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288 depots and trading factories in the Spanish American possessions; this being a part of the price at which France and Spain secured the withdrawal of Great Britain from the grand alliance.

His Catholic Majesty Felipe V. and her Britannic Majesty Queen Anne were to receive each one fourth share in the profits obtained from the sale of these human chattels, the former agreeing to advance one million pesos for carrying on the trade, or in case he could not raise such an amount to pay interest thereupon at the rate of eight per cent a year. Before her decease, which occurred in the following year, the English sovereign, finding her share unprofitable, transferred it to the South Sea Company, though it does not appear that the latter reaped much benefit therefrom.

"Commercial houses," as they were termed, were at once established at Vera Cruz and elsewhere on the coast of the North Sea; but their owners, not content with the enormous profits of the slave-trade, violated the terms of the treaty by introducing cargoes of foreign merchandise. England was now permitted, as we have seen, to send yearly to Portobello a five hundred ton vessel freighted with merchandise; but each slaver that landed its living cargo on the shores of New Spain brought also a quantity of contraband goods. In vain the custom-house officers attempted to stay this traffic; and in vain the penalty of death and confiscation of property was threatened against