ingo d'Yriarte, his envoy to the now extinct Polish Republic, to
confer with Barthelemy, the French Ambassador at Basle. The actions of
Yriarte, of course, depended on the secret behests of Godoy. On 2nd July
Godoy informed him that peace was the only means of thwarting the
efforts of the bad counsellors of the Crown; and four days later he
wrote:

Every day makes peace more necessary. There is no hope of
restoring affairs in Navarre. Cowardice has unnerved our army
and the French will dictate their terms to us.... I fear that
their claims will be excessive, and condescension is our only
resource if we are to succeed in saving ourselves even in part.
Your Lordship need not take alarm at the rigour of the terms of
peace; listen to them, accept them, and forward them to me,
saying to yourself that perhaps they will not be so fatal as the
results of a delay in the negotiation might be.[387]

Yriarte, a nervous valetudinarian, eagerly accepted this despicable
advice. Already one of his secretaries had allowed Barthelemy to see an
almost equally base effusion from Godoy; so that the French ambassador
on 21st July informed the Committee of Public Safety that the game was
in their hands. This was the case. Yriarte, after receiving two packets
from Madrid, hastily sought a nocturnal interview with Barthelemy by the
help of a dark lantern. The French ambassador received him with some
surprise, especially on hearing that he came to sign a treaty of peace
on terms not yet known at Paris. When the Spaniard insisted on signing
at once, Barthelemy examined the conditions, and finding them highly
favourable to France, consulted his secretaries, with the result that he
finally decided to conclude the affair.

Thus came about the Peace of Basle (22nd July 1795). Spain now waived
her former demands, the restoration of religious worship in France, and
French aid in the recovery of Gibraltar. The French, however, now agreed
to restore all the districts held by their troops in the North of Spain,
while the Court of Madrid ceded San Domingo. Spain also made peace with
the Dutch or Batavian Republic, and offered to mediate between France
and Portugal, Naples, Sardinia, and Parma.[388] Such were the chief
clauses of this astonishing compact. It dealt a deadly blow to Pitt. For
at the very time when he was building up a formidable league and rousing
Brittany against the Republic, Spain seceded from the mona