however, the brave veteran, General Dugommier, was sent to supersede the incompetent French commanders in Roussillon. The consequences were fatal to the peninsular armies. In the beginning of May, Dugommier gained two victories over them—one near Céret, and the other near Coullioure—in which the baggage, equipage, and artillery of the defeated armies, with about nine thousand prisoners, fell into the hands of the victors. The remaining Spanish conquests in Roussillon surrendered.

Ricardos, whose military talents and experience had been one main cause of Spanish success, was now no more. He was succeeded by the count de la Union, a young grandee. He made a daring and vigorous effort to relieve Bellegarde, but in the end was defeated, with the loss of twenty-five hundred men, and compelled to retreat. Bellegarde capitulated on the 20th of September, after a five months’ siege. General Dugommier immediately entered Catalonia, and in the beginning of October again engaged La Union, whom he again defeated, but purchased the victory with his own life. His army followed the retreating enemy, and in the course of a few days avenged their general’s death by that of the count de la Union, and three more Spanish generals, who fell in another battle, fought on the 20th of the same month, when the Spaniards were once more beaten, and completely routed. The Spanish army sought shelter behind the lines, which had, during the last six months, been diligently prepared for the protection of Catalonia against an invading foe. These, though defended by forty thousand men, and fortified with eighty-three redoubts, the French, now commanded by General Pérignon, next attacked with irresistible impetuosity, and carried in the space of three hours, when, without further obstacle, they advanced upon Figueras. The works of Figueras were deemed pretty nearly impregnable; it was abundantly provided, and well garrisoned. But the panic that seems to have ensued upon the count de la Union’s death, and that had facilitated the forcing of the lines, had extended hither, and Figueras, to the astonishment even of the besiegers, surrendered almost without resistance. Several places in the north of Catalonia followed its example. At the western extremity of the Pyrenees the French arms were equally successful.

Charles and his new minister, Godoy, were undismayed by these disasters. They endeavoured to excite the population to rise in a mass against the invaders. Their attempts were unavailing; and whilst the French complained of the stupid and superstitious insensibility of the people, whom their promises of liberty could not allure to join (fraternise, as they called it) with them, the court of Madrid complained equally of popular disaffection, as a main cause of the failure of their efforts to defend the country. The nation seems, in fact, to have taken no interest in the war. The nobles, however, and the clergy, including the orders of knighthood and the monastic orders, were zealous in the cause, and freely offered ample contributions from their salaries, ecclesiastical revenues, commanderies, and private fortunes, to meet the exigency of the moment.

The misfortunes of the coalition on the eastern frontier of France were not calculated to encourage the Spanish court in its determination to resist. But the brilliant successes of the French by land were but little compensated by their naval and colonial losses. The prince of Orange and his family fled to England; and although Holland was not, like the Netherlands, made nominally a French province, she was so in effect, since, under the name of the Batavian Republic, she became wholly dependent upon France, at whose disposal all Dutch resources, in wealth, fleets, and colonies were placed. The fate of Spain was somewhat different. The strong town of Rosas, in Catalonia, fell on the 5th of January, 1795; after which four months passed in seeming inactivity, the French preparing for their advance upon Madrid, and the Spanish court vainly endeavouring to rouse the nation to resistance. Upon the 5th of May the Spanish army was completely routed by the French near Sistella, and with it the last hopes of Charles and Godoy fell.

Peace was now the only chance of escaping entire subjugation. The disposition of the persons in power at Paris was accordingly sounded through the American ambassador, and they were found willing to diminish the number of their enemies. On the 22nd of July a treaty was signed, by which France agreed to evacuate her conquests in Catalonia and Biscay; and Spain, in return, ceded to France the portion of the island of Santo Domingo that still belonged to her. Spain further promised to use her utmost efforts to detach Portugal likewise from the coalition. The conditions of this treaty were so much more favourable than Charles had expected, that in his joy he rewarded the duke of Alcudia with the title of Prince of the Peace [Principe de la Paz], by which he has ever since been known—an honour the more remarkable, because, contrary to the usual practice of the continent, in Spain as in England, the title of prince had, till then, been practically confined to the royal family.[107] From this period the whole system of Spanish policy was changed, and rendered so entirely subservient to the views of France that Godoy has been accused by his countrymen of corruption; there is certainly nothing in his character or principles that renders it likely he should have scorned a bribe. It is needless, nevertheless, to recur to such a suspicion for the explanation of his conduct. Spain made peace because she could not resist France; and the same weakness would induce her to submit to the dictation of her powerful ally. Charles seems to have followed, unresistingly, the impulses of his queen and favourite.

