nsideration of the
House of Commons, and such timely remedy as the House should think fit
to recommend. These petitions only preceded a great many others, all
in substance to the same effect. The Commons entered upon the
consideration of the subject in a Committee of the whole House, heard
several petitioners, and examined many witnesses. An address was
presented to the Crown, asking for copies of all memorials, petitions,
and representations to the late King or the present, in relation to
Spanish captures of British ships. [Sidenote: 1729--The Campeachy
logwood] Copies were also asked for of the reports laid before the King
by the Commissioners of Trade and of Plantations, concerning the
dispute between England and Spain, with regard to the rights of the
subjects of Great Britain to cut logwood in the Bay of Campeachy, on
the western shore of that Yucatan peninsula which juts into the Gulf of
Mexico. English traders had been for a long time in the habit of
cutting logwood along the shores in the Bay of Campeachy, and the
logwood trade had come to be one of the greatest importance to the West
Indies and to England. The Spanish Government claimed the right to put
a stop to this cutting of logwood, and the Spanish Viceroy and Governor
had in some instances declared that they would dislodge the Englishmen
from the settlements which they had established, and even treat them as
pirates if they persisted in their trade. There was, in fact, all the
material growing up for a serious quarrel between England and Spain.

Despite the recent treaties which were supposed to {295} secure the
peace of Europe, the times were very critical. "The British nation,"
says a contemporary writer, "had for many years past been in a state of
uncertainty, scarce knowing friends from foes, or indeed whether we had
either." Each new treaty seemed only to disturb the balance of power,
as it was called, in a new way. The Quadruple Alliance was intended to
rectify the defects of the Treaty of Utrecht; but it gave too much
power to the Emperor, and it increased the bitterness and the
discontent of the King of Spain. The Treaty of Vienna, made between
the Empire and Spain, was justly regarded in England as portending
danger to this country. It was even more dangerous than Englishmen in
general supposed at the time, although Walpole knew its full purport
and menace. The Treaty of Vienna led to the Treaty of Hanover, an
arrangement made in the