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policy of exclusiveness. England had accepted the bribe, but, like Bacon, thought it beneath her pride to be influenced by it. British merchants still held that the seas were free to all, and resented the Spanish exercise of a right of search to see that freedom was not abused. This is the explanation of Keene's reference to "our Constitution", and of the outcry of British merchants when peace seemed assured in 1738.

Before that time five years of negotiation had seen a series of proposals put forward only to fail. The first negotiations had been carried on at Madrid in 1732-4, and had been stultified by the open desire of Spain to terminate the whole Asiento concession. To this perhaps the Company would have agreed, given favourable terms; but in the eyes of the English ministry the proposal was coloured by rumours of a new Pacte de famille, and the promise of French participation in the trade. Moreover, the Company became involved at this time in a dispute with Spain over the rate of exchange; and it still further postponed agreement by refusing to produce its accounts for the last four years, which Spain required in order to estimate the value of the remainder of the concession. And when at last, in August 1736, an agreement was reached upon the questions of currency and seizures, Patiño's illness and death once more postponed peace: and incidentally ended the negotiations for the abandonment of the Asiento. It was not until June of the following year that Geraldino and a Committee of the Court of Directors agreed upon a "Plan" which covered all outstanding points of difference.

The "Plan" of 1737 was an affair of the South Sea Company, and before it was confirmed other interests intervened. The long period of negotiation had been a time of especial vigilance on the part of Spanish guarda-costas, and the tale of depredations was growing daily. Moreover the strength of Walpole's administration was waning, and the Opposition found a valuable catch-cry in the dangers to British shipping. Newcastle reflected the attitude of Parliament and the pamphleteers when he sent the new Spanish minister, La Quadra, a long memorandum on outrages. This was in November, only five months after Geraldino had approved the South Sea Company's "Plan." Keene was instructed to leave his negotiations for the ratification of the "Plan," and concentrate for the time on securing a favourable answer to the memorandum. The court of Spain found opportunity to delay both. The "Plan" was immediately set aside, and the memorandum was disposed of for the moment by a discovery that Newcastle had unfortunately cited the treaty of 1667 when he had meant that of 1670. The interval gave opportunity for further petitions to Parliament, and for the famous recital of his wrongs by Captain Jenkins on 17 March.

Moved by these assertions, the Commons passed a resolution which reflected accurately the claims of the merchant class and the feeling

THE WAR OF JENKINS'S EAR

343 of the nation: "It was the undoubted right of British subjects to sail their ships in any part of the seas of America", and the ministry was exhorted to take action to enforce this right. The ministry fell into line by sending Admiral Haddock in June to cruise in the Mediterranean. So strong was public feeling that the news of a settlement with Spain in August was greeted with more suspicion than rejoicing. The settlement was largely the work of Walpole, co-operating with Geraldino, now Spanish ambassador. After much discussion it was agreed that the sum of £95,000 should be paid by Spain, as representing the balance of Spanish depredations over those committed by England. This La Quadra approved, and the "Convention Treaty" was accordingly ratified.1

The South Sea Company did much to make the Convention a failure, by refusing co-operation, for it would accept no liability unless the whole of the "Plan" were ratified. Its action was reinforced by the outcry of the merchants. The Convention gave it the practical benefit of compensation; it did not give it a Magna Carta of commercial freedom. It complained that its rights of navigation had not been recognised: these should have been stated "so plain that every country gentleman and every Spanish Governor could understand". The Opposition therefore condemned it. The last blow came from within the ministry itself, for secret news from Paris and Madrid roused fears of a Franco-Spanish treaty. This was in February. In March a draft of a proposed Pacte de famille was sent over from a secret source in France. The ministry replied by countermanding their previous orders to Admiral Haddock, and telling him to remain in the Mediterranean. It is hard to decide whether these orders, or the attitude of the South Sea Company, was the more responsible for the change in the tone of the Spanish court. Keene was instructed to deny the despatch of the counter-orders, but he deceived no one. In April the South Sea Company again insisted on its refusal to discuss any terms but those of the "Plan". In May Spain replied by suspending the Asiento. In June the English ministry was definitely informed that there was no hope of the payment of the sum proposed by Spain as compensation so long as Haddock remained in the Mediterranean. By this time the four months allowed for payment had lapsed, and the "Convention Treaty" was therefore definitely broken. After this the outbreak of war was only a matter of time. Newcastle, it was certain, would never resist the widespread demand for justice by the sword, and Walpole could not hold out against the united pressure of Parliament, the pamphleteers and his own colleagues. In October war was declared.

