On the other hand, we must remember that at first England was not a principal in the contest. It was thrust upon her by the aggressions of the Jacobins, and perforce she played a subordinate part in continental campaigns, the prizes of which Austria and Prussia had already marked out. The reproaches hurled by Burke and Windham were the outcome of ignorance as to the aims of the powerful Allies, whose co-operation, illusory though it came to be, was at that time deemed essential to success. Further, in striking at the French colonies, Pitt followed the course successfully adopted by England in several wars. But here again his difficulties were greater than those of Chatham. Indeed, they were enhanced by the triumphs of Chatham. Where now could he deal the most telling blow? Not against Canada; for his father had reft that prize. The French settlements in the East Indies were of small account. It was in Hayti, Martinique, and Guadeloupe that French commerce could be ruined. At them, therefore, he struck. But in so doing he reopened the old disputes with Spain. In vain did he seek to avert bickerings by suggesting a friendly understanding about Hayti. Godoy was determined to bicker. And, as the war changed its character, the old Latin affinities helped that adventurer to undermine the monarchical league and to draw back Spain to the traditional connection with France. The Spanish declaration of war in October 1796 opens the fourth phase of the struggle. Thenceforth England stood on the defensive in Europe in order to guard and strengthen her Colonial Empire. She abandoned Corsica and Elba; she withdrew her fleet from the Mediterranean so that Ireland might be screened from attack. Pitt's views also underwent a change. Foreseeing the collapse of Austria, he sought to assure peace with France and Spain by conquering enough territory oversea to counterbalance the triumphs of Bonaparte and Moreau in Italy and the Rhineland. If he could not restore the Balance of Power on the Continent, he strove to safeguard British interests at all essential points. Failing to save Holland from the Jacobins' grip, he conquered and held the Cape. This was the bent of his policy during the peace overtures of the year 1796. He struggled on reluctantly with the war, opposing as inopportune the motions of Fox, Grey, or Wilberforce for peace, but ever hoping that France would be compelled by the pressure of bankruptcy to come to terms and surrender some of her continental conquests on consideration of recovering her colonies. Wilberforce heard him declare that he could almost calculate the time when her resources would be exhausted. On the philanthropist repeating this at a dinner party, one of his guests, de Lageard, wittily remarked: "I should like to know who was Chancellor of the Exchequer to Attila."[418] This remark shore asunder Pitt's financial arguments and reveals the weak point of his policy. He conducted the war as if it were a Seven Years' War. It