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before. "The fruits of Portugal are corrected by the products of Barbados, the infusion of a China plant sweetened with the pith of an Indian cane....The single dress of a woman of quality is often the product of a hundred climates....We repair our bodies by the drugs of America and repose ourselves under Indian canopies. Trade, without enlarging the British territories, has given us a sort of additional empire." Ten years later, it is true, Defoe was indicting China ware, Japanese goods, tea and coffee as "trifling and unnecessary"; while sugar, cotton, arrack, copper and indigo he classified "injurious". Few could doubt, however, that Englishmen would toil, navigate, and, if need be, fight, rather than deny themselves such comforts. Few could suppose that laws and prohibitions would annihilate mutually profitable exchange. Even before the Peace of Utrecht, the English had supplied New Spain with slaves, receiving payment, by an ingenious system, in jars of silver covered over with meal. By a still more flagrant connivance of government officials, both Dutch and English were allowed to import into France goods from the Levant in French ships.3 Europe, which had discovered in 1648 a new political organisation, was plainly entering upon a new phase of her existence. Henceforward her constituent nations would be more and more closely interwoven by way of trade, and that trade already consisted largely in the exchange of goods from outside Europe. The colonial and commercial age, with England as its leader, had begun.

1 Cf. Davenant, Works. 1, 30, 91.

Anon., An account of the Spanish settlements in America (Edinburgh, 1762), p. 416. 3 Lavisse, Histoire de France, vn, iii, 256.

CHAPTER XI

THE WEST INDIES AND THE SPANISH

AMERICAN TRADE, 1713-1748

IN the eighteenth century the West Indies held a place of importance

among the colonies of Great Britain which is difficult to explain by their size or population, or even by the extent of their productions or their capacity to absorb British exports. They were the first care of governments in time of war, for they were in constant danger of attack; and their white inhabitants were too few to render them independent of British troops even in time of peace. The high esteem in which they were held is explained by their value, not merely in direct commerce, but also as the pivot of several branches of trade. The sugar trade involved many English interests, shipowners and merchants, refiners and grocers; while the lesser products of the islands, cotton, coffee, pimento and ginger, were all articles of which supplies within the Empire were insufficient. Throughout the eighteenth century there was also a steady intercourse with the British colonies on the mainland. Small coasting vessels plied constantly between the two, carrying West Indian products, particularly to New England, and bringing back the provisions and lumber for which the Plantations offered a constant demand. The regular trade with the North American colonies left the islands to a large extent in the hands of mainland exporters, and, as these were frequently unwilling to take in return sufficiently large quantities of island produce, a considerable export of bullion was necessary. It was to avoid this that attempts were made to open up trade in logwood with Central America. The attempts were only in part successful, as they were hampered by the lack of a recognised status on the coast. Expeditions to Campeachy Bay were organised from Jamaica as early as the reign of Charles II and ultimately representations to the Government at home led to the appointment of a Superintendent of the Moskito Shore in 1749.1 Frequent conflicts took place with Spanish merchants carrying out similar projects, and the ventures were long regarded as of doubtful legality. The trade never reached large enough dimensions to be a substitute for the trade with North America.

In this Central American trade, Jamaica took the lead among the British islands, and through the whole of the eighteenth century she was regarded as the most important of the British West Indies, having outstripped Barbados in the reign of Charles II. The advantage of size was greatly in her favour, as was also the fact that her land was 1 McLeish, J., "British Activities in Yucatan and on the Moskito Shore in the 18th Century", an unpublished thesis in the Library of the University of London.

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not "used-up" so early by constant cultivation; but her chief asset was her geographical position, admirably suited to the entrepôt trade to the Spanish Indies. The independent settlers of Jamaica cared little that their activities were illicit, and it was to the interest of no one to interfere. The profits were great so long as the trade was forbidden, but when attempts at regulation began in the opening years of the eighteenth century they dwindled. Then for nearly half a century this phantom of a legal trade deflected colonial enterprise, and in the end brought it to ruin. The story of this mistaken policy, which we trace in this chapter, began with the Peace of Utrecht and is bound up with the activities of the South Sea Company and the working of the Asiento treaty. It is essential for the history of the West Indies, since their fortunes were gravely affected by its failure brought about by mismanagement and lack of loyalty in the "trading part of the nation" in England and the islands.

The history of British relations with the Spanish Indies entered on a new phase with the close of the War of the Spanish Succession, for an age of contract succeeded one of lawlessness. The treaty of 16701 had done little to define the English position in the New World, and had ignored the most significant developments of the period. After this treaty, as before, Englishmen still acted on the maxim that the seas were "free to all", and Spain still held that in the New World they were closed to all. The treaties of Utrecht did not, indeed, entirely set aside these creeds, for they were to be the underlying cause of the war of 1739. But the change in 1713 was a real one. Henceforth there was a specific grant to which to appeal, and English adventure in the New World gained a new status in international relations.

In 1713 Spain was starting a new period under a new dynasty. But it was still the old Spain, with all her old weakness and wealth, and her old policy of commercial exclusiveness for which her industrial impotence made her wholly unfit. But her wealth and importance were even yet great enough to fire the imagination of Europe. She had survived the serious losses of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and the new losses were not so great as the old. Yet it was the loss of the Italian lands that caused her international decline; to recover them she sold her diplomatic freedom to France, and her commercial prosperity to France and England.