The Peace of Bâle was followed by the conclusion of a treaty with the United States of North America, by which the Prince of the Peace agreed to open the navigation of the Mississippi to the American Republic, and, as far as the United States were concerned, to render New Orleans a free port; measures equally beneficial to both parties.

SPAIN IN ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE AGAINST ENGLAND

The Prince of the Peace strove to encourage arts and industry, and especially sought to recover the breed of fine horses for which Andalusia had formerly been renowned, and which, having been long neglected in the prevalent passion for mules, had degenerated. He even attempted to oppose the immense power and ever-accumulating wealth of the Spanish clergy.

But the arts of French diplomacy overbore Godoy’s steadiness in preferring the real interests of Spain to hopes of sharing in the military fame and the territorial aggrandisement of France. On the 19th of August, 1796, a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, was signed between France and Spain, by which it was stipulated that either power, if engaged in a separate war, should be entitled to claim from the other fifteen ships of the line, and twenty-four thousand soldiers; and that if the two countries should be jointly engaged in war, all the forces of both should act in common. It was further distinctly stated in the treaty that these stipulations referred especially to England, inasmuch as Spain had no cause of quarrel with any other enemy of France.

Two months after the signature of a treaty so incompatible with any views of real neutrality, the Spanish court declared war against England, with the usual accusations of contraband trade, and infringement upon colonial rights. But Spain failed in her endeavours to detach Portugal from the coalition, and to exclude English goods.

By the Treaty of Campo-Formio (1797) Austria ceded the Netherlands to France, and the Milanese to the new Cisalpine Republic, formed of all the conquered or revolutionised Italian states. But all this prosperity was for France, not for her allies. Since the commencement of hostilities the Spanish fleets had, like the French, been blockaded in port by British squadrons. Early in February, 1797, however, the Spanish admiral, Don José de Cordova, at the head of twenty-seven sail of the line, made his way out of Cartagena harbour, and passed the straits of Gibraltar in search of the British fleet, which, relying upon his great superiority of force, he hoped to annihilate. On the morning of the 14th Cordova came in sight of the enemy he sought. Sir John Jervis, the English admiral, had only fifteen sail of the line, but resolved, nevertheless, to give battle, and endeavoured to compensate his great disparity of numbers by a manœuvre somewhat analogous to those by which Bonaparte gained his victories on land. He bore down with his whole force upon the Spaniards before their line was formed, cut off one large division of their fleet, and thus engaging upon less unequal terms, defeated Cordova, took four large ships, and drove the rest into the port of Cadiz. He was ably assisted in this bold attack by Commodore Nelson.

In Cadiz, Jervis (created Lord St. Vincent, in honour of his victory) blockaded the Spanish fleet, still far more numerous than his own, and, whilst he lay off the harbour, greatly harassed the coasting trade of Spain. He likewise bombarded the town, but, though he thus did a good deal of damage, produced no material result. Lord St. Vincent thought to follow up his advantage in another direction, by sending Nelson with a squadron to seize, if possible, both the town of Santa Cruz, in the island of Teneriffe, and a valuable register ship then lying in the port of that island. The attack was made with the daring intrepidity that characterised all Nelson’s actions; but the admiral had been led to form the scheme by false information as to the strength of the place. The attempt failed, and cost as many lives as the preceding battle. Nelson lost his arm. The Spaniards defended the fort with great gallantry, and when the English abandoned their enterprise, displayed towards them all kindness and courtesy. In the West Indies an expedition under Admiral Harvey and General Sir Ralph Abercromby sailed from Martinique to attack the island of Trinidad. Four sail of the line were voluntarily burned to prevent their falling into the hands of the English, and the governor capitulated the 18th of February. Encouraged by their success, Abercromby and Harvey next attempted the stronger island of Porto Rico, but failed, with considerable loss.

