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that, with the exception of soldiers in the actual ser-
vice of the enemy, the flag shall protect the persons that sail under it.
Further:
England, guarding with the utmost strictness the monopoly of her own colonial trade, encroached by treaty on the colonial monopoly of
Spain.
There shall be trade, it was said, between
Great Britain and
Spain, and their respective plantations and provinces, ‘where hitherto trade and commerce have been accustomed;’ so that a prescriptive right might spring from the continued successes of British smugglers.
Besides, as
England gained the assiento, it
Assiento, § 8, 9, 11, 15. |
was agreed that the agents of the assientists might enter all the ports of Spanish America; might send their factors into inland places; might, for their own supplies, establish warehouses, safe against search until after proof of fraudulent importations; might send yearly a ship of five hundred tons, laden with merchandise, to be entered free of all duties in the Indies, and to be sold at the annual fair; might send the returns of this traffic, whether bars of silver, ingots of gold, or the produce of the country, directly to
Europe in English vessels.
The hope was further expressed, that, from
Europe and the
North American colonies, direct supplies might be furnished to the assientists in small vessels,—that is, in vessels most likely to engage
in smuggling.
Here, also, lay the seeds of war: the great colonial monopolists were divided against each to her; and
England sought to engross, if possible, every advantage.
Many were the consequences to our fathers from these encroachments: they opened trade between our colonies and the
Spanish islands; they stimulated
England to aggressions which led to a war; they incensed
Spain, so that she could wish to see the
