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.
[1803-1805 A.D.]
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.
[1805-1806 A.D.]