the streets which described Walpole as acknowledging to the
Spanish Don that he hated the English merchants and traders just as
much as the Don did, and that he was heartily glad when Spain applied
her rod to them. The country became roused to the wildest passion; the
Patriots were carrying it all their own way.

What was it all about? What was Spain doing? What ought England to do?

[Sidenote: 1738--The treaties with Spain]

The whole excitement arose out of certain long-standing trade disputes
between England and Spain in the New World. These disputes had been
referred to in the Treaty of Utrecht, which was supposed to have
settled them in 1713; and again in the Treaty of Seville, which was
believed to have finally settled them in 1729. England had recognized
the right of Spain to regulate the trade with Spanish colonies. Spain
agreed that England should have the privilege of supplying the Spanish
colonies with slaves. This noble privilege English traders exercised
to the full. It is not very gratifying to have to recollect that two
of England's great disputes with Spain were about England's claim to an
unlimited right to sell slaves to the Spanish colonies. To England, or
at least to the English South Sea Company, was also conceded the
permission to send one merchant vessel each year to the South Seas with
as much English goods to sell to the Spanish colonies as a {151} ship
of 500 tons could carry. As everybody might have expected, the
provisions of the treaty were constantly broken through. The English
traders were very eager to sell their goods; the Spanish colonists were
very glad to get them to buy. All other commerce than that in slaves
and the one annual shipload of English goods was strictly prohibited by
Spain. The whole arrangement now seems in the highest degree
artificial and absurd; but it was not an uncommon sort of international
arrangement then. As was to be expected, the English traders set going
a huge illicit trade in the South Seas. This was done partly by the
old familiar smuggling process, and partly, too, by keeping little
fleets of smaller vessels swarming off the coasts and reloading the one
legitimate vessel as often as her contents were sent into a port. This
ingenious device was said to have been detected by the Spanish
authorities in various places. The Spaniards retaliated by stopping
and searching English vessels cruising anywhere near the coast of a
Spanish colony, a