In the month of November General Stuart attacked Minorca, and after a short resistance, the governor, Quesada, surrendered the island, upon condition of being sent with his garrison to the nearest Spanish port. This was pretty much the whole Spanish share in the war this year, beyond the usual contribution of troops to the French armies. With the military transactions of 1798-1799 Spain had no concern. Her merchant ships were everywhere captured by British cruisers, as were the few armed vessels necessarily sent to sea singly or in small detachments.

During the year 1800, Spain and Portugal had little to do but to observe the change in the fortunes of France and her enemies, resulting from the return of Bonaparte and his exaltation to the head of the government. Bonaparte crossed the Alps, traversing the Great St. Bernard by ways till then deemed hardly passable for single foot travellers, but over which he actually transported his whole army, even artillery, and, by the splendid victory of Marengo, recovering at once all losses in Italy, re-established his Cisalpine Republic.

The first consul had already, in a secret treaty, extorted from his ally Charles IV the cession of Louisiana; and he now required from Charles’ kinsman, the duke of Parma, the reversion of his duchy at his death to the French Republic. In return, he bestowed Tuscany, under title of “the kingdom of Etruria,” upon the duke’s eldest son, Luis, prince of Parma, who had married a Spanish infanta. In April, 1801, the king and queen of Etruria left Madrid, where they had resided since their marriage, to take possession of their newly assigned dominions. They were directed by Godoy to pass through Paris; and thus two Bourbon princes were the first of the many sovereigns who, during Bonaparte’s reign, were required to present their personal homage at the Tuileries.

But Tuscany seems to have been judged more than compensation for Parma and Louisiana; and Charles was expected to pay a yet higher price for the kingdom bestowed upon one daughter and son-in-law, by assisting to despoil another daughter and son-in-law of their patrimony. Affection for the princess of Brazil and her children had urged the king of Spain to make unusual exertions for the sake of warding off from Portugal the effects of French enmity; and his troops, his fleets, and his American gold had been found so useful that he had enjoyed sufficient influence to render his mediation effectual with the Directory. But the peace of Lunéville rendered the friendship of Spain less important; and Bonaparte’s hatred of England was far more implacable than that of his directorial predecessors. The first consul could not forgive Portugal’s fidelity to her old ally; and now insisted upon Charles’ declaring war against his son-in-law. The obstinate refusal of the court of Lisbon to comply with the solicitations of the court of Madrid, detach itself from England, and accept the alliance of France, was the ground of hostility alleged in the Spanish manifesto.

This declaration was answered by a counter declaration from João, the prince of Brazil; but for a while both parties seemed to rest content with this paper war; and there can be no doubt that during their constrained hostilities a perfectly good understanding existed between the unwilling belligerents. The first consul was not to be thus deceived, and he informed his ally that if Spain were not prepared to invade Portugal, French troops should be sent to her assistance. To avoid receiving such aid, if possible, the Prince of the Peace took the field at the head of between thirty and forty thousand men, and entered the Portuguese province of Alemtejo. The prince of Brazil thereupon summoned the whole population of Portugal to arm in defence of the country, and in person led an army against the invaders, but offered scarcely any opposition to their progress. In little more than a fortnight the Spanish reduced several fortified towns, and drove the Portuguese beyond the Tagus. England afforded her faithful ally little succour, therefore, beyond a subsidy of £300,000, and her permission and advice to make peace upon the best terms obtainable. The plan of operations laid down by the first consul had been that Spain should invade the southern and France the northern provinces of Portugal; and a French army was now advancing to execute its allotted task.

On the 28th of June, General Leclerc, having traversed Spain, crossed the frontiers at the head of thirty thousand men, and laid siege to Almeida; St. Cyr followed him with another corps. This was an invasion of a different character from the last, and the Portuguese regent made more vigorous efforts for defence. He now earnestly solicited the help of England, and her troops took possession of the island of Madeira to hold for him. But his best resource was another treaty of peace, negotiated at Madrid between France and Portugal by the French and Portuguese ambassadors to Spain, the consul’s brother, Lucien Bonaparte, and Cipriano Ribeiro Freire. By this treaty, Dom João submitted to pay £1,000,000 to France, and to surrender a considerable district in the north of Brazil, the province called Portuguese Guiana, as far as the mouth of the Amazon, in order to give extent and compactness to French Guiana or Cayenne. No mention was made of the fortresses which had been the pretext for this last French invasion.

