These reverses were calculated to make France more compliant; yet Pitt was astonished to find,[171] instead of compliance, a great spirit of resistance. Choiseul would by no means admit that Belleisle was an equivalent for Minorca. He demanded Guadeloupe and Belleisle too, simply in lieu of the French conquests in Germany. He now demurred to the surrender of Cape Breton, or in any case to forego the right of fishing along its coasts. He was not content with Amaboo or Acra; he demanded Senegal or Goree. He declined also to destroy the fortifications of Dunkirk, raised in contempt of the treaty of Utrecht. All captures made at sea previous to the declaration of war must be restored; and in Germany, though he was willing to withdraw the French troops, it was only on condition that the troops commanded by Prince Ferdinand should not reinforce the Prussian army.The general was neither convinced nor won over. He had Geronimo told that it was a very pretty story, but that there was no reason why forty men should have left the reservation for fear of three. "And if you were afraid of three, what had that to do with the[Pg 299] way you sneaked all over the country, killing innocent people? You promised me in the Sierra Madre that that peace should last. But you lied. When a man has lied to me once, I want better proof than his word to believe him again."This insult roused the fiery blood of Spain. The king and queen were excited to paroxysms of rage. They told Mr. William Stanhope that, in future, they would put confidence in no prince except his master, nor admit any one else to mediate for them in their negotiations. But George refused to break with France on their account, and ventured to remind Philip that he himself stood greatly in need of the alliance with France. Blinded, however, by their wounded pride, the King and Queen of Spain now turned their anger against England. They recalled their plenipotentiaries from the Congress of Cambray, which was sitting to settle the affairs of Europe, and professed their readiness to abandon all their hostility to the Emperor of Germany, and to concede all that they had so long demanded from him, on condition that he entered into a close alliance with them against France and England. They sent back to France the widow of the late Don Louis, and also Mademoiselle Beaujolais, another daughter of the late Regent Orleans, who had been contracted to Don Carlos.
FORE:Early in this year Admiral Sir John Jervis fell in with the great Spanish fleet, which was intended to co-operate with the French in the invasion of Ireland, and defeated it. Nelson had predicted that the Spanish fleet would not take much destroying. Admiral de Langara had had a fortunate escape in the Mediterranean, in venturing to Corsica. He had now been superseded by Don Juan de Cordova, and Jervis, on the 14th of February, met with him off Cape St. Vincent. Cordova had twenty-seven sail of the line, Jervis only fifteen; but he had Nelson in his fleet, which more than counterbalanced the inequality of numbers; and the discipline on board the Spanish ships was far below that of the British. Nelson broke through the Spanish line, and chiefly by his exertions and man?uvres four of the largest vessels were taken, including one of one hundred and twelve guns. The rest escaped into Cadiz, and there the British blockaded them. The news of this brilliant victory arrived in London when the public was greatly dispirited by the exhausted state of the Bank of England, and helped to revive confidence. Sir John Jervis was made Earl of St. Vincent, and Nelson, the real hero, a Knight of the Bath.
When the House met again, Pitt moved for leave to bring in his Bill for the better government and management of the affairs of the East India Company. He was aware, he said, how certain men would triumph when he informed them that he had based his intended measures on the resolutions of the proprietors of India stock. He was so miserably irresolute, he said, as not to venture on a Bill founded on violence and disfranchisement. He was so weak as to pay respect to chartered rights; and he had not disdained, in proposing a new system of government, to consult those who had the greatest interest in the matter, as well as the most experience in it. These were all hard hits at Fox and his party. In his Bill he went on the principle of placing the commerce of India chiefly under the control of the Company itself; but the civil and military government, he admitted, required some other control than that of the Company, yet even this, in his opinion, ought to be established in accordance with the convictions of the Company. In truth, it was a Bill rather calculated to win the good will of the East India Company than to reform the abuses of that body and to protect the interests of the natives. Fox, with as much truth as personal feeling, designated the Bill as the wisdom of an individual opposed to the collective wisdom of the Commons of England.[See larger version]She reloaded for him, and fired from time to time herself, and he moved from the little round hole in the wall to one in the window blind, in the feeble, the faithless hope that the Indians might perhaps be deceived, might fancy that there was more than the one forsaken man fighting with unavailing courage for the quiet woman who stayed close by his side, and for the two children, huddled whimpering in one corner, their little trembling arms clasped round each other's necks.See what Friday, the thirteenth, does for you? Jeff said.Such Apaches as had not gone back on the war-path returned to the States with the troops; but there were five months more of the outrages of Geronimo and his kind. Then in the summer of the year another man, more fortunate and better fitted to deal with it all, perhaps,with the tangle of lies and deceptions, cross purposes and trickery,succeeded where Crook had failed and had been relieved of a task that was beyond him. Geronimo was captured, and was hurried off to a Florida prison with his band, as far as they well could be from the reservation they had refused to accept. And with them were sent other Indians, who had been the friends and helpers of the government for years, and who had run great risks to help or to obtain peace. But the memory and gratitude of governments is become a proverb. The southwest settled down to enjoy its safety. The troops rested upon the laurels they had won, the superseded general went on with his work in another field far away to the north. The new general, the saviour of the land, was heaped[Pg 305] with honor and praise, and the path of civilization was laid clear.
