CHAPTER X
FRENCH INTERVENTION IN SPAIN AND ITs REACTION IN TEXAS
Spain had been reluctant in 1803 to open the door even halfway to immigration. But the insistent knocking of those who called themsel\"es "loyal" subjects, and the urgent pleading of liberal Spanish officials for populating the vast, uninhabited region along the American frontier as the most effective means of preventing further encroachments had at last forced the commandant general of the Interior Provinces to relent and issue instructions for the admission of settlers. The trickle of immi- grants, however, soon threatened to take on the proportions of a flood, in spite of all precautions to check the flow. Conflicting views on immi- gration were largely responsible for the failure to enforce the restrictions which would have kept it within the bounds desired. Go\"ernor Cordero of Texas, as well as his able assistant, Simon de Herrera, commander of Spain's forces in Texas, was condnced that immigration was the solution to the problem of defence on this distant and exposed frontier. Cordero did not perceive the danger in the new policy, nor did he foresee the designs of France's ambitious Emperor, or of the grasping American pioneers. Designedly and unwisely, he ignored the efforts of his superior to stop the introduction of foreigners-until it was too late. The Bayon11c conference. \.Vhile officials on the northern frontier wrangled over the methods to be used in sincerely trying to safeguard the king's best interests in America, the royal family was making a sorry spectacle of itself before the whole world. The infatuated queen. her ambitious Godoy, the vain and selfish Ferdinand, and the spineless Charlves IV were shamelessly disputing among themseh-es for power, while Napoleon overran the State supposedly to i1l\'acle Portugal. In order to enforce his Continental System in Europe, the Emperor felt that he had to have absolute control of Spain. He was on the point of forcibly seizing the Crown-a large army was already in northern Spain-when the family quarrel burst to give him the opportunity he was seeking without compelling him to resort to arms. Napoleon, at this juncture, precipitated the crisis. He demanded practically the whole of northern Spain as far as the Ebro River. Ferdinand and his sympathizers accused the favorite Godoy of having
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