By the treaties of Amiens (1802) and Lunéville (1801), the king of Spain recovered Minorca, and saw the Parma branch of his family raised from the ducal to the royal rank; the future heritage of his eldest daughter’s children, Portugal, was redeemed from impending subjugation at the price of some little spoliation, in which he himself shared. But the greatest advantage the restoration of peace afforded him was the cessation of the enormous drain upon his resources, naval, military, and above all financial, which had lately reduced his dominions to a state of lamentable exhaustion. The expenditure during the war had amounted to four times the revenue; and only a long period of peace, together with the most judicious system of economy and fiscal regulation, could have reinstated Spain in anything like prosperity. Of this there could be no hope, under the sway of Charles IV, or rather of his favourite Godoy.

THE AUTOCRACY OF GODOY

The king’s attachment to his wife’s paramour bore almost as much the character of passion as the queen’s. Godoy’s influence over the former was not to be shaken by representations of his incapacity, or by court cabal;[108] and over the queen it remained undiminished either by jealousy or infidelity on either side, to the end of her life. To her jealousy he owed an alliance with the royal family. He had formed a criminal connection with a young lady of noble birth; and the queen, to prevent his marrying her rival, persuaded the king to give him a princess for his wife. For this purpose an illegal marriage, contracted by the king’s uncle, Don Luis, a cardinal and archbishop of Toledo, with a lady of the name of Vallabriga, was sanctioned, and its issue, a son and two daughters, were recognised as infantes of Spain. The son succeeded his father as archbishop of Toledo, and was made a cardinal; and the eldest daughter was bestowed, as an infanta, upon the Prince of the Peace.

So splendid a marriage had no more effect than his intrigue with the queen in restraining Godoy’s libertinism. It equalled his rapacity; and the latter vice being almost glutted by the profusion of the royal pair, his favour was most surely propitiated by those who had a handsome sister, wife, or daughter to sacrifice to his appetite. The queen, finding it impossible to rid herself of these innumerable rivals, sought consolation in emulating his inconstancy. But it never required more than a word from Godoy to have his rivals overthrown, and his political opponents entangled in their own snares.

Such scenes of licentiousness could not be daily exhibited at court, without producing the most noxious effect upon all who came within the poisonous sphere of their influence. The higher orders were well-nigh demoralised, and a shameless system of corruption pervaded every branch of the administration, from the highest to the lowest throughout Spain; evils compared with which the good really done by the Prince of the Peace was but as dust in the balance.

When his connection by marriage with the royal family raised him above any ministerial office, leaving him merely a sort of viceroy over the whole Spanish monarchy, Godoy introduced some able men in his stead, such as Saavedra and Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, though the kingdom was not long permitted to reap the benefit of their talents. Illness afforded Saavedra a fair pretext for resigning an office which his difference in opinion from Godoy would scarcely have suffered him to retain, and would certainly have prevented his exercising according to his judgment and conscience. Jovellanos incurred the hatred of the queen, by opposing her constant interference in public affairs; that of Godoy, by joining in a plot for the abridgment, if not overthrow of his power; he was in consequence not only dismissed, but rigorously immured in a Carthusian monastery in Majorca.[109]

The Prince of the Peace affected, in compliance with the fashion of the day, to be a patron of the arts, of learning, and of modern improvements. He commanded Pestalozzi’s new system of education to be adopted in Spain; he recommended the general practice of vaccination, and despatched vessels to all the colonies for the purpose of introducing that preventive; and he encouraged to the utmost of his power the patriotic or economical societies established under the name of Friends of the Country, in order to promote agriculture, by diffusing the knowledge of improved methods of tillage amongst the farmers, and assisting with small loans such as were cramped in their operations by indigence. These merits were, however, as has been said, nothing to counterbalance the evils under which Spain laboured, and most of which were ascribed to the profligate corruption of the court. The yellow fever, which in the years 1800 and 1801 ravaged and partially desolated the south of Spain by the misery it occasioned, increased the prevailing dissatisfaction; and the detestation of Godoy was excessive and universal.