The Indies were still valued by the people of Spain, more than any other Spanish possessions. Even the partition makers of the last fifteen years had left these territories unimpaired, although to France, England, and the Dutch, as much as to Spain, they seemed an unfathomed sea of riches. Visions of wealth there for the taking had come to Drake and Raleigh, to Harry Vane and the merchant advisers of Cromwell, to the diplomatic agents of Charles II; and

1 Vide supra, p. 315.

now they came to the financial schemers of Anne and George I. They were to visit later both the Pitts in turn, and stir the imagination of Canning. The manifestations changed in character during these two and a half centuries, but their inspiration remained the same.

The change came in the time of Cromwell's "Western Design", for it was only in imagination that this was a revival of the Protestant fervour of Elizabethan times. Many of the men who furthered it were London merchants such as Martin Noell and Maurice Thompson, practical men of business. Their Eldorado was to be sought in a growth of trade, and it was for this that they valued Hispaniola, and invested capital in Jamaica. From their time onwards to that of Canning the unreality of the vision lay in the exaggeration of the possibilities of Spanish American trade, and not in false ideas of the value of Spanish gold.

In the seventeenth century there were three principal ways of tapping the wealth of the Spanish Indies. First, the lands of the New World were rich in minerals and tropical products. Silver and gold, cochineal, dye-woods, and indigo, were all there in abundance, and found ready vent in European markets which had none of them. In the second place, the mines required negro labour, and the supply of negroes might be made another source of profit. Thirdly, it was necessary to provide goods for the outward cargoes of the vessels that brought home the treasure of the Indies. In the earliest period of English penetration to the coasts, direct seizure of the treasure was the only method followed. In later times, the tradition of Drake and Raleigh was kept alive by Blake and the buccaneers of Jamaica, and lured Narborough and Dampier to voyages in the South Seas. But the more regular methods gained in popularity, and were the real concern of statesmen from the time of Blake and Morgan.

It was the misfortune of Spain that while her ambition demanded that she should be the sole channel through which the wealth of America was brought to Europe, she was incapable either of obtaining her own labour supply or of providing cargoes for her fleets. The papal disposition of the world left the African coasts to Portugal, and Spain did not venture to falsify her own position in the West by infringing Portuguese rights. But Spanish industry had been stifled by the religious zeal of the sixteenth century, and it was difficult to revive it. In the eighteenth century both Alberoni and Patiño tried to do so; but the first had too short a period of influence, and both were distracted by other aims. Probably both were too late. It was necessary therefore throughout this period to buy goods and negroes from the foreigner.

In spite of this, the Spanish colonial system remained one of exclusive commercial monopoly.1 At first from Seville and later from

1 See Dahlgren, E. W., Les relations commerciales et maritimes entre la France et les Côtes de l'Océan pacifique; and Haring, C. H., Trade and Navigation between Spain and the Indies.

SPANISH COLONIAL TRADE

333 Cadiz, a colonial policy was organised whose chief object was the reservation of colonial wealth to Spain. Every year ships sailed for the Indies, at first freely in small groups and then in two organised fleets. In the middle period of the sixteenth century, the fleets sailed separately, but as the seas grew more unsafe they journeyed to San Domingo together. One, the flota, went thence to Vera Cruz in New Spain, calling at Porto Rico on the way. The other, the galleones, was bound for Terra-Firma or, as the English called it, the Spanish Main. Cartagena was the first objective. As soon as the ships arrived there, news of their arrival was sent on to Portobello and Lima, and from Lima the Armada del Mar del Sur sailed for Panama taking with it the silver of Peru. From Panama the cargo travelled by caravan to Portobello. By the time it arrived, the galleons were there too, and the merchants of Portobello were ready for the great fair. After the fair the galleons moved back to Cartagena to load the return cargoes. Thence they sailed to Havana, whither the flota also returned; and together they passed home through the Bahama channel. At the height of Spanish power, it is said that the two fleets numbered fifty vessels of 27,500 tons burthen, but in spite of all precautions, they suffered heavily, in the sixteenth century from English seamen, and in the seventeenth from the free-booters and pirates who made their homes in Jamaica.

It is impossible to estimate the extent of British participation in this trade, though in the seventeenth century it was probably considerable. But the transport of American goods to European markets was difficult, and less direct methods of securing a share in the wealth of the Indies were therefore more profitable.

The most popular method was through the trade in slaves. In the early years of colonisation, Spain had tried to secure at least a share in the profits of this for her own merchants, employing them as contractors to supply a given number of slaves to the colonies; and although traffic with the foreigner was necessary to obtain the slaves, a fair pretence of Spanish agency was maintained. Later the practice changed. The contract, or Asiento, became a monopoly for a term of years, and it was frequently granted to foreigners. In the early period of this new system the Asiento was held most often by the Portuguese; from the time of the conquest of Portugal in 1580 to its recovery of independence, they held it almost continuously. Then it began to be granted to more distant merchants, and Germans, Dutch and Genoese all participated. The terms of the grant to one group of these contractors-that of 1663 to two Genoese merchants-included a new privilege. They could buy the slaves from the subjects of any country not at war with Spain. Later contracts included a similar clause, and the result was a great development of the slave markets in the Caribbean; and both Englishmen and Dutchmen shipped slaves there more for Spanish needs than their own.

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