lligent influence than he could have found in Spain. In 1734 he
made himself master of Naples and Sicily by arms. Charles had, however,
no military tastes, seldom wore uniform, and could with difficulty be
persuaded to witness a review. The peremptory action of the British
admiral commanding in the Mediterranean at the approach of the War of
the Austrian Succession, who forced him to promise to observe neutrality
under a threat to bombard Naples, made a deep impression on his mind. It
gave him a feeling of hostility to England which in after-times
influenced his policy.

As king of the Two Sicilies Charles began there the work of internal
reform which he afterwards continued in Spain. Foreign ministers who
dealt with him agreed that he had no great natural ability, but he was
honestly desirous to do his duty as king, and he showed good judgment in
his choice of ministers. The chief minister in Naples, Tanucci, had a
considerable influence over him. On the death of his half-brother
Ferdinand VI. he became king of Spain, and resigned the Two Sicilies to
his third son Ferdinand. As king of Spain his foreign policy was
disastrous. His strong family feeling and his detestation of England,
which was unchecked after the death of his wife, Maria Amelia, daughter
of Frederick Augustus II. of Saxony, led him into the Family Compact
with France. Spain was entangled in the close of the Seven Years' War,
to her great loss. In 1770 he almost ran into another war over the
barren Falkland Islands. In 1779 he was, somewhat reluctantly, led to
join France and the American insurgents against England, though he well
knew that the independence of the English colonies must have a ruinous
influence on his own American dominions. For his army he did practically
nothing, and for his fleet very little except build fine ships without
taking measures to train officers and men.

But his internal government was on the whole beneficial to the country.
He began by compelling the people of Madrid to give up emptying their
slops out of the windows, and when they objected he said they were like
children who cried when their faces were washed. In 1766 his attempt to
force the Madrilenos to adopt the French dress led to a riot during
which he did not display much personal courage. For a long time after it
he remained at Aranjuez, leaving the government in the hands of his
minister Aranda. All his reforms were not of this formal kind. Charles
was a thoroug