By no one was the extent of his power more bitterly felt or his person more abhorred than by Ferdinand, prince of Asturias. The education of this prince had been purposely intrusted by the favourite to incapable persons; the queen hated and persecuted a son upon whom she, perhaps, looked as a future rival for power. As he advanced to manhood, the adversaries of Godoy gathered around him, and Don Juan Escoiquiz, canon of Toledo, the only man of any ability who had been placed about him, became the head of a sort of party in favour of the prince of Asturias. In 1802 all these persons, and indeed the country at large, looked impatiently to Ferdinand’s marriage with Maria Antonia, daughter of the king of Naples, as the era of some effective change in the court. But the virtues and talents of Maria Antonia were altogether unavailing against the arts of her mother-in-law and the influence of Godoy.

Meanwhile the peace that had momentarily tranquillised Europe was evidently upon the point of ceasing. A burst of passion on the first consul’s part against Lord Whitworth, the English ambassador, on the 13th of March, 1803, astonished the diplomacy of Europe. On the 12th of May, 1803, Lord Whitworth left Paris, and on the 18th the king of England declared war against France. Spain and Portugal were permitted to remain neutral, but were compelled to purchase that permission by heavy sacrifices of both wealth and dignity. The pecuniary contributions drawn by Bonaparte from Spain and Portugal, or wrung from the Hanse towns, together with the produce of the sale of Louisiana to the United States of North America, were applied to building and equipping the gunboats with which he proposed to invade England.

The following year put an end to the neutrality of Spain. At first it appeared as though she would once more take part against France, for the court of Madrid vehemently objected to the sale of Louisiana to the United States, as contrary to the secret conditions upon which that province had been ceded to France. But the Prince of the Peace was overawed or bribed by Bonaparte. He contented himself with objecting, and immediately returned to his former subserviency.

The English envoy Frere was informed by the British admirals cruising off the Spanish coast that an armament was fitting out at Ferrol, and that indications of activity appeared in other ports, whilst French soldiers and sailors were permitted to pass through Spain to recruit a French fleet lying in a Spanish harbour.

The result of these suspicions was that the British ministry determined upon the very extraordinary step of ordering, without any previous declaration of war, the seizure of four Spanish frigates, then bringing home freights of the precious metals and other valuable merchandise. These ships were not, it is averred, to be captured as prizes, but in order to be held as security for the future more impartial neutrality of Spain. This measure, more in accordance with Bonaparte’s treatment of neutrals than with the principles of international law, which England professed to defend, was executed as feebly as it was, perhaps, unwarrantably conceived. On the 5th of October an engagement ensued, that ended by the blowing up of one of the Spanish vessels—on board of which were several passengers of high rank—and the surrender of the others. This attack and capture during the nominal continuance of peace enraged the Spanish nation beyond all further show of neutrality, and afforded too fair a colour to French declamation against England’s naval tyranny.

On the 12th of December, 1804, the court of Madrid declared war against England in a virulent manifesto; and the Prince of the Peace, now created generalissimo of his Catholic majesty’s forces (a title devised to give him the supreme command), published an address, calling upon every individual Spaniard to assist in avenging the insults of the tyrants of the sea. The war produced no event this year beyond the capture of Dutch Guiana (Surinam) by an English expedition. In France Bonaparte accomplished the transmutation of his office of consul of a republic into the dignity of emperor. The year 1805 was rich in memorable battles by sea and land. On the 21st of October, off Trafalgar, Villeneuve and Gravina the Spanish admiral, with thirty-three sail of the line and seven frigates, encountered Nelson, who had lured them out of Cadiz, by persuading them that his force amounted only to twenty-one sail of the line. They found him with twenty-seven and three frigates. It was too late to retreat, and they engaged. The battle was one of the hardest contested and most decisive ever fought at sea. Lord Nelson fell, but survived long enough to know that the victory was gained. This splendid victory seems to have nearly annihilated the fleets of France and Spain, and to have completely repressed Napoleon’s schemes for obtaining any naval superiority over, or equality with Great Britain. From that time he appears to have really abandoned the idea of invading England, how much soever he still threatened. But the maritime triumphs of the latter country were fearfully balanced by the reverses of her continental allies. A negotiation was at this time set on foot for detaching Spain from France; and the court of Madrid showed itself well disposed to concur in the requisite arrangements. Napoleon’s yoke pressed too heavily to be ever voluntarily borne; and although Charles IV had, in the first instance, joyfully hailed the accession to power of an individual able to control and terminate the revolution, all such kindly disposition had been forcibly crushed by the barbarous and illegal execution of a prince of his own Bourbon blood, the duke d’Enghien. To this feeling of resentment was added fear, nearly equal to that inspired by the Revolution itself, when the conqueror of Europe began to dethrone sovereigns and to distribute crowns amongst his own kindred.

