Canning and the Baron de Agra
Martin Murphy unravels the tale of the fake nobleman and friar-turned-journalist who enmeshed Britain's Foreign Secretary in his intrigues during the Napoleonic War.
At the beginning of 1808 the British Government faced the possibility that Napoleon, now in almost unchallenged possession of Europe, was about to acquire an empire on the other side of the Atlantic. When Murat's army crossed the Pyrenees in March 1808, setting off a train of events which were to lead to the dethronement of the Bourbons and the establishment of Joseph Bonaparte as the new king, the prize at stake was not only Spain but also her Indies. In April the Duke of Portland wrote to George III of the 'alarm' with which his ministers contemplated 'the possible union of all the wealth and power both of the New and of the Old World concentrated in the hands of France and directed against your Majesty's dominions'.
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