Other factors besides those concerned with the trade of the Indies made for war. There had long been disputes over the boundaries of

1 See anonymous pamphlet History of the Convention Treaty (London, 1739). Cf. Hertz, G. B., British Imperialism of the Eighteenth Century, chap. ii, "The War Fever of 1739".

Georgia and Carolina, and the right to cut logwood in Campeachy Bay. But the question of the American trade was the most important, and it is safe to say that without it there would have been no war. The trade in these parts was, justly, therefore, the most severely affected by the war. În particular the South Sea Company never again exercised its monopoly. The Royal Caroline of 1733 was the last annual ship: the negro trade ceased in 1739. This result was partly an accident, for it seemed at first that the war would soon be over. The initial success of Vernon at Portobello was not maintained, in spite of the reinforcements sent to him. The expedition of Anson into the Pacific revived the tradition of Dampier, Woodes Rogers and Narborough, but led to no great victory.

On the Spanish side too, the war brought little compensation, for Spain was disappointed in 1739 of her expectation of immediate help from France. Fleury loved peace far more than he did Elizabeth, and nothing but actual seizure of territory by England in the Indies would have brought France to the help of Spain. France seems to have learned the lesson of England's experience with the Asiento, and she did not want it herself. If Spain exercised it, she might gain much of its profits. As things were she had nearly a half share in Spanish cargoes to the Indies. So she left Spain to protect her own interests. But in October 1740 Charles VI of Austria died, and in the general war that followed France and Spain became allies, and other interests outweighed the question of American trade.

Negotiations for peace began in 1747 and ended in October of the following year. By the terms of the settlement, the Asiento was renewed for four years, the English demand for seven being defeated. But no mention was made of the claims of the South Sea Company against the court of Spain, and the commercial treaty of 1715 was not among those confirmed. Immediately negotiations were opened for some compensation to the Company, and to secure the removal of the prohibitive duties on English goods which were now imposed by Spain. The Company in fact did not want to re-open trade; and finally it was agreed by the commercial treaty of 1750 that all claims under the Asiento treaty were to be surrendered in return for a payment of £100,000.1 Spain undertook at the same time that duties on English goods should not be higher than they were under Charles II. Thus the Company ceased to trade, although its monopoly continued until 1815, and the Company itself until 1856. All that remained of English trade in the Spanish Indies was the illicit trade from the islands, now no longer hidden by the Asiento, and the indirect trade through Spain. Both had lost ground since the grant of 1713.

1

1 P.R.O., St. Pap. For., Treaties, 513. "Treaty between Great Britain and Spain as to 24 Sept. the equivalent of the Asiento contract", 1750. 5 Oct.

SURRENDER OF THE ASIENTO

345

The issue of the conflict showed the measure of the English mistake in 1713. The French had neither the Asiento, nor the privilege of the "annual ship", and they had little opportunity for illicit trade; yet their share in the trade to the Indies gained rapidly upon that of England. They were thrown back by the English gains of 1713 on the earlier methods of participation in the trade, the consignment of goods to Spanish merchants for re-export in the Spanish fleets. Their share steadily increased in the eighteenth century, and its growth was favoured by the political relations between the two countries.

