disputes with Spain. In vain did he seek to avert bickerings by
suggesting a friendly understanding about Hayti. Godoy was determined to
bicker. And, as the war changed its character, the old Latin affinities
helped that adventurer to undermine the monarchical league and to draw
back Spain to the traditional connection with France.

The Spanish declaration of war in October 1796 opens the fourth phase of
the struggle. Thenceforth England stood on the defensive in Europe in
order to guard and strengthen her Colonial Empire. She abandoned Corsica
and Elba; she withdrew her fleet from the Mediterranean so that Ireland
might be screened from attack. Pitt's views also underwent a change.
Foreseeing the collapse of Austria, he sought to assure peace with
France and Spain by conquering enough territory oversea to
counterbalance the triumphs of Bonaparte and Moreau in Italy and the
Rhineland. If he could not restore the Balance of Power on the
Continent, he strove to safeguard British interests at all essential
points. Failing to save Holland from the Jacobins' grip, he conquered
and held the Cape. This was the bent of his policy during the peace
overtures of the year 1796. He struggled on reluctantly with the war,
opposing as inopportune the motions of Fox, Grey, or Wilberforce for
peace, but ever hoping that France would be compelled by the pressure of
bankruptcy to come to terms and surrender some of her continental
conquests on consideration of recovering her colonies. Wilberforce heard
him declare that he could almost calculate the time when her resources
would be exhausted. On the philanthropist repeating this at a dinner
party, one of his guests, de Lageard, wittily remarked: "I should like
to know who was Chancellor of the Exchequer to Attila."[418] This remark
shore asunder Pitt's financial arguments and reveals the weak point of
his policy. He conducted the war as if it were a Seven Years' War. It
was a Revolutionary War; and at this very time a greater than Attila was
at hand. Bonaparte was preparing to use the spoils of Italy for the
extension of the arena of strife. Nelson, then seeking to intercept the
supplies of Bonaparte's army in the Riviera, foresaw the danger and thus
graphically summarized it: "Italy is the gold mine; and if once entered,
is without means of resistance." As by a flash we see in this remark and
in that of de Lageard the miscalculation which was to ruin the life work
of Pitt and almost ruin h