History of Portugal (1640–1777) put to the test in 1762 when Spain invaded aided by France, during the Seven Years' War. Britain invoked its alliance with Portugal and sent troops. Several months later, the conflict was settled with comparatively little fighting. In 1777, Spain and Portugal signed the Treaty of San Ildefonso, which mainly resolved a number of border disputes between their South American colonies. During the Age of Enlightenment, Portugal was considered one of Europe's unenlightened backwaters; it was a country of three million with 200,000 people in 538 monasteries in 1750. Melo seems to have been deeply embarrassed by Portugal's much lamented
A land without a people for a people without a land country". Variant phrasings in use in the pre-Zionist and pre-state eras include "a country without a people for a people without a country", "a land without a nation for a nation without a land". According to Edward Said, the phrasing was "a land without people for a people without a land". William Eugene Blackstone (born 1841) became an evangelist at the age of 37. A trip to the Holy Land in 1881 made him into a passionate restorationist. Like most people in the 1880s and 90s, he was appalled by the government-instigated pogroms being carried out against Russian Jews. Blackstone's