Footnote 7: [(return)]
In these estimates, Betagh has been very unfortunate, as the direct distance from Buenos Ayres to Potosi does not exceed 1100 miles, and the distance from Valparaiso, also in a straight line, is hardly 800 miles.E.
Footnote 8: [(return)]
The coin or denomination is not specified: If dollars, at 4s. 6d., this would amount to four millions and a half sterling.E.
§ 7. Some Account of the French Interlopers in Chili.
As the policy of Spain chiefly consists in endeavouring, by all possible means, to prevent the riches of these extensive dominions from passing into other hands, so the knowledge possessed by other nations of the great wealth of these countries, and of the great demand for European manufactures among their inhabitants, has excited almost every nation in Europe to devise every possible contrivance for coming in for a share in these riches, and this with such effect, that it is even questionable whether any considerable portion of the riches of the new world centres among the inhabitants of Old Spain. This may be judged of from the following considerations: Even the trade carried on from Spain to the new world is of much greater importance to foreigners than to the Spaniards themselves. For as Spain has few commodities of its own, and carries on scarcely any manufactures, the Spanish merchants at Cadiz have to make up their cargoes by means of purchases from other countries; or rather the Cadiz merchants are mere factors for the merchants of England, France, and Holland, whose goods they send to America, and pay them by the returns made in the Plate fleets. Spain also is a country very ill provided with some of the necessaries of life, and most of the conveniences; so that prodigious sums of the money brought from America have to be yearly exported for the purchase of these.
Besides such drawbacks as the above, to which the Spaniards willingly submit, there are many others which they are forced to endure: For instance, all the negroes they employ in their plantations, in which every kind of labour is performed by them, are purchased from foreigners, particularly the English and Dutch, at a very large annual expence; and, under pretence of furnishing them with negroes, a clandestine trade is carried on every year, along the whole coasts of their possessions on the Atlantic. In the South Sea, however, they were tolerably free from every thing except the depredations of pirates, till the general war on account of the succession to the crown of Spain, which created a new kind of contraband trade, unknown in former times, of which I now propose to give some account.
The French interlopers carried vast quantities of goods directly from Europe into the South Seas, which till then had hardly ever been attempted by any European nation. This was always viewed with an evil eye by the court of Spain, as repugnant to the interests of Spain, and diametrically opposite to the maxims of her government; but there were many circumstances at that time which rendered this a kind of necessary evil, and obliged therefore the people of Old Spain to submit to it. As for the Creoles, they had European goods and at a cheaper rate, and it did not give them much concern who it was that received their money. The town of St Malo has always been noted for privateers, and greatly annoyed the trade of the English and Dutch during the whole reign of King William, and part of that of Queen Anne; and though some allege that money procured by privateering never prospers, yet I may safely affirm that the people of St Malo are as rich and flourishing as any in all France. Privateering has thriven so well among them, that all their South Sea trade has arisen from thence; and, during the last war, they were so rich and generous, that they made several free gifts to Louis XIV.; and so dexterous were they, that though our Admiralty always kept a stout squadron in the Atlantic, we were never able to capture one of their South-Sea traders. The reason of this was, that they always kept their ships extremely clean, having ports to careen at of which we knew not. In 1709, when I belonged to her majesty's ship the Loo, being one of the convoy that year to Newfoundland, we saw and chased upon that coast a ship of fifty guns, which we soon perceived to be French-built; but she crowded sail and soon left us. She had just careened at Placentia, and we wondered much to find such a ship in that part of the world. We afterwards learnt, from some French prisoners, that she was a French ship bound to St Malo, having two or three millions of dollars on board, and was then so trim that she trusted to her heels, and valued nobody. They went thus far to the north and west on purpose to have the advantage of a westerly wind, which seldom failed of sending them into soundings at one spirt, if not quite home. Since Placentia has been yielded to Great Britain, they now use St Catherine and Islagrande, on the coast of Brasil, and Martinico in the West Indies.
