misleading statements in Godoy's
Memoirs (written a generation later) that Spain made strenuous efforts
to save the life of Louis XVI and opened "an unlimited credit" at Paris
with the view of bribing members of the Convention to secure his
acquittal. Further, that he, Godoy, secretly approached Pitt in order to
secure his financial aid, which that statesman obstinately refused.[150]
The story does not hang well together; for if Spain had already opened
an unlimited credit at Paris, why did she want pecuniary help from Pitt?
Further, the opening of unlimited credit, presumably with a Parisian
bank, did not consort well with the secret methods which were essential
to the success of the plan.

In order to probe this matter to the bottom, I have examined the British
Foreign Office archives relating to Spain for the months of December and
January. They are detailed and apparently complete. F. J. Jackson, our
_charge d'affaires_ at Madrid, wrote to Lord Grenville every three or
four days, as the relations of the two States had been far from cordial
owing to friction caused by the cession of Nootka Sound, Captain
Vancouver having been employed to settle the boundaries and fix a
neutral zone between the two Empires. Grenville also wrote three times
to Jackson to express his apprehension that the timidity and poverty of
Spain would cause her to yield to the French Republic in the matter of
some demonstrations on the frontier. But there is no word implying that
Spain requested help from England, either pecuniary or diplomatic, in
order to save Louis. Early in January Charles IV made such an appeal to
the French Convention, but it was treated with contemptuous
indifference. At that time the Courts of London and Madrid were
beginning to draw closer together in order to withstand the demands of
France; but nothing passed between them officially respecting the saving
of Louis. Now, where the life of a King was at stake, any communication
must have been official, and if it were made through the Spanish
ambassador in London, Grenville would certainly have referred to it in
his despatches to Madrid.[151] We may therefore dismiss Godoy's story as
a cruel and baseless slander, due to the spiteful desire of a
discredited politician to drag down a great name nearer to his own
level.

It is also worth noting that Malouet, who was then in close touch with
Grenville on San Domingo affairs, does not mention in his Memoirs any
attempt to invo