Charles, notwithstanding his fears of Napoleon, had still delayed to acknowledge the usurper of half his brother Ferdinand’s kingdom; and when he understood that, in his negotiation with England, the emperor insisted upon Sicily likewise for Joseph, and proposed to dismember Spain of Minorca, Majorca, and Iviza, by way of compensation to the despoiled king of Naples, Charles’ indignation burst forth, and Godoy’s imperfectly appeased fears revived. A plan of future operations was concerted between the Prince of the Peace in person, and the Russian and Portuguese ambassadors, the secret of which was carefully kept even from the Spanish ministers. It was arranged that Spain and Portugal should arm under colour of hostilities against each other; and that, at the moment when Russia should take the field, their united armies, supported by the fleets of England, should invade the south of France.

Spain bitterly felt the consequences of war with England in the loss of her fleets, and the consequent interruption to her intercourse with her colonies. On June 27th, 1806, the English officer Popham seized Buenos Ayres. The enterprise was in every way rash and ill-advised. He had not troops sufficient to maintain his conquest, and it was recovered by the Spaniards. But the English, if driven out of Buenos Ayres, were not expelled from the country, and this alarmed the Spanish government for its transatlantic empire. Sympathising in the anger and terror awakened in Charles’ mind by the words Napoleon had uttered while stepping into his carriage to set off for the Prussian frontiers (“If Charles IV will not acknowledge my brother as king of the Two Sicilies, his successor shall”), and elated with the tidings of the new German war, Godoy lost sight of the secrecy and caution in which his hostile designs had hitherto been wrapped. Without waiting for the proposed co-operation of either England or Russia, he flung aside the mask. He did not, indeed, announce that France was the enemy with whom he contemplated a war, but he published a proclamation (October 5th, 1806) in which he summoned the nation to arms.

On the 14th of the same month Napoleon, in the terrible battle of Jena, completely routed, dispersed, and destroyed the Prussian army. In the palace at Berlin, Napoleon read the imprudent manifesto of the Prince of the Peace; and if the destiny of the Bourbon kings of Spain had been previously doubtful, it was thenceforward sealed. The news of Jena struck the Prince of the Peace and his infatuated sovereigns with affright proportionate to their recent presumption; and they strove to obviate the effects of their imprudence by various means, which, contradicting each other, proved the bad faith against the French emperor which they endeavoured to deny. The French and Spanish newspapers were filled with paragraphs, in some of which the manifesto was alleged to be a forgery by the enemies of the Prince of the Peace; whilst in others it was avowed as directed against either England or the emperor of Morocco. The decree for levying troops was immediately revoked, and a second circular ordered the governors to disregard the former. Godoy did not, however, rely upon the effects of these artifices. He is believed to have lavished his ill-gotten treasures upon the agents of French diplomacy, whilst he sent a private envoy of his own, distinct from the king’s, Don Eugenio Izquierdo, to Berlin, humbly to confess and implore forgiveness. Napoleon felt that this was not the season for engaging in a new war, and he suffered the hostile demonstration of the court of Madrid to pass unnoticed. But he sought yet further to weaken Spain by requiring that sixteen thousand of her best troops, under her best general, the marquis de la Romana, should be sent into Prussia as reinforcements of the northern army. It was at this period that the famous Berlin decree was published, declaring the British Islands in a state of blockade; and Spain was of course required fully to concur in the execution of this fantastic measure.