The story of Toussaint and St. Domingo was about to be repeated in Spain. Even while Armstrong wrote these despatches, the throne of Don Carlos IV. crumbled, almost without need of a touch from without. France had drawn from Spain everything she once possessed,--her navy, sacrificed at Trafalgar to Napoleon’s orders; her army, nearly half of which was in Denmark; her treasures, which, so far as they had not been paid in subsidies to Napoleon, were shut up in Mexico. Nothing but the shell was left of all that had made Spain great. This long depletion had not been effected without extreme anxiety on the part of the Spanish government. At any time after the Prince of Peace returned to power in 1801, he would gladly have broken with France, as he proved in 1806; but he stood in much the same position as Jefferson, between the selfishness of England and the immediate interests of Spain. King Charles, anxious beyond measure for his own repose and for the safety of his daughter the Queen of Etruria, shrank from every strong measure of resistance to Napoleon’s will, yet was so helpless that only a traitor or a coward could have deserted him; and Godoy, with all his faults, was not so base as to secure his own interests by leaving the King to Napoleon’s mercy. For a single moment the King yielded to Godoy’s entreaties. When the fourth European coalition was formed against Napoleon, and Prussia declared war, the Prince of Peace was allowed to issue, Oct. 6, 1806, a proclamation calling the Spanish people to arms. October 14 the battle of Jena was fought, and the news reaching Madrid threw the King and court into consternation; Godoy’s influence was broken by the shock; the proclamation was recalled, and the old King bowed his head to his fate. Had he held firm, and thrown in his fortunes with those of England, Russia, and Prussia, the battle of Eylau might have stopped Napoleon’s career; and in any case the fate of Spain could not have been more terrible than it was.