claims of England and Spain with
regard to the rights of trade in the New World and the boundaries of
Carolina and Florida. This convention, it will be seen, left the
really important subjects of dispute exactly where they were before.

{162}

Such as it was, however, it had hardly been signed before the
diplomatists were already squabbling over the extent and interpretation
of its terms, and mixing it up with the attempted arrangement of other
and older disputes. Parliament opened on February 1, 1739, and the
speech from the throne told of the convention arranged with Spain. "It
is now," said the Royal speech, "a great satisfaction to me that I am
able to acquaint you that the measures I have pursued have had so good
an effect that a convention is concluded and ratified between me and
the King of Spain, whereby, upon consideration had of the demands on
both sides, that prince hath obliged himself to make reparation to my
subjects for their losses by a certain stipulated payment; and
plenipotentiaries are therein named and appointed for redressing within
a limited time all those grievances and abuses which have hitherto
interrupted our commerce and navigation in the American seas, and for
settling all matters in dispute in such a manner as may for the future
prevent and remove all new causes and pretences of complaint by a
strict observance of our mutual treaties and a just regard to the
rights and privileges belonging to each other." The King promised that
the convention should be laid before the House at once.

Before the terms of the convention were fully in the knowledge of
Parliament, there was already a strong dissatisfaction felt among the
leading men of the Opposition. We need not set this down to the mere
determination of implacable partisans not to be content with anything
proposed or executed by the Ministers of the Crown. Sir John Barnard
was certainly no implacable partisan in that sense. He was really a
true-hearted and patriotic Englishman. Yet Sir John Barnard was one of
the very first to predict that the convention would be found utterly
unsatisfactory. There is nothing surprising in the prediction. The
King's own speech, which naturally made the best of things, left it
evident that no important and international question had been touched
by the convention. {163} Every dispute over which war might have to be
made remained in just the same state after the convention as before.
Lord Carteret