And so, when his successor and brother, Charles III, took possession of the throne, he was most agreeably surprised to find—what had not occurred before since Isabella’s time—a surplus in the treasury! To be sure, much of it, if not all, was due to the fact that the national debt had not been paid for many years; but still the credit of it belongs to the frugal Ferdinand. When Charles III came to the throne, in 1759, he brought with him an invaluable experience of a twenty–five–years’ reign as King of Naples. In the main, he followed in Ferdinand’s footsteps, yet in 1762 he joined with France in the “family compact,” by which the Bourbons engaged to support each other against all others, and this precipitated the war with England, in which, as usual, Britain came out with the lion’s share of territory. Havana in Cuba, Trinidad, Manila, and the famed Acapulco galleon with three million dollars, besides other immense booty estimated at fifteen million dollars, fell into the hands of the English. By the treaty of peace, 1763, Spain got back her principal ports only by ceding Florida to the English, and the valuable rights for cutting logwood on the Honduras coast, while France gave up Canada, the Louisiana territory east of the Mississippi, and several islands in the West Indies. Charles had able ministers in the persons of Squilaci, Grimaldi, Campomanes, and the Count de Aranda, under the last of whom was consummated the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain, in March, 1767. Their order was suppressed by Pope Clement XIV, in 1773. Succeeding Aranda came Don José Moñino, afterward Count of Floridablanca, as prime minister. He was in power when the American colonies of Great Britain declared their independence, and, like France, sided with the colonies—not because of love for them or sympathy with their aims, but because of an apparent opportunity offering for striking a blow at England through her colonial possessions. An insurrection in Peru, guided by the Inca, Tupac Amaru, had to be crushed, but Spain joined with France in a desperate attempt to retake Gibraltar, and in naval demonstrations, with the customary results: that they were repulsed from the Great Rock, and their fleets destroyed or scattered, particularly in the West Indies. In 1783, at the Peace of Versailles, at which the independence of the United States was established, Florida and Minorca were restored to Spain, but the loss her navy had sustained was irreparable. In 1786 a peace was declared between Spain and Algiers, by which thousands of Spanish captives were released from slavery, and the piratical incursions from which the coast country had long suffered were ended. Two years later Charles III passed away, at the age of seventy–three, having done much to earn the gratitude of his country. [Illustration] CHAPTER XIX. CHARLES IV AND BONAPARTE.