eace with France, an issue of paper money,
or a bankruptcy. Godoy inclined strongly to peace, and discovered in
Anglophobia a means of betraying the French House of Bourbon. England,
so he averred, had entered on the war solely for her own aggrandisement,
with the view of appropriating first Dunkirk, then Toulon, and, failing
them, Corsica and Hayti, to the manifest detriment of Spain. The
argument was specious; for Pitt's resolve to cripple France by colonial
conquests necessarily tended to re-awaken the old jealousies of the
Spaniards; and herein, as in other respects, the son had to confront
difficulties unknown in the days of his father. The task of the elder
Pitt was simple compared with that of humouring and spurring on five
inert and yet jealous Allies.

Among them Spain was not the least slothful and exacting. After the
quarrels between Langara and Hood at Toulon, the despatches from Madrid
to London were full of complaints. Now it was the detention of Danish
vessels carrying naval stores, ostensibly for Cadiz, but in reality, as
we asserted, for Rochefort. Now it was the seizure and condemnation of a
Spanish merchantman, the "Sant' Iago," on a somewhat similar charge.
England had equal cause for annoyance. The embers of the quarrel of 1790
were once more fanned to a flame by Spanish officials. Captain
Vancouver, of H.M.S. "Discovery," while on a voyage to survey the island
which now bears his name, had his ship and crew detained and ill-treated
at Monterey Bay by the Governor of California. The Court of St. James
warmly protested against this conduct as contrary to the Nootka Sound
Convention of 1790; and thereby inflamed that still open wound. Valdez,
Minister of Marine, the only rival of Godoy, now openly avowed his
hostility to England. Early in February 1795, in a conference with the
King, he hotly denounced British designs in Corsica and Hayti.
Thenceforth there was no hope of securing the co-operation of the
Spanish fleet for the blockade of Toulon and other duties too exacting
for Admiral Hotham's squadron. On 11th February Godoy handed to Jackson,
our _charge d'affaires_, a state paper containing the assurance that
Spain desired to continue the struggle against France; but "if His
Christian Majesty finds another road less dangerous than that which he
follows, he will take it with the dignity becoming his rank; he will
exhaust the means he may have till he shall obtain the welfare of his
people; but he w