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grievances of the Creoles. Particularly among South American busi-
nessmen and professionals, the centuries of alternating repression and
neglect had weakened ties of loyalty to the mother country. While great
landowners and the administrators who came over from Spain for a
few years' service clung to the king and accepted whatever changes he
decreed, a spirit of discontent was already on the rise at the middle level
of colonial society. When, in the coming generation, it moved down-
ward and outward among the masses, the force of rebellion would
prove too strong to resist.
In shaping and implementing his domestic reforms Charles III had
invaluable help from the conde de Aranda and the conde de Flor-
idablanca, who were with him during most of his reign. Regrettably
neither the king nor his ministers could accept the need for a strong
focus on progressive developments in Spain and her colonies, even at
the expense of a policy that amounted to relative isolation in Europe.
Charles III had allowed himself to be drawn into the Seven Years' War
(1756-63). His shrewd minister of foreign affairs, Richard Wall, advo-
cated (despite his Irish ancestry) a pro-British position in the diplomatic
maneuvers of the period, but the king instead renewed the French alli-
ance. As a result, at the end of the war Spain lost Florida and the Bale-
aric island of Minorca, a valuable naval base close to Spain. It did take
custody of Louisiana when the defeated French surrendered the rest of
North America to Britain, but this would not prove of much long-term
advantage. After Wall retired in 1763, there was little incentive for a
rapprochement with London, and Spain was soon drawn into French
schemes for a new Bourbon family compact that would pay back the
British for their previous triumph. The opportunity came during the
American Revolution when France gave decisive assistance to the reb-
els. Spain bided its time until 1779, then began naval operations in the
Caribbean and mounted a siege of Gibraltar. Although the “Rock”
remained unconquered, Spanish troops triumphed at Pensacola. At the
peace settlement of 1783, Spain regained Florida.
Charles III died in 1788, five years after the conclusion of his inter-
vention against Britain. There might have been time in these years to
concentrate his government's attention on firm establishment of pro-
gressive reforms at home and, above all, on conciliation of Spain's colo-
nial subjects. In the larger picture, there was no hope of Spain
reestablishing European hegemony, but there was a possibility of trans-
forming its still vast overseas empire into a foundation for economic
power and prosperity that might have led it into a new era of respect
and influence. Perhaps it was too late for the long abuse of Spanish
America to be remedied. Even the spirit of Enlightenment, to the extent
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