The peace concluded between Spain and the French republic at Basilea (Basle) on the twenty-second of July, 1795, and published in Madrid on the sixth of November, terminated Spanish rule on the island, Spain ceding her part of Santo Domingo to the French Republic. The people of Spain welcomed this peace, as they would have hailed any other. To the part played in the negotiations by Manuel Godoy was due his title "Prince of Peace." In the elation of the moment the court even remembered Aranda, Florida Blanca, Cabarrus and Jovellanos, the able statesmen and faithful patriots who had been imprisoned or exiled, and granted them full amnesty. Yet this treaty of Basilea was the official admission of the decline of Spain's power. It heralded the gradual disintegration of her colonial possessions, where, as some authorities assert, British intrigue sowed the seeds of discord and discontent. When two years later, in February, 1797, the Spanish fleet, although superior in vessels and artillery, was defeated by the British in the battle of Cape St. Vincent off the south point of Portugal, the ruin of the kingdom was complete. The total income between 1793 and 1796 was twenty-four hundred and forty-five millions of reals; the total expenses, thirty-seven hundred and fourteen millions; the debt amounted to more than twelve hundred millions. The annual deficit was eight hundred millions. The paper money in circulation amounted to nineteen hundred and eighty millions. Such was the financial status of the royal bankrupt. If the peace of Basilea had temporarily brought satisfaction and lightened the burden of anxiety, the defeat at Cape St. Vincent sufficed once more to cloud the horizon. The capture of Rome by the French in 1798 and the proclamation of a republic in place of the papal sovereignty, plunged Spain into a state of panic. Cabinet ministers succeeded one another with bewildering rapidity. Even Jovellanos, who had been recalled to restore order in the disorganized department of justice, was unable to cope with the chaotic situation. Enormous sums were being continually wasted. Of eighteen hundred and thirty-three millions spent in 1799, the royal court alone had used one hundred and five, the department of war nine hundred and thirty-five, finance four hundred and twenty-eight, foreign affairs forty-six, and the department of justice only seven! Every branch of the administration was filled with the minions of Godoy, who was now related to the royal house, having espoused the daughter of the Infante Don Luis. His annual revenues amounted to one million reals. The elements themselves seemed to be in conspiracy against what had once been the greatest power in Europe. The failure of crops, famine, epidemics and earthquakes filled the minds of the superstitious with vague terrors.