Elisabeth Farnese, ascended to the Spanish throne. He had already ruled the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies for nearly twenty-five years. In 1742 during the War of the Austrian Succession, Ferdinand attempted to used his Sicilian domains to assist his Bourbon allies, but a Royal Navy fleet led by Commodore William Martin intervened to ensure his neutrality. The Seven Years' War was going badly for the French, so the chief minister, Etienne François, duc de Choiseul pursued a dual track policy of attempting to bring Spain into a third pacte de famille or sue Britain and its allies for peace. Charles III was worried about the vulnerability of the overseas portion of his empire, and also worried that France would sell out Spain's interests in a peace with Britain. A formal alliance would prevent France concluding a peace unilaterally, so opted for the alliance with France, with the two Bourbon monarchies agreeing to settle the conflict with Britain in concert with each other. The pacte was to go into effect after the annual silver Spanish treasure fleet had arrived in Spain, signalling to the British that Spain intended on entering the conflict. The agreement involved Spain's allies Naples and Tuscany. For Spain, the third Pacte was a complete disaster and did not bring much aid to the French. In 1762, the British captured two vital ports for trade in the Spanish Empire, Havana, Cuba and Manila, the Philippines. The British victories at Havana and Manila crippled Spanish transatlantic and transpacific routes. Worse was to follow from the alliance. Spain agreed to attack Britain's long-standing Iberian ally Portugal and thus invaded in 1762 with a large army. The Portuguese troops were supported by a sizeable British contingent and, in spite of three attempts, the Spanish along with their French ally were decisively defeated, losing in total upwards of 25,000 men. With the current war lost, France as compensation to Spain ceded the rest of Louisiana to Spain at the secret Treaty of Fontainebleau. At the Treaty of Paris the following year Charles III was able to regain Havana and Manila, but ceded all of strategically located Florida to the British. Later Franco-Spanish Pacts On April 12, 1779, France and Spain signed the Treaty of Aranjuez (1779) by which Spain joined the French-initiated war against Great Britain for territory that the two had lost in the Seven Years' War at the 1763