Several of the Spanish statesmen of the last Century
were very superior men, the kingdom itself was strong,
and the Indies did not experience any disturbances
calculated seriously to embarrass the mother-country.
Then the close union that was brought about between
France and Spain, in the early days of Charles III.
and the last days of Louis XV., had no unimportant
effect on the fortunes of Spain. The Pacte
de Famille was one of the greatest political transactions
of those days. It was effected just a hundred
years ago, and but for the occurrence of the French
Revolution it would have proved most fruitful of remarkable
events. Had it never been made, it may well be
doubted if the American Revolution could have been
a successful movement. That Revolution France
was bound to support, both by interest and by sentiment;
and the Family-Compact enabled her to take Spain on
to the side of America, where it is evident that her
interests scarcely could have taken her; and Spain’s
aid, which was liberally afforded, was necessary to
the success of our ancestors. That it was possible
thus to place Spain was owing to one of those displays
of English insolence that have made the islanders
abhorred by the rulers and the ruled of almost every
land. “Charles III. of Spain,” says
Macaulay, “had early conceived a deadly hatred
of England. Twenty years before, when he was King
of the Two Sicilies, he had been eager to join the
coalition against Maria Theresa. But an English
fleet had suddenly appeared in the Bay of Naples.
An English captain had landed, had proceeded to the
palace, had laid a watch on the table, and had told
his Majesty that within an hour a treaty of neutrality
must be signed, or a bombardment would commence.
The treaty was signed; the squadron sailed out of the
bay twenty-four hours after it had sailed in; and
from that day the ruling passion of the humbled prince
was aversion to the English name. He was at length
in a situation in which he might hope to gratify that
passion. He had recently become King of Spain
and the Indies. He saw, with envy and apprehension,
the triumphs of our navy, and the rapid extension of
our colonial empire. He was a Bourbon, and sympathized
with the distress of the house from which he sprang.
He was a Spaniard; and no Spaniard could bear to see
Gibraltar and Minorca in the possession of a foreign
power. Impelled by such feelings, Charles concluded
a secret treaty with France. By this treaty,
known as the Family-Compact, the two powers bound
themselves, not in express words, but by the clearest
implication, to make war on England in common.”
Such was the origin of an alliance that changed the
fate of America, and which might have done as much
for Europe but for the fall of the French Bourbons.
The statesmen of England, with that short-sightedness
which is the badge of all their tribe, were nursing
the power of Russia, at an enormous expense, in order
that, at a still greater expense, their grandsons might