An historian of merit[30] has ventured to blame this prince for not remaining neuter in the _war of the succession_; but we have already seen that he was forced into hostile measures, by the conduct of the different parties. Other historians, still more severe, accuse him of not attending sufficiently to the important objects of agriculture and commerce. Nothing can be more unjust in most particulars than these reproaches, since it was during his reign that vegetables, and the most delicious fruits first flourished in Portugal,[31] and that the famous treaty was made with England, by which the latter power entered into engagements to take Portugueze wines in exchange for English manufactures. Cotemporary writers have done more justice to the merits of this sovereign, and allowed him not only the eminent virtues which ought to adorn a great monarch, but the superior talents of a wise administrator. Posterity has gone still farther, attributing to him the double merit of having, by his first alliance with Spain, gloriously terminated a dangerous revolution in the state, and of having carried his point, by quietly effecting another revolution in his own family. John the Vth, the son of don Pedro (or Pedro the IId) succeeded to the throne on the 9th of December, 1706, but was not solemnly proclaimed king till the 1st of January, 1707. This young prince, aged only seventeen years, continued faithful to the engagements taken by his father with the allied powers, against France and Spain, and put every thing in order to carry on the war with the greatest vigour. Success, however, did not wait upon his arms, for Philip the Vth having returned to his capital on the 8th of October, 1706, gave the command of the army destined to act against Portugal to marshal Berwick, who on the 15th of April, 1707, gained a complete victory over the allied armies, under the command of lord Galway, at the celebrated battle of Almanza, where the greater part of the Portugueze present on the occasion were either killed or taken prisoners. An extraordinary circumstance, and the only one of the kind to be met with in history, took place at this battle, where the English, under the command of a French general,[32] were beaten by an English one who commanded the French army. The year 1708, though it affords nothing very interesting relative to the actions which took place between Spain and Portugal, must always recal to our memory the noblest victory ever obtained by humanity over the ravages of war; since the kings of those two countries, by mutual agreement, prevented hostilities of any kind being committed against husbandmen and vine-dressers.