Note 105 — Chapter XI · REVIVAL OF SPAIN UNDER THE FIRST BOURBONS

[Martin Humed calls Ferdinand VI “the most truly beneficent sovereign that Spain had known for centuries. The encouragement extended to learning and intellectual progress was even more marked than that given by his father. Academies and learned societies sprang up everywhere;” and again,h “Ferdinand had found Spain struggling painfully to the light, still ruined, bankrupt, and miserable. He left it enjoying comparative prosperity, with a fleet of fifty ships of war and £3,000,000 ($15,000,000) in the treasury.”]