His foreign policy was wise. He rightly considered England as the true enemy of Spain. He feared for the Indies; he beheld them invaded by English merchants and adventurers, by English merchandise and ideas. To protect the colonies he hurled upon them a new current of Spanish emigration, and decreed liberty of commerce between the Peninsula and America. He allied himself with France in order to combat England; and, notwithstanding some reverses, the war was closed to the advantage of Spain, which country in 1783 again took her place as a great European power.[206]
When the conflict came, in 1790, although nearly two years of the reign of Charles IV had passed, little was known of the weakness of the King, the corrupting influence of the Queen, and the intrigues in the ministry. Europe of the time saw in Spain a country rapidly forging to the front, with a rejuvenated kingship, and a minister second only to Pitt.[207] Led by this minister, Spain had less than a decade before been largely instrumental in humiliating England; and since then she had persistently refused to make any commercial concessions to her vanquished antagonist. The same minister now dared to intervene between the Czar and the Porte. He was also negotiating for an alliance between Spain, France, Austria, and Russia.[208] If this quadruple alliance should prove successful the outlook for England would be dark, notwithstanding her triple alliance with Prussia and Holland.
Such, briefly, was the political condition of Spain, internally and externally, when news arrived of the occurrences at Nootka Sound which have been discussed in the foregoing chapters.
As stated above, it was at the very beginning of the year that the intelligence was received which was soon to throw all Europe into a war fever. On January 2, 1790, Valdez[209] sent to Floridablanca the second installment of letters and documents concerning the occurrences at Nootka. Three days earlier he had sent the first bundle.[210] These two packages contained a complete account of the affair, with copies of all the documents. Valdez asked for His Majesty’s pleasure concerning the matter.
On January 4, Anthony Merry, the English chargé d’affaires at Madrid wrote to the Duke of Leeds, British secretary for foreign affairs, giving a very confused account based on rumors. Word had just arrived from Mexico, he said, that a small Spanish ship of war had captured an English vessel in the port of Nootka. There were conflicting accounts of the event. Some said “that the Viceroy of Mexico, having had notice that the English were forming an establishment at the above-mentioned place, ordered a ship there to take possession of it.” Others said that the Spanish ship was there simply to reconnoiter the coast. There were also conflicting accounts of what was done with Russian, Portuguese, and American ships found in the same port, some stating that all were allowed to go free except the English; others, that all were seized and only the American released, Merry had not yet been able to learn the name of the English vessel or her master. All accounts agreed that she had come for the purpose of forming a settlement, that other vessels were to follow, and that the captured ship had been manned with Spanish seamen and sent to Mexico.[211]
This was the first account to reach London.[212] It is not strange that mistaken notions were formed. Fired by hatred for the Spaniards, it was natural that the English should consider the act much more atrocious than it was. The indefiniteness and inconsistency of the accounts gave room for full play of the imagination. The Spanish Court, which had complete accounts, either did not study them carefully enough to get at the whole truth, or intentionally kept the British Court in the dark. No English account arrived for nearly four months. Such a period of uncertainty and suspense prepared a fertile field in which the exaggerated accounts then arriving produced a fruitful crop of error.
Three days after sending the above confused account Merry inclosed an extract from a letter written in Mexico, which he had seen. This letter seems to have been unofficial. Respecting the genesis and purpose of the Spanish expedition it is true to the facts. It tells briefly of the expedition of 1788 to investigate the Russian settlements, of the discovery that the Russians intended to occupy Nootka, and of the Viceroy’s prompt action to anticipate them. But respecting the events at Nootka little is told except the seizure of an English vessel and its arrival in Mexico as a prize.[213] On January 15 the British chargé wrote of a conference with Floridablanca on the subject. “The Count avoided explaining to him the particulars of the transaction, or avowing clearly the seizure of the vessels; neither did he enter upon the question of our right to trade or to form an establishment in that part of the continent of America.” He said that he would direct the Marquis del Campo, the Spanish ambassador at London, to impart the circumstances to the Duke of Leeds.[214]
In virtue of this promise Floridablanca instructed Campo, January 20, regarding the communication which he was to make to Leeds. This communication will be studied presently.[215] A week after sending his harsh instructions the Count attempted to smooth matters over in another conference with Merry. He wished to see the present harmony between the two courts preserved and improved, and “hoped that no event might happen which might cause Great Britain to deviate from her present pacific system.”[216]
The first three letters from Merry had reached London before February 2. On that day the Duke of Leeds wrote cautioning him to be extremely guarded in what he should say, until definite instructions could be sent after Campo’s communication should have been received. He declared that England undoubtedly had a complete “right to visit for the purposes of trade, or to make a settlement in, the district in question.”[217] When this positive declaration by the British Cabinet at the very first is compared with the demand of the Spanish Court, received a few days later, it is seen that a conflict was inevitable unless one side should yield.
The expected communication from Campo was received by Leeds February 11. Since it was this note that started the diplomatic controversy, and since it has not before been made public, it is worth while to quote it in full. It is dated “Manchester Square, February 10, 1790,” and is as follows: