"In Oliver Cromwell's time, it used to be said, 'With Spain, in Europe, there may be peace or war; but between the Tropics it is always war.' A state of things well recognized by Oliver, and acted on, according to his opportunities. No settlement was had in Oliver's brief time; nor could any be got since, when it was becoming yearly more pressing. Bucaniers, desperate naval gentlemen living on BOUCAN, or hung beef; who are also called Flibustiers (FLIBUTIERS, 'Freebooters,' in French pronunciation, which is since grown strangely into FILIBUSTERS, Fillibustiers, and other mad forms, in the Yankee Newspapers now current): readers have heard of those dumb methods of protest. Dumb and furious; which could bring no settlement; but which did astonish the Pope's Decree, slashing it with cutlasses and sea-cannon, in that manner, and circuitously forwarded a settlement. Settlement was becoming yearly more needful: and, ever since the Treaty of Utrecht especially, there had been an incessant haggle going on, to produce one; without the least effect hitherto. What embassyings, bargainings, bargain-breakings; what galloping of estafettes; acres of diplomatic paper, now fallen to the spiders, who always privately were the real owners! Not in the Treaty of Utrecht, not in the Congresses of Cambray, of Soissons, Convention of Pardo, by Ripperda, Horace Walpole, or the wagging of wigs, could this matter be settled at all. Near two hundred years of chronic misery;—and had there been, under any of those wigs, a Head capable of reading the Heavenly Mandates, with heart capable of following them, the misery might have been briefly ended, by a direct method. With what immense saving in all kinds, compared with the oblique method gone upon! In quantity of bloodshed needed, of money, of idle talk and estafettes, not to speak of higher considerations, the saving had been incalculable. For it was England's one Cause of War during the Century we are now upon; and poor England's course, when at last driven into it, went ambiguously circling round the whole Universe, instead of straight to the mark. Had Oliver Cromwell lived ten years longer;—but Oliver Cromwell did not live; and, instead of Heroic Heads, there came in Constitutional Wigs, which makes a great difference.
"The pretensions of Spain to keep Half the World locked up in embargo were entirely chimerical; plainly contradictory to the Laws of Nature; and no amount of Pope's Donation Acts, or Ceremonial in Rota or Propaganda, could redeem them from untenability, in the modern days. To lie like a dog in the manger over South America, and say snarling, 'None of you shall trade here, though I cannot!'—what Pope or body of Popes can sanction such a procedure? Had England had a Head, instead of Wigs, amid its diplomatists, England, as the chief party interested, would have long since intimated gently to such dog in the manger: 'Dog, will you be so obliging as rise! I am grieved to say, we shall have to do unpleasant things otherwise. Dogs have doors for their hutches: but to pretend barring the Tropic of Cancer,—that is too big a door for any dog. Can nobody but you have business here, then, which is not displeasing to the gods? We bid you rise!' And in this mode there is no doubt the dog, bark and bite as he might, would have ended by rising; not only England, but all the Universe being against him. And furthermore, I compute with certainty, the quantity of fighting needed to obtain such result would, by this mode, have been a minimum. The clear right being there, and now also the clear might, why take refuge in diplomatic wiggeries, in Assiento Treaties, and Arrangements which are NOT analogous to the facts; which are but wigged mendacities, therefore; and will but aggravate in quantity and in quality the fighting yet needed? Fighting is but (as has been well said) a battering out of the mendacities, pretences, and imaginary elements: well battered-out, these, like dust and chaff, fly torrent-wise along the winds, and darken all the sky; but these once gone, there remain the facts and their visible relation to one another, and peace is sure.
"The Assiento Treaty being fixed upon, the English ought to have kept it. But the English did not, in any measure; nor could pretend to have done. They were entitled to supply Negroes, in such and such number, annually to the Spanish Plantations; and besides this delightful branch of trade, to have the privilege of selling certain quantities of their manufactured articles on those coasts; quantities regulated briefly by this stipulation, That their Assiento Ship was to be of 600 tons burden, so many and no more. The Assiento Ship was duly of 600 tons accordingly, promise kept faithfully to the eye; but the Assiento Ship was attended and escorted by provision-sloops, small craft said to be of the most indispensable nature to it. Which provision-sloops, and indispensable small craft, not only carried merchandise as well, but went and came to Jamaica and back, under various pretexts, with ever new supplies of merchandise; converting the Assiento Ship into a Floating Shop, the Tons burden and Tons sale of which set arithmetic at defiance. This was the fact, perfectly well known in England, veiled over by mere smuggler pretences, and obstinately persisted in, so profitable was it. Perfectly well known in Spain also, and to the Spanish Guarda-Costas and Sea-Captains in those parts; who were naturally kept in a perennial state of rage by it,—and disposed to fly out into flame upon it, when a bad case turned up! Such a case that of Jenkins had seemed to them; and their mode of treating it, by tearing off Mr. Jenkins's Ear, proved to be—bad shall we say, or good?—intolerable to England's thick skin; and brought matters to a crisis, in the ways we saw."...
