r." The three English
captains were carried to Panama, and there cast into a dungeon and bound
in irons for seventeen months.[258]

On 8th January 1664 Sir Richard Fanshaw, formerly ambassador to
Portugal, had arrived in Madrid from England to negotiate a treaty of
commerce with Spain, and if possible to patch up a peace between the
Spanish and Portuguese crowns. He had renewed the old demand for a free
commerce in the Indies; and the negotiations had dragged through the
years of 1664 and 1665, hampered and crossed by the factions in the
Spanish court, the hostile machinations of the Dutch resident in Madrid,
and the constant rumours of cruelties and desolations by the freebooters
in America.[259] The Spanish Government insisted that by sole virtue of
the articles of 1630 there was peace on both sides of the "Line," and
that the violences of the buccaneers in the West Indies, and even the
presence of English colonists there, was a breach of the articles. In
this fashion they endeavoured to reduce Fanshaw to the position of a
suppliant for favours which they might only out of their grace and
generosity concede. It was a favourite trick of Spanish diplomacy, which
had been worked many times before. The English ambassador was, in
consequence, compelled strenuously to deny the existence of any peace in
America, although he realised how ambiguous his position had been
rendered by the original orders of Charles II. to Modyford in 1664.[260]
After the death of Philip IV. in 1665, negotiations were renewed with
the encouragement of the Queen Regent, and on 17th December provisional
articles were signed by Fanshaw and the Duke de Medina de los Torres and
sent to England for ratification.[261] Fanshaw died shortly after, and
Lord Sandwich, his successor, finally succeeded in concluding a treaty
on 23rd May 1667.[262] The provisions of the treaty extended to places
"where hitherto trade and commerce hath been accustomed," and the only
privileges obtained in America were those which had been granted to the
Low Countries by the Treaty of Munster. On 21st July of the same year a
general peace was concluded at Breda between England, Holland and
France.

It was in the very midst of Lord Sandwich's negotiations that Modyford
had, as Beeston expresses it in his Journal, declared war against the
Spaniards by the re-issue of privateering commissions. He had done it
all in his own name, however, so that the king might disavow him should
t