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of the colonial trade at all from 1796 onwards Madrid had been forced to abandon the traditional policy that had kept all trade with the Americas in Spanish hulls and to authorize the involvement of neutral vessels. At home the impact of the war against Britain had been catastrophic. Thanks to the widespread issue of paper money in the form of credits to the national debt, the inflation that had already held the country in its grip had been greatly intensified. In many parts of the country economic activity was at a standstill: whether we are talking of industries that depended on external markets, such as the brandy and cotton production that took place in Catalonia, or industries such as ship-building and rope-making that were kept going by the sinews of empire, the activities of the Royal Navy ensured that demand for their products was at best uncertain. With revenue from the colonies in free fall, the state could neither afford to engage in the sort of programmes of public works that had regularly given employment to thousands of labourers, nor even to pay its soldiers and officials. Desperate to raise more money, the regime launched a sustained attack on the lands of the Church that had by 1808 seen the expropriation and sale of one sixth of its territory and the destruction of much of the machinery of charity that had traditionally sustained the populace in times of want.

On top of all this came an extraordinary succession of catastrophes and natural disasters. Unseasonal weather led to a series of harvest failures that reduced large parts of the country to famine conditions. As we have seen, yellow fever killed thousands of people in Andalucía and the Levante, while a massive outbreak of malaria ravaged New Castile. On 30 April 1802 a newly completed dam designed to create a reservoir in the upper reaches of the river Segura burst and let loose a tidal wave that killed as many as 10,000 people in Lorca and Murcia; and on 13 January 1804 Granada, Málaga and Cartagena were hit by an earthquake so severe that it brought down roof tiles and set chandeliers trembling as far away as Madrid. Just to complete this tale of woe Segovia suffered a plague of locusts. For something of the atmosphere that prevailed in the salons of the capital, we can do no better than turn to the diary of Lady Holland, who together with her husband, the future British Foreign Secretary, travelled extensively in Spain in the brief period between 1802 and 1804 when that country was not at war with Britain:

Great failures [occur] throughout the Peninsula in corn crops, especially about Seville and in Portugal. Yesterday there were only 4,000 fanegas of wheat in Madrid, and, but for a fortunate supply this morning, a ferment would have taken place in the town. Bread is exorbitantly dear; many bakers’ shops have been assaulted. Within these ten days the streets are infested by robbers, who . . . insult and even strip those they fall upon. In consequence of this, numerous patrols on horseback go about the streets soon after the Angelus . . . We have not been without alarm at the possibility of the yellow fever reaching Madrid: it was brought to Málaga by a French vessel from Sainte Domingue and from thence was spread to Antequera . . . The number of deaths at Málaga amount to sixty a day . . . A cordon of troops [has been] placed around the district . . . A considerable alarm [has] prevailed in consequence of the report of a violent contagious fever having broken out in the prisons . . . The fever was brought . . . by some criminals newly apprehended . . . Some fear the prisoners . . . came from La Mancha, where 48,000 persons are sick of putrid disorders in consequence of the scarcity of provisions and want of fuel. Luzuriaga affirms that the famine is so dreadful and universal that the population of Spain will be materially diminished. At Burgos the people die like flies, [and] the villages are deserted as the miserable peasants crowd into the towns to obtain relief from the rich and pious.4

As if all this was not enough to encourage popular