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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.

2 See Journal of the Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, 1722-8.

CHBE I

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.

THE "ANNUAL SHIP"

339 Royal George-was delayed until 1721 by the Anglo-Spanish war of 1718. The resumption of the exercise of its privileges came at the time when the Company was just recovering from the disasters of the Bubble crisis. A reorganisation of the Company had followed, but the changes in personnel left the system of trade unchanged. The next four years were the best period of the Company's trade. Thus the third annual voyage took place in 1723, and the fourth in 1724. The fifth annual voyage started in 1725, and the ship was the last to get through before a new Anglo-Spanish war made another break. A sixth voyage was rashly begun by the Prince Frederick, but when she reached Vera Cruz, she was forced to remain there until 1729.

The fall of Ripperdà in 1726 made a renewal of friendly relations possible. For the moment, it is true, the dominance of Königsegg was even more dangerous; but Patiño now came into office, and before long his devotion to the building up of Spanish trade and industry proved a great asset to England. Like Alberoni, Patiño hoped ultimately to make practicable a purely exclusive mercantile policy, but he saw that it was first necessary to build up Spanish industry, and in the interval his zeal for peace made him a friendly negotiator. In particular he maintained very good relations with Benjamin Keene, who, in his double position as English minister and Company's agent, was in charge of all the English interests at Madrid.

In spite of this growing friendliness it was long before the obstacles to peace were overcome. The war which broke out in February 1727 was ended by preliminaries of peace in August: but there was no return to peaceful trade. Even the Convention of the Pardo of March 1728 did not achieve this, and the discussions at the Congress of Soissons seemed likely to do no more. Finally, in November 1729 the Treaty of Seville promised the restoration of Anglo-Spanish trade to the position of 1725, and full restitution for seizures. The details of the Company's claims were to be settled by Commissaries at Madrid.1 The discussions took two years, and meanwhile outrages in Spanish waters continued. This was the time of the episode of "Jenkins's Ear”. At last an agreement was reached. In 1731 the possibility of a Franco-Spanish alliance, which had encouraged Elizabeth Farnese to hopes of independence, seemed unlikely to materialise, and she had already lost Austria, who made peace with England in 1731. The court of Spain therefore adopted a more conciliatory attitude. In July, Spain acceded to the Anglo-Austrian treaty; and at the beginning of 1732 an agreement concerning relations in the Indies was signed. Orders were to be issued against depredations, the confiscated ships were to be freed, and the right of the Company to obtain slaves in British colonies was recognised. Elizabeth in fact was buying peace and acquiescence in her Italian ambitions by her

1 See Brown, V., "The South Sea Company and Contraband Trade ", American Historical Review, July 1926, pp. 662-78.

commercial complacency, while Austria was paying the same price for her dynastic interests. The English Company gained the benefit of these distractions. The seventh annual voyage was started by the Prince William just before the agreement was signed. In October 1732 Newcastle declared that British trade was less interrupted than for many years past. Advantage was taken of this lull when in 1733 the Royal Caroline set out on the last annual voyage.

It was impossible for the settlement to be more than temporary, for on neither side was there good-will. Spain, indeed, had to a large extent the whip hand. The concessions of the Asiento were a pound of flesh in more senses than one, since they could not be taken alone. It had been clear from the beginning that, if Spanish policy permitted it, she could make the whole grant of no effect. This was the lesson of the negotiations of 1713-16, and it was emphasised by the difficulties of the later period. The Asiento itself contained no stipulation as to the storage of goods, or the sale of goods or slaves inland. Yet without freedom to sell slaves inland from Buenos Aires, the trade there was bound to involve serious losses. In this as in many other minor points, the feasibility of the contract depended on a sympathetic interpretation of its clauses, and if this was lacking, the alternative was the unattractive one of extorting concessions by force. Not only did it involve a breach of the policy of peace, but from the standpoint of the Company it meant the certain seizure of its effects. The hostages held by Spain were too valuable to make the alternative popular. Good-will was no less necessary to settle the question of depredations. The guarda-costas still applied the old criterion of contraband trade, the presence on board of dye-woods, indigo, or Spanish dollars, although this had been invalidated long ago by the capture of Jamaica. In fact the rule was retained only because it made condemnation easy. A review of the period leaves no doubt that, except when Spanish policy required it, the necessary liberality was absent. But Spain was only partly to blame for this. It is true that the whole concession was abhorrent to Spanish policy and that Spain welcomed any chance to whittle it away, but there was little inducement on the English side to any other attitude. The Asiento treaty had granted the permission to send the annual ship on the specific understanding that illicit trade should cease, but in reality the annual ship served to increase fraud; and after, as before the grant of the Asiento, colonial shipping abounded in Spanish waters, carrying on lawful or unlawful trade. The ships were subject to seizure, and the connivance of Spanish officials could not always be obtained. The influence of the Company's factors at the ports was a valuable asset, and the constant arrival of slave sloops made the detection of illicit trade difficult; but the annual ship afforded a useful alternative method. The first annual ship was accompanied by a sloop carrying provisions to Jamaica. On later voyages there were frequently more than one subsidiary vessel, and

PREVALENCE OF ILLICIT TRADE

341 they did not always stop at Jamaica. It was suspected, no doubt rightly, that goods were carried as well as provisions; and it is probably true that the annual ship was refilled secretly at night.1 In any case Spain believed this and in 1732 the sub-governor of the South Sea Company feared enquiry sufficiently to prefer resignation. In fact the prevalence of illicit trade could not be denied; and British ministers were not prepared to take the prohibitive measures which had been demanded for the suppression of the French trade in 1717-18. Neither French nor Dutch traders suffered so severely from depredations as the English, since in their case legal and illegal enterprises could easily be distinguished. The Dutch interlopers were armed for an avowedly illicit traffic; and peaceful French traders gave bond that they would not trade in Spanish ports. The English representative in Spain rebutted a proposal that English merchantmen should do the same, by saying that this would not be "consistent with our Constitution, or with the sense of the trading part of our nation". So long as this attitude was maintained, indiscriminate reprisals were inevitable.

The final change from negotiation to war was due to the weakness of English diplomacy. It is true that at the critical moment, Spain had hopes of a French alliance, and England was stiffened by fear of it; but England's position was weak, and her conduct uncertain.a In the first place the South Sea Company was a constant stumblingblock. It had a special standing among the mercantile interests of the time, since it had direct relations with the court of Spain, and employed the English ambassador there as its agent. Moreover, at the time of the final negotiations, it both owed money to the King of Spain (on account of duties and profits) and was owed money_by him (on account of seizures in the wars of 1718 and 1727). The special claims of the Company had postponed a settlement with Spain both in 1715 and in 1728. In the end they were to prove fatal. Secondly, the Cabinet was not unanimous, for Walpole was not content to leave the matter in the hands of Newcastle, who as Secretary of State was primarily responsible. He tended increasingly to supplement Newcastle's instructions to the English ambassador, Keene, by letters written by himself; and in England he as well as Newcastle negotiated with the Spanish representative, Geraldino. Newcastle was always more readily influenced than Walpole by the outcry of English interests, and the dual control was embarrassing to the policies of both. Thirdly, there was the underlying distaste in England for the obligations of the Asiento treaty. Its true meaning had never been accepted by our commercial class. Spain had, in effect, in the treaty bought English recognition of the Spanish

1 See Brown, ut cit.

See Temperley, H. W. V., "The Causes of the War of Jenkins' Ear", Trans. Roy. Hist. Soc. (1909), pp. 197–236.

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