“MONSTROUS AND ILLEGAL PROCEEDINGS”: LAW ...

Imperial Collapse and Fragmentation
The contest between England and France for supremacy throughout the Atlantic
World produced the shocks leading to collapse of the structures of the Iberian empires.
Throughout the 18 th century, the two Atlantic rivals had engaged in an increasingly intense
global battle to control the trans-Atlantic economy. The strains of the conflict had scarred
both powers. England had already lost the majority of its overseas possessions on the North
American mainland. In France, the monarchy saw itself swept away by an increasingly
radical republican revolution. While traumatic for these powers, they were potentially fatal
for the weaker Iberian empires that were often more prey than players in these trans-Atlantic
struggles. With their empires already overstretched by the conflicts, both Spain and Portugal
labored to remain neutral while they tried to enact reforms necessary to protect their
overseas possessions.
The expanding scope of the imperial conflict in the wake of the French Revolution,
however, ensured that neither fading power could escape the violence. Rather, the events in
1789 set the stage for the climatic act in the century-long struggle between the two Atlantic
powers. Drawing upon the French Revolution’s (and counterrevolution’s) kinetic energy,
Napoleon rose to power as France’s new ruler and eventual emperor in 1799. Napoleonic
forces swept across the continent, expanding the conflict with the British throughout
Europe and the Middle East. The Peace of Amiens (1802) provided a brief pause in the
struggles between France and England. By 1804, however, the two powers were again at war
with the Iberian empires squarely in the crosshairs. Dominant militarily on land but unable
to match the English at sea, Napoleon sought to squeeze his rivals by closing the European
mainland to British trade. The demands of Napoleon’s Continental System gradually drew
Spain into a war with England that it had desperately sought to avoid. In 1805, the
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