Every day makes peace more necessary. There is no hope of restoring affairs in Navarre. Cowardice has unnerved our army and the French will dictate their terms to us.... I fear that their claims will be excessive, and condescension is our only resource if we are to succeed in saving ourselves even in part. Your Lordship need not take alarm at the rigour of the terms of peace; listen to them, accept them, and forward them to me, saying to yourself that perhaps they will not be so fatal as the results of a delay in the negotiation might be.[387] Yriarte, a nervous valetudinarian, eagerly accepted this despicable advice. Already one of his secretaries had allowed Barthelemy to see an almost equally base effusion from Godoy; so that the French ambassador on 21st July informed the Committee of Public Safety that the game was in their hands. This was the case. Yriarte, after receiving two packets from Madrid, hastily sought a nocturnal interview with Barthelemy by the help of a dark lantern. The French ambassador received him with some surprise, especially on hearing that he came to sign a treaty of peace on terms not yet known at Paris. When the Spaniard insisted on signing at once, Barthelemy examined the conditions, and finding them highly favourable to France, consulted his secretaries, with the result that he finally decided to conclude the affair. Thus came about the Peace of Basle (22nd July 1795). Spain now waived her former demands, the restoration of religious worship in France, and French aid in the recovery of Gibraltar. The French, however, now agreed to restore all the districts held by their troops in the North of Spain, while the Court of Madrid ceded San Domingo. Spain also made peace with the Dutch or Batavian Republic, and offered to mediate between France and Portugal, Naples, Sardinia, and Parma.[388] Such were the chief clauses of this astonishing compact. It dealt a deadly blow to Pitt. For at the very time when he was building up a formidable league and rousing Brittany against the Republic, Spain seceded from the monarchist cause, and by surrendering San Domingo to France, doomed to failure his costly efforts in Hayti. Further, as will appear in Chapter XI, by setting free large numbers of the French troops at the Pyrenees, she greatly enhanced the difficulties of the expedition of General Doyle to the coast of la Vendee. Worst of all, it soon appeared that Godoy was bent on reviving the policy of the Family Compact, making common cause even with the murderers of Louis XVI in order to thwart England's expansion oversea. Bute therefore warned our Government to prepare to strike a blow at once, before the Spanish fleet should be ready to help the French either in Corsica or Hayti. These precautions proved, for the present at least, to be unnecessary. The degradation of the Court and populace of Madrid may be measured by the joy with which the news of that inglorious peace was received.