Charles II tried to better this in 1667 by asking for the Asiento for his new Royal African Company, but his application failed, as did a similar attempt of William III in 1698. The fact was that French influence in Spain was becoming important, and in 1701 the Asiento was granted to the French Guinea Company.1 Jealousy of France from this time forward reinforced other motives for making English statesmen desire the Asiento. The Spanish slave trade, however, was valued not only for itself but also as a cloak for other activities, since the holders of the Asiento had valuable opportunities for opening trade in European goods. From early times Spain had found it necessary to admit such foreign participation in practice, although she denied it in principle. The Seville merchants who supplied most of the cargoes for the Indies secured their foreign goods through alien merchants, French, English, Portuguese, Germans and Dutch, who employed the Spaniards as their factors, and obtained thus a considerable share in the profit of the voyages. The practice became so regular that it lost entirely its illicit character, as had the foreign agency for the supply of slaves.2 It was inconvenient, however, and the factors were subject to a heavy duty, and another method, therefore, developed in the seventeenth century, although it was not recognised as legal by Spain. This was a direct trade in the Caribbean. Here England was in a strong position through her acquisition of Jamaica, for Spanish merchants from the coast came to the island to buy slaves, and found it easy to arrange also for a supply of European goods. Small sloops carried the goods to the Spanish ports, and a new source of wealth was opened to the inhabitants of the islands.3 Towards the end of the century, the merchants of Jamaica began to be outbid by the French, and French trade grew quickly in the later years of Louis XIV's wars. Its success was due largely to the temporary disorganisation of the Spanish commercial system; for no fleets came to the New World between 1697 and 1706, and even before this they had become very uncertain. French merchants from St Malo and from the West Indies therefore organised a coasting service, bringing goods not only to the staple ports, after the practice of Spain, but also direct to little towns along the coast. The system was popular in the Indies, and very profitable to the French, but it roused jealousy in England, and henceforward we find English statesmen beginning to ask for “securities" from Spain for full opportunities for our commerce. 4 The year 1710 in England brought new men and new schemes. Harley and St John started a policy of peace, and covered the 1 See Scelle, G., La Traite négrière aux Indes de Castille, 1, 121-750 and п, passim. * See Scelle, and also Dahlgren, chap. ii, pp. 42 seqq. 3 See Some Observations on the Asiento Trade... (London, 1728). Cf. Brit. Mus., Add. MSS, 28140, "An Essay on the Nature and Methods of carrying on a Trade to the South Sea". 4 See Dahlgren, bk п, passim, e.g. pp. 138-144; and Brit. Mus., Add. MSS, 28140. NEGOTIATIONS OF 1711-13 335 abandonment of continental aims by the lure of commercial and colonial privileges; while Harley went further and planned at the same time to secure English trade and to re-establish English finances. At the end of 1710 he was enquiring from the Dutch how they could best oppose the growing French monopoly of Spanish trade, and at the beginning of the following year the South Sea Company was founded under his own presidency. In September the charter of incorporation was granted, and Queen Anne gave the Company a monopoly of South American trade south of the Orinoco on the east coast, and along the whole west coast; only Portuguese Brazil and Dutch Surinam were exempt, since there freedom of trade already existed. Upon the financial side, the scheme included the "satisfying" of public debts, by the funding of nine and a half millions of loan. Meanwhile the terms of peace were being discussed with Louis XIV. The request for sûretés réelles for trade in the Spanish Indies as well as in the Mediterranean alarmed him; and if by this phrase was meant the cession to England of a port in the Indies, both Louis and Philip were exceedingly loath to grant it. In June 1711 the English requirements were defined. The English agents at Paris were instructed to ask for the Asiento and stations for the sale of negroes, an equivalent for any privileges granted to France, and four settlements in the Indies as security for trade. These terms were discussed at length in the following three months, and finally in September the English demands were again stated in what was said to be their final form: the Asiento for thirty years, exemption for English goods from the 15 per cent. duties charged on exports to the Indies, and lands for the refreshment of negroes in the neighbourhood of the River Plate. Louis thought that Spain would accept these terms. A year later, when