The Jenkins's-Ear Question, which then looked so mad to everybody, how sane has it now grown to my Constitutional Friend! In abstruse ludicrous form there lay immense questions involved in it; which were serious enough, certain enough, though invisible to everybody. Half the World lay hidden in embryo under it. Colonial-Empire, whose is it to be? Shall Half the World be England's, for industrial purposes; which is innocent, laudable, conformable to the Multiplication-table at least, and other plain Laws? Or shall it be Spain's for arrogant-torpid sham-devotional purposes, contradictory to every Law? The incalculable Yankee Nation itself, biggest Phenomenon (once thought beautifulest) of these Ages,—this too, little as careless readers on either side of the sea now know it, lay involved. Shall there be a Yankee Nation, shall there not be; shall the New World be of Spanish type, shall it be of English? Issues which we may call immense. Among the then extant Sons of Adam, where was he who could in the faintest degree surmise what issues lay in the Jenkins's-Ear Question? And it is curious to consider now, with what fierce deep-breathed doggedness the poor English Nation, drawn by their instincts, held fast upon it, and would take no denial, as if THEY had surmised and seen. For the instincts of simple guileless persons (liable to be counted STUPID, by the unwary) are sometimes of prophetic nature, and spring from the deep places of this Universe!—My Constitutional Friend entitles his next Section CARTHAGENA; but might more fitly have headed it (for such in reality it is, Carthagena proving the evanescent point of that sad business),
SUCCINCT HISTORY OF THE SPANISH WAR, WHICH BEGAN IN 1739; AND ENDED—WHEN DID IT END?
1. WAR, AND PORTO-BELLO (NOVEMBER, 1739-MARCH, 1740).—"November 4th, 1739, War was at length (after above four months' obscure quasi-declaring of it, in the shape of Orders in Council, Letters of Marque, and so on) got openly declared; 'Heralds at Arms at the usual places' blowing trumpets upon it, and reading the royal Manifesto, date of which is five days earlier, 'Kensington, October 30th (19th).' The principal Events that ensue, arrange themselves under Three Heads, this of Porto-Bello being the FIRST; and (by intense smelting) are datable as follows:—[Gentleman's Magazine, ix. 551, x. 124, 142, 144, 350; Tindal, xx. 430-433, 442; &c.]
"Tuesday Evening, 1st December, 1739, Admiral Vernon, our chosen Anti-Spaniard, finding, a while ago, that he had missed the Azogue Ships on the Coast of Spain, and must try America and the Spanish Main, in that view arrives at Porto-Bello. Next day, December 2d, Vernon attacks Porto-Bello; attacks certain Castles so called, with furious broadsiding, followed by scalading; gets surrender (on the 3d);—seamen have allowance instead of plunder;—blows up what Castles there are; and returns to Port Royal in Jamaica.
"Never-imagined joy in England, and fame to Vernon, when the news came: 'Took it with Six Ships,' cry they; 'the scurvy Ministry, who had heard him, in the fire of Parliamentary debate, say Six, would grant him no more: invincible Vernon!' Nay, next Year, I see, 'London was illuminated on the Anniversary of Porto-Bello:'—day settled in permanence as one of the High-tides of the Calendar, it would appear. And 'Vernon's Birthday' withal—how touching is stupidity when loyal!—was celebrated amazingly in all the chief Towns, like a kind of Christmas, when it came round; Nature having deigned to produce such a man, for a poor Nation in difficulties. Invincible Vernon, it is thought by Gazetteers, 'will look in at Carthagena shortly;' much more important Place, where a certain Governor Don Blas has been insolent withal, and written Vernon letters.
"2. PRELIMINARIES TO CARTHAGENA (MARCH-NOVEMBER, 1740).—Monday, 14th March, 1740, Vernon did, accordingly, look in on Carthagena; [Gentleman's Magazine, x. 350.] cast anchor in the shallow waste of surfs there, that Monday; and tried some bombarding, with bomb-ketches and the like, from Thursday till Saturday following. Vernon hopes he did hit the Jesuits' College, South Bastion, Custom-house and other principal edifices; but found that there was no getting near enough on that seaward side. Found that you must force the Interior Harbor,—a big Inland Gulf or Lake, which gushes in by what they call LITTLE-MOUTH (Boca-Chica), and has its Booms, Castles and Defences, which are numerous and strongish;—and that, for this end, you must have seven or eight thousand Land Forces, as well as an addition of Ships. On Saturday Evening, therefore, Vernon calls in his bomb-ketches; sails past, examining these things; and goes forth on other small adventures. For example,—