[Footnote 863:  Flassan, Diplomatie Francaise, V. 376 (Paris, 1809).]

[Footnote 864:  See the proposals in Entick, V. 161.]

[Footnote 865:  Beatson, Military Memoirs, II. 434. The Count de Fuentes to the Earl of Egremont, 25 Dec. 1761, in Entick, V. 264.]

[Footnote 866:  On this negotiation, see Memoire historique sur la Negociation de la France et de l’Angleterre (Paris, 1761), a French Government publication containing papers on both sides.  The British Ministry also published such documents as they saw fit, under the title of Papers relating to the Rupture with Spain.  Compare Adolphus, George III., I. 31-39.]

Choiseul replied with counter-propositions less humiliating to his nation.  When the question of accepting or rejecting them came before the Ministry, the views of Pitt prevailed by a majority of one, and, to the disappointment of Bute and the King, the conferences were broken off.  Choiseul, launched again on the billows of a disastrous war, had seen and provided against the event.  Ferdinand VI. of Spain had died, and Carlos III. had succeeded to his throne.  Here, as in England, change of kings brought change of policy.  While negotiating vainly with Pitt, the French Minister had negotiated secretly and successfully with Carlos; and the result was the treaty known as the Family Compact, having for its object the union of the various members of the House of Bourbon in common resistance to the growing power of England.  It provided that in any future war the Kings of France and Spain should act as one towards foreign Powers, insomuch that the enemy of either should be the enemy of both; and the Bourbon princes of Italy were invited to join in the covenant.[867] What was more to the present purpose, a special agreement was concluded on the same day, by which Spain bound herself to declare war against England unless that Power should make peace with France before the first of May, 1762.  For the safety of her colonies and her trade Spain felt it her interest to join her sister nation in putting a check on the vast expansion of British maritime power.  She could bring a hundred ships of war to aid the dilapidated navy of France, and the wealth of the Indies to aid her ruined treasury.

[Footnote 867:  Flassan, Diplomatie Francaise, V. 317 (Paris, 1809).]

Pitt divined the secret treaty, and soon found evidence of it.  He resolved to demand at once full explanation from Spain; and, failing to receive a satisfactory reply, attack her at home and abroad before she was prepared.  On the second of October he laid his plan before a Cabinet Council held at a house in St. James Street.  There were present the Earl of Bute, the Duke of Newcastle, Earl Granville, Earl Temple, and others of the Ministry.  Pitt urged his views with great warmth.  “This,” he exclaimed, “is the time for humbling the whole House of Bourbon!"[868] His brother-in-law, Temple, supported