The loss to the British West Indies was considerable. Already by the middle of the eighteenth century the possibility of recovering the wealth of a hundred years before had practically disappeared. The decline in the Spanish trade meant continual difficulties of exchange and currency, and many branches of trade suffered as a result. In the view of contemporary merchants and statesmen, the shortage of bullion ranked with the decline in profits of the sugar industry as a cause of eighteenth-century distress. The planters saw their remedy in new experiments in illicit trade; but difficulties were increased by the changes in British policy of the years 1764-6. In 1764 Grenville's administration issued special instructions through the Commissioners of the Customs for the seizure of all foreign vessels found in West Indian ports. Burke reversed this policy in 1765 by the grant of special privileges for Spanish ships, and went further in 1766, when the first Free Port Act1 opened certain ports to foreign shipping. But his efforts were too late, Spanish hostility was roused, and the result was negligible.

The greed of the English merchants had been fatal throughout to the interests of the islands, for at their dictation, the solid profits of trade had been thrown away, in a false hope of gaining easy riches. The West Indies never had as good a chance of recovery. Burke's Act synchronised with the outburst of American discontent, and the interruption in American trade had results which long survived the period of the war.

In 1763, however, the decline of the West Indies was not yet apparent, and the wealth of West Indian merchants and absentees still maintained the islands in their high estimation at home. But in fact their prosperity had been undermined. They now had only one string to their bow-the English sugar trade, and this too was soon to be broken. The war with America, the whittling away of their colonial preference and finally the anti-slavery movement were all to strike at it in turn. The brilliant early prosperity of the islands had passed, and in reality, the tale of misfortune had started which forms the history of the West Indies in the succeeding century.

1 See Burke, E., A Short Account of a late short Administration, 1766.

CHAPTER XII

RIVALRY FOR COLONIAL POWER, 1714-1748

THE half century which followed the Peace of Utrecht comprised

two further rounds in the struggle between France and Britain. At Utrecht the British Empire had been expanded as well as saved. At Aix-la-Chapelle (1748) its natural progress during a generation was at least temporarily secured. At Paris (1763) its aggrandisement and primacy in the world were triumphantly achieved. This was the joint accomplishment of two men above all others, of Robert Walpole and the elder Pitt. Seldom can two contemporaries whose work was thus complementary have presented to their own age and to posterity a sharper contrast. The massive squire and the frail recluse, the party manager and the idealist, the statesman who feared public opinion and the orator who courted it, the minister who hated to look beyond this island, and the apostle of world dominion, they might seem as opposed in policy and principles as in their personality and fortunes. Pitt's noble helpmeet thought his nature some emanation of the AllBeauteous Mind,1 while Walpole turned for companionship to a Maria Skeritt. In rousing men from materialism, Pitt was the Whitefield, if not the Wesley, of politics; whereas Walpole could be satirised as designing to transfer the not from the commandments to the creed.2 Pitt in his haste denounced Walpole as the embodiment of evil,3 yet without Walpole he would himself have been as nothing. The creed "I believe that I can save this nation and that no one else can", came from Pitt, the practice came equally from Walpole. Johnson styled Pitt a meteor, Walpole, a fixed star, and after six generations, Walpole seems the mountain mass, Pitt, the crag that crowns its summit. Pitt inspired the nation, but without Walpole the nation might well have been incapable of evoking or of answering his appeal. Neither Walpole nor Pitt, however, guided Britain as a Peter guided Russia or even as a Belleisle guided France. The Revolution which had made our policy cease to be dynastic had by no means made it ministerial. Ministers, as the age of Walpole and his successors was to prove, could control the king, but they could not in the long run control the nation. There was in Britain a national limitation upon policy which, like much else, foreigners found it hard to understand. A king of England, held Choiseul, could dishonour himself without tarnishing the lustre of the nation; a king of France 1 Edwards, E. A., The love-letters of William Pitt, first Lord Chatham, p. 112.

2 Aubrey, W. H. S., The rise and growth of the English nation, 1, 163.

3 Cf. Thackeray, F., A history of the Earl of Chatham (London, 1827), 1, 41 seqq.

4 Boswell, J., Life of Johnson (ed. G. B. Hill), 1, 131.

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