Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/22

6 of Prince of Peace, with rich domains and other substantial gifts.

Spain still has many ships and regiments, but no sailors or soldiers. Off Portugal, in 1797, the Spaniards are defeated by the English, who sweep the Mediterranean and Caribbean seas, and sow discord among the colonies. During the past three years there has been 2,445,000,000 reals income, and 8,714,000,000 outgo. There is in circulation 1,980,000,000 paper money current in 1799 at forty per cent discount. Religion is everywhere present as the hand maid of vice. A peace is signed in 1801 between France and Spain, with Godoy as the creature of Napoleon. In thick succession other wars are followed by other ignominious treaties. In 1808 the French are in Spain; Carlos abdicates; Godoy flees before the fury of the populace; and Fernando VII., idle, incompetent, and faithless, a coward and a hypocrite, base, tricky, and a debauchee—these are some of the many epithets history applies to this monarch—is named successor.

After a royal puppet-play, with Murat as manager-general, during which Carlos is for a moment recalled, while Fernando abdicates, the English, thirty thousand strong, are in the peninsula. At Aranjuez the supreme junta sits under the presidency of Floridablanca. Then comes Napoleon to Spain; and for a time Joseph Bonaparte holds the reins of government. In 1810—Caracas, in Venezuela, breaking into revolt, and Buenos Aires shortly after—the cortes assemble at Cádiz. A constitution is drawn up in 1812, which, under the impulse of the universal progress of liberty, abolishes seignorial rights, torture, the inquisition, and most of the convents. It is almost republican in its tenor, too liberal for the place and the time, and so does not hold; and Spain still labors under the crushing weight of absolute monarchy.

Fernando, reinstated in 1813, swears to the constitution of 1812, intending never to keep it. There