Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 1.djvu/361

348 as old as the tales of folk-lore, but none the less characterized the moral condition of Spain. Whatever had been Godoy's relations with the Queen they had long ceased, yet the honors, the wealth, and the semi-royal position of the Prince of Peace still scandalized the world. According to the common talk of Madrid, his riches and profligacy had no limits; his name was a by-word for everything that was shameless and corrupt. A young man, barely thirty-three years old, on whose head fortune rained favors, in an atmosphere of corruption, was certainly no saint; yet this creature, Manuel Godoy, reeking with vice, epitome of the decrepitude and incompetence of Spanish royalty, was a mild, enlightened, and intelligent minister so far as the United States were concerned, capable of generosity and of courage, quite the equal of Pitt or Talleyrand in diplomacy, and their superior in resource. In the eyes of Spain, Godoy may have been the most contemptible of mortals; but American history cannot estimate his character so low.

Godoy negotiated the treaty of 1795 with the United States, and did it in order to redress the balance which Jay's treaty with England disturbed. The Spanish treaty of 1795 never received the credit it deserved; its large concessions were taken as a matter of course by the American people, who assumed that Spain could not afford to refuse anything that America asked, and who resented the