This trade succeeded so well, that all the merchants of St Malo engaged in it, sending every year to the number of twenty sail of ships. In 1721, I saw eleven sail of these together at one time on the coast of Chili, among which were several of fifty guns, and one called the Fleur-de-luce, which could mount seventy, formerly a man-of-war. As this trade was contrary to the Assiento treaty between Great Britain and Spain, memorials were frequently presented against it at Madrid by the court of London; and the king of Spain, willing to fulfil his engagements to the king of England, resolved to destroy this contraband French trade. As there was no other way to accomplish this but by sending a squadron of men-of-war into the South Sea, and as few of the Spaniards were acquainted with the navigation of Cape Horn, or could bear the extreme rigour of the climate, the court of Spain was obliged to use foreigners on this expedition, and the four ships sent oat were both manned and commanded by Frenchmen. The squadron consisted of the Gloucester, of 50 guns, and 400 men, the Ruby, of 50 guns, and 330 men, both of these formerly English ships of war, the Leon Franco, of 60 guns, and 450 men, and a frigate of 40 guns, and 200 men. Monsieur Martinet, a French officer, was commodore of this squadron, and commanded the Pembroke,[1] and Monsieur La Jonquiere the Ruby. The French conducted the navigation round the cape very well, though in the middle of winter; but the last ship of the four, which was manned with Spaniards, could not weather Cape Horn, and was forced back to the Rio Plata, where she was cast away. As the Spaniards have little or no trade into any of the cold climates, and are unused to hard work, it is not to be wondered that they failed on this occasion, especially considering the improper season of the year. The Biscaneers, indeed, are robust enough fellows; and had the Leon Franco been manned with them, she had certainly doubled the cape along with the other three ships; but the Spaniards in general, since acquiring their possessions in America, have become so delicate and indolent, that it would be difficult to find an entire ship's company capable to perform that navigation.
The vast advantage of the trade of Chili by way of Cape Horn, is so obvious, that his catholic majesty is obliged by treaty to shut out all the European nations from it, as well as the English, although his own subjects make nothing of it, as it very rarely happens that a Spanish ship ventures to go round Cape Horn. Owing to this, all European goods sell enormously dear in Chili and Peru; insomuch, that I have been told at Lima, that they are often at 400 per cent. profit, and it may be fairly asserted, that the goods carried from France by Cape Horn are in themselves 50 per cent. better than those sent in the Cadiz flota to Carthagena and Vera Cruz, because the former are delivered in six months, fresh and undamaged, while the latter are generally eighteen months before they reach Chili. In the course of this trade, the French sold their goods, furnished themselves with provisions, and got home again, all within twelve or fourteen months.
When Martinet arrived on the coast of Chili in 1717, furnished with a commission from the king of Spain to take or destroy all the ships of his countrymen found trading in the South Sea, he soon had sufficient employment for his squadron and of fourteen ships belonging to St Malo, then on the coast, only one escaped him, which lay hid in a landlocked creek unseen till he had gone to leeward. Although in this he executed the orders of his catholic majesty, and did a material benefit to the British South Sea company, yet he almost ruined the trading part of the Creole Spaniards, as hindering the circulation of money and spoiling business, so that they could not bear the sight of the French men-of-war, though they liked the French merchant ships very much. On the other hand, imagining that they had done essential service to the Spaniards, the French expected to have received at least civil treatment in return, during their stay in these seas. As soon, however, as Martinet brought his prizes into Calao, and the Frenchmen had received their shares of the prize-money, forgetting the ancient antipathy of the Spaniards for the French, they gave themselves extravagant airs on shore, by dancing and drinking, which still more incensed the creolians against them, who called them cavachos and renegados, for falling foul of their own countrymen. From one thing to another, their mutual quarrels grew so high, that the Frenchmen were obliged to go about Lima and Calao in strong armed parties, the better to avoid outrages and affronts. At last, a young gentleman, who was ensign of the Ruby, and nephew to Captain La Jonquiere, was shot from a window, and the murderer took refuge in the great church of Calao. Martinet and La Jonquiere petitioned the viceroy to have the murderer delivered up to justice: But the viceroy, who was at the same time archbishop, would on no account consent to violate the privileges of the church. On this refusal, they called all their men on board by beat of drum, and laid the broadsides of their three ships to bear on the town of Calao, threatening to demolish the town and fortifications, unless the assassin were delivered up or executed. All this blustering, however, could not prevail upon the viceroy to give them any satisfaction, though they had several other men killed, besides that gentleman.
At length, unwilling to proceed to extremities, and no longer able to endure the place where his nephew had been murdered, La Jonquiere obtained leave of his commodore to make the best of his way home. About this time, many padros and many rich passengers were assembled at Conception in Chili, intending to take their passage to Europe in the French squadron, knowing that all ships bound for Cape Horn must touch at Conception, or some places thereabout, for provisions. La Jonquiere, having thus the start of his commodore, had all the advantage to himself of so many good passengers in his ship; for, as the king of Spain had no officer at Conception to register the money shipped at that place, these passengers and missionaries put astonishing sums of money on board the Ruby. They were thereby spared the trouble of a voyage to Panama or Acapulco, and travelling thence for Portobello or Vera Cruz, where they must have had their coffers visited, to see if the indulto of his majesty were fairly accounted for. They therefore saved every shilling of that indulto, as the Ruby touched first in France, where no cognizance whatever was taken of this affair. They also got clear of the other moiety payable in Spain, as they landed all their money in France.