Part II of the Garat Project (1808). It takes place during the French occupation of the Spanish Basque Country at the beginning of 1808. The state of enmity Madrid and the latter had reached its peak with the zamacolada and the occupation of Vizcaya, which had been in a state of war since 1804. There was also great discontent in Navarre over the forced introduction of quintas and ordinary and extraordinary taxes and the disregard for its forality. Godoy and Bonaparte negotiated the fate of Portugal, which could pass to Spain in exchange for allowing the Ebro to become a Franco-Spanish border. Garat wrote (February 1808) to Savary, commander-in-chief of the French troops in Spain, sending him an Exposé succint d'un projet de réunion de quelques cantons de l'Espagne et de la France dans la vue de rendre plus faciles et la soumission de l'Espagne et la création d'une maximum puissance. In this exposition, Garat gives an idyllic account of the history of "peoples who together possess all the relations that men can have among themselves and who hardly possess any with either the Spanish to whom they are united or the French to whom the others belong". He alludes to their common language, their legal analogy, their egalitarian of "universal nobility", their habit of shunning military service (the Basque-French fleeing to the Spanish Basque Country, the others to the Basque-French), their identical and simple eating habits, their Basque-Cantabrian faith, their maritime instinct, their love of singing, etc. Garat argued that, in order to benefit from this people, "it is necessary for them to be united under a single power, and this power can be none other than the emperor". To this end, "the four Basque-Spanish cantons and the three Basque-French cantons should make up two or three new departments of the Empire. If only two were to be created," he continues, "the strongest, the one whose ports would be the most suitable for receiving and safely guarding the squadrons and fleets, would bear the name of New Phoenicia; the second would be called New Tyre. If the mountains, which make communications always more difficult, should require the creation of a new department, it would be called New Sidon". The next step would be to erase all Basque-Spanish influence, there would only be maritime military service, the only language would be Basque and the settlement of non-Basque speakers would be excluded, education would be in that language, texts such as those of Larramendi or Oihenart would be used as a guide, and even those of the author himself on the Phoenicians, and no effort would be spared to turn Vasconia into a friendly maritime power, the scourge of English naval power. According to Darricau ( 1906: 31 ), "the Emperor was aware of the contents of this report and ordered Garat, through one of his ministers, to continue his research on the primitive people of Spain (according to the reigning Basque-Iberianism, the Basques)" and to present him with a major work on this complex subject.