Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/453

A.D.1738 search such of our ships as went thither, to ascertain whether they were licensed, or were exceeding the limits of the treaty. The English, however, were continually intruding, and the Spaniards were in general only too easy; but when the intrusions became too barefaced or frequent, they occasionally were roused to a more vigilant action, which gave high offence to our traders, who retaliated on the Spanish vessels when they met with them on the high seas, either in the Atlantic or Pacific. They are said, too, to have made occasional buccaneer-like descents on the coasts of the Spanish main, burning towns and plundering the inhabitants.



The one ship which was allowed to trade annually with the Spanish colonies was made a means of the most extensive and audacious smuggling. As fast as that authorised ship discharged its cargo in a Spanish port, she received fresh supplies of goods over her larboard side from other vessels which had followed in her wake and thus poured unlimited quantities of English goods into the place. Other English traders did not approach too near the Spanish coasts, but were met in certain latitudes by South American smugglers, who there received their goods and carried them into port. In short, such a system of contraband trade was carried on in these waters by our merchants, that English goods in abundance found their way all over the Spanish American regions, and the great annual fair for goods imported from or by Spain dwindled into insignificance.

It was no wonder that Spain, feeling the serious effects of this state of things, should resist it; and when she did so, and exerted an unusual degree of vigilance, then the most terrible outcries were raised, and wonderful stories were circulated of Spanish cruelties to our people beyond the Atlantic. At this time the opposition got hold of one of these, and made the house of commons and the nation resound with it. It was, that one captain Robert Jenkins, who had been master of a sloop trading from Jamaica, had been boarded and searched by a Guarda Costa, and treated in a most barbarous manner, though they could detect no proof of smuggling in his vessel. He said that the Spanish captain had cut off one of his ears, bidding him carry it to his king, and tell his majesty that, if he were