ese vessels.
Thus for some months our warships had to observe Ferrol, as if it were
a hostile port.

Clearly, this state of things could not continue; and when the
protests of our ambassador at Madrid were persistently evaded or
ignored, he was ordered, in the month of September, to leave that
capital unless he received satisfactory assurances. He did not leave
until November 10th, and before that time a sinister event had taken
place. The British Ministry determined that Spanish treasure-ships from
South America should not be allowed to land at Cadiz the sinews of war
for France, and sent orders to our squadrons to stop those ships. Four
frigates were told off for that purpose. On the 5th of October they
sighted the four rather smaller Spanish frigates that bore the ingots of
Peru, and summoned them to surrender, thereafter to be held in pledge.
The Spaniards, nobly resolving to yield only to overwhelming force,
refused; and in the ensuing fight one of their ships blew up, whereupon
the others hauled down their flags and were taken to England. Resenting
this action, Spain declared war on December 12th, 1804.

Stripped of all the rodomontade with which French historians have
enveloped this incident, the essential facts are as follows. Napoleon
compelled Spain by the threat of invasion to pay him a large subsidy:
England declared this payment, and accompanying acts, to be acts of
war; Spain shuffled uneasily between the two belligerents but
continued to supply funds to Napoleon and to shelter and repair his
warships; thereupon England resolved to cut off her American
subsidies, but sent a force too small to preclude the possibility of a
sea-fight; the fight took place, with a lamentable result, which
changed the covert hostility of Spain into active hostility.

Public opinion and popular narratives are, however, fashioned by
sentiment rather than founded on evidence; accordingly, Britain's
prestige suffered from this event. The facts, as currently reported,
seemed to convict her of an act of piracy; and few persons on the
Continent or among the Whig coteries of Westminster troubled to find
out whether Spain had not been guilty of acts of hostility and whether
the French Emperor was not the author of the new war. Undoubtedly it
was his threatening pressure on Spain that had compelled her to her
recent action: but that pressure had been for the most part veiled by
diplomacy, while Britain's retort was patent and notorio