Lord Lexington went to Madrid he was instructed to ask for them. He found, however, that the 15 per cent. exemption was impossible, unless it was granted to all nations. Lord Lexington himself was doubtful whether the concession was worth much and he thought it would be better to "stick to our clandestine trade, which by the Asiento we have entirely to ourselves,... and make it as difficult to others as we can". In July 1711 an armistice had been arranged,1 and it was clear that a final settlement was in sight. Until this should be reached, the terms of the armistice admitted English ships and goods to a free trade to Spanish ports, and this enabled the South Sea Company to fit out its first expedition. It had been prepared to take trade by force, but this was now no longer necessary, and all the support it needed was a convoy for the two vessels it had fitted out to trade in the Indies. Peace came before the ships sailed, and by its terms special licences were to be granted for these two ships. Finally after many difficulties, they set out in the spring of 1715. 1 It was formally concluded in August 1711. P.R.O., St. Pap. For., Treaties, 70. The terms of peace, in so far as they affected the trade to the Indies, were embodied in the Asiento treaty of 16/27 March 1714,1 and by this England obtained all her demands, except the 15 per cent. remission, and a new privilege as well. This was the famous concession of the "annual ship". In order to compensate the South Sea Company for the losses which its predecessors suffered, and in consideration of an undertaking that it would not carry on any illicit trade, it might send each year a ship of 500 tons to trade to the Indies. The cargoes were to be sold only at the time of the annual fair, and not before the arrival of the flota and galleons. The goods were to be free of all duties in the Indies. The King of Spain was to have a quarter share in the vessel, and 5 per cent. of the profits on the remaining three-quarters. Harley had intended from the first that the whole concession should be granted to the South Sea Company, and finally in September 1714 the Company was offered and accepted the whole Asiento, save the quarter share of the King of Spain. While these negotiations were being carried on, Committees of the Court of Directors had been investigating the methods by which the concession could be worked. The most difficult question was how to obtain the slaves. The Royal African Company still possessed chartered rights in the African trade, but the trade was in practice open, subject only to the payment of dues to the Company. Finally, in September 1713, a contract was agreed on with the Royal African Company, giving it a monopoly so long as it supplied the full number required.2 The South Sea Company reserved the right to purchase direct in the West Indies, but it was not to buy there slaves imported after a fixed date. The negroes were to be fetched from the African coast in vessels supplied by the South Sea Company, the cargoes being provided by the Royal African Company. The time to be spent in loading the vessels was laid down, and the parts of the coast from which the negroes were to be obtained. The destination of the ships, when the cargoes of slaves were complete, was not prescribed in the charter, instructions on this head being sent to the commanders of the ships. Ships for Buenos Aires were usually instructed to go direct there, as there was no English colony near enough to be of value for refreshment of the negroes. Ships for the northern ports went to one of the English islands in the Caribbean, and commanders of ships were ordered to unload their cargoes there and leave the work of transport to the coasts of the Main to small sloops. By far the most convenient island for these purposes was Jamaica, and the greater number of the ships stopped there. The system, however, did not work smoothly. The South Sea Company was far from popular in Jamaica, where the old irregular THE SOUTH SEA COMPANY 337 trade had been very profitable, and had contributed greatly to the maintenance of a sufficient white population. Now the interests of the island were damaged twice over, for in its early years the new system meant that only a small proportion of the slaves for the mainland was bought in the slave markets of the island, while at the same time the Company's conduct of trade threatened to increase the disproportion between blacks and whites. The Assembly of Jamaica recouped itself for these losses by imposing a heavy duty on the exportation of slaves. The duty was doubled for slaves exported by the South Sea Company,1 on the ground that the Company did nothing to maintain internal defence. Furthermore the duty was payable on negroes brought in for refreshment only. The South Sea Company thereupon appealed to the Crown, and was referred in the usual course from the Privy Council to the Board of Trade and Plantations. But redress was hard to get, all the more