Austria, humiliated by the treaty of Presburg, was sullen and silent, watching for an opportunity to regain its former ascendency and military prestige. In Prussia the House of Brandenburg had been terribly punished. Though it still reigned, it was with diminished territory, with its military strength nearly destroyed, and with all its strong places held by French troops. The Cabinet at Berlin could not venture in any way to oppose the will of Napoleon. All the kings and princes of the Confederation of the Rhine were united to France by the closest alliance. Jerome, Napoleon's youngest brother, was king of Westphalia. Louis reigned in Holland. French influence was supreme in Switzerland. The Emperor Napoleon was king of Italy, and Joseph, reigning at Naples, was about to be transferred to Spain. Turkey was allied with France, seeking from the Emperor protection from the encroachments of Russia. Consequently England was at war with the Porte. Spain occupied a peculiar position. The King, Charles IV., a near relative of Louis XVI., had united with allied Europe in the war against the French Republic. Terribly punished by the French armies, Spain had made peace at the treaty of Basle in July, 1795. Soon after, the two powers entered into an alliance, offensive and defensive, engaging to assist each other with both land and sea forces. This brought down upon Spain the vengeance of the British Government, which, with its invincible fleet, swept all seas. Spanish commerce at once became the prey of English privateers. Cadiz was bombarded, and the Spanish naval fleet encountered very severe loss. The peace of Amiens, to which the British Government had been very reluctantly compelled to assent by the pressure of English public opinion, gave peace to Spain. But when the Court of Saint James, by the rupture of the peace of Amiens, renewed its assault upon France, the Spanish Court, anxious to avoid a war with England, proposed to Napoleon that, instead of aiding him directly by fleet and army, according to the terms of the alliance, Spain should pay France an annual subsidy of six million francs. The proposition was accepted. The English minister, ascertaining this, _without any declaration of war_, seized every thing belonging to Spain which could be found afloat. As Spain, supposing that her assumed neutrality would be respected, had her fleet and merchandise everywhere exposed, her loss was very severe.