ABSTRACT
In fulfillment of the Bourbon Family Compact, Spain declared war against Great Britain on 21 June 1779. Spain joined France as an ally and, through France’s treaty with Britain’s rebelling American colonists, joined the struggle on the side of securing independence for the Americans. France and the American colonies agreed upon Spain’s goals as well as the strategy that eventually resulted in victory. Spain’s entry into the war was not a surprise so much as a relief. General George Washington observed that Great Britain’s failure to agree to Spain’s efforts to negotiate a peace, including independence, was “more strongly tinctured with insanity than she has done in the course of this contest.” The only excuse for Great Britain’s action, he added, was its “obstinacy.”1 Spain, as will be seen, wanted to regain lands that it had lost as a consequence of the Seven Years’ War.
