his payment, and accompanying acts, to be acts of
war; Spain shuffled uneasily between the two belligerents but
continued to supply funds to Napoleon and to shelter and repair his
warships; thereupon England resolved to cut off her American
subsidies, but sent a force too small to preclude the possibility of a
sea-fight; the fight took place, with a lamentable result, which
changed the covert hostility of Spain into active hostility.

Public opinion and popular narratives are, however, fashioned by
sentiment rather than founded on evidence; accordingly, Britain's
prestige suffered from this event. The facts, as currently reported,
seemed to convict her of an act of piracy; and few persons on the
Continent or among the Whig coteries of Westminster troubled to find
out whether Spain had not been guilty of acts of hostility and whether
the French Emperor was not the author of the new war. Undoubtedly it
was his threatening pressure on Spain that had compelled her to her
recent action: but that pressure had been for the most part veiled by
diplomacy, while Britain's retort was patent and notorious.
Consequently, every version of this incident that was based merely on
newspaper reports condemned her conduct as brutally piratical; and
only those who have delved into archives have discovered the real
facts of the case.[330] Napoleon's letter to the King of Spain quoted
on p. 437 shows that even before the war he was seeking to drag him
into hostilities with England, and he continued to exert a remorseless
pressure on the Court of Madrid; it left two alternatives open to
England, either to see Napoleon close his grip on Spain and wield her
naval resources when she was fully prepared for war, or to precipitate
the rupture. It was the alternative, _mutatis mutandis_, presented to
George III. and the elder Pitt in 1761, when the King was for delay
and his Minister was for war at once. That instance had proved the
father's foresight; and now at the close of 1804 the younger Pitt
might flatter himself that open war was better than a treacherous
peace.

In lieu of a subsidy Spain now promised to provide from twenty-five to
twenty-nine sail of the line, and to have them ready by the close of
March. On his side, Napoleon agreed to guarantee the integrity of the
Spanish dominions, and to regain Trinidad for her. The sequel will
show how his word was kept.

The conclusion of this alliance placed the hostile navies almost on an
equali