because the Assembly of Jamaica was in the midst of its long struggle with the Home Government, over the grant of a permanent revenue to the Crown. It was useless for the Crown through the Privy Council to disallow the Finance Act of the colony, since the Assembly annually re-enacted it. In 1718 an additional instruction was sent to the governor that he should not give assent to any tax which was applicable to negroes landed for refreshment. This safeguarded the Company until 1721, when the appointment of a new governor invalidated the additional instruction. A renewed protest was made, and finally in 1727 the matter was once more settled in favour of the Company. Henceforth there were no duties on negroes landed in Jamaica for refreshment only, and no differential duties on the negroes of the South Sea Company.2 The latter point was by this time the more important, for the South Sea Company was tending more and more to buy negroes in the islands. The contract of 1713 with the Royal African Company had proved a failure. There were, no doubt, faults on both sides, and certainly both made complaints. The South Sea Company said truly that the Royal African Company did not produce the full quota of slaves. The Royal African Company replied that there was unusual mortality on the voyages; the Spaniards were difficult to satisfy as to the quality of the slaves; and it was necessary to import twice the number required by the contract. Further, it had great dangers to encounter on the African coasts from the French and Dutch, and serious competition from the private traders. The result of these difficulties was a revision of the contract in 1721. The Royal African Company was henceforth required to bring only a part of the whole quota; the rest were supplied by the separate traders, or fetched by the 1 Cf. the almost contemporary Deficiency Act. See Pitman, F. W., The Development of the British West Indies, 1700-1763, pp. 35-9. * See Journal of the Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, 1722–8. CHBEI 22 South Sea Company itself. This, again, was found unsatisfactory, and the Company was obliged to fill up the number by purchase in the islands. The court of Spain tried to obstruct them by asserting that this was a breach of the Asiento, but found it impossible to maintain this, and in 1729 abandoned the claim. The Company thereupon issued a notice that it proposed henceforth to buy its slaves in Jamaica. The position of Jamaica as a centre of the slave trade gave it an important place in the Company's organisation.1 Three agents were appointed to reside there in 1713, and considerable authority was delegated to them. They were to supervise the landing and sale of the negroes, and to control the Company's factors at the Spanish ports. An agent was appointed also at Barbados, but except for a short time, when the difficulties at Jamaica were at their height, the factory there was of minor importance. Upon the agents at Jamaica rested a large share of responsibility for the good conduct of the Company's trade. Second in importance were the factors at the Spanish ports of Vera Cruz, Cartagena, Panama and Buenos Aires. Six English factors at each port were to look after the Company's affairs. Subordinate factories, with four factors, were set up at Havana, Portobello and Caracas. The Company found great difficulty in controlling its representatives, especially at Buenos Aires. It was almost impossible in fact to prevent private interests and illicit enterprise from absorbing their attention. In 1729 a change in system was made, and the factors were paid by commission instead of by salary. Later, at Vera Cruz and Portobello the factories were abandoned, and a resident agent looked after the Company's affairs. Throughout the period, however, the Company was fully aware of the imperfect character of its control. The Company's agents and factors in the islands were concerned mainly with the negro trade; but in England much of the attention of the Company was given to the supplementary privilege of the annual ship. The grant had been wrung from Spain by the demand for even greater concessions, and the exercise of the privilege was overhung from the beginning with suspicion. It had been a serious breach in the exclusive policy of Spain, and was looked upon as a pound of flesh whose taking might involve the destruction of Spanish commercial life. The history of the annual ship depends for its elucidation upon the general diplomatic relations between Spain and England, for cordial relations were essential to the smooth working of the concession and these were always lacking. In the whole of the thirty years of the concession there were only eight annual voyages. The first annual ship-the Royal Prince-sailed in July 1717, with goods on board to the value of £256,858. 8s. 6d. The second-the 1 See Batcheler, L. M., "The South Sea Company and the Asiento", an unpublished thesis in the Library of the University of London. |