The chief remaining transactions of this eventful reign must be related with greater brevity. For some time after the disgrace of Ripperdá, Spain adhered to the German alliance; and was alternately friendly or adverse to England, according as the policy of the two courts harmonised or varied. Gibraltar was more than once besieged, but without effect. British armaments frequently appeared off the Spanish coast, but without inflicting much injury. As the emperor was naturally averse again to admit the Spaniards into Italy, and sought for delays, even for evasions, in fulfilling his compact, in 1729 the Treaty of Seville, between Spain, England, and France, broke the connection between the courts of Vienna and Madrid. Philip, by threatening to revoke the commercial advantages secured by the Treaty of Seville, forced the English king to interfere in behalf of Don Charles. In virtue of his efforts, and the assistance of France, the infante was soon invested with the actual possession of Parma and Piacenza, and declared successor to Tuscany.[100] As England evinced a disposition to remain on good terms with the emperor, the Bourbons adhered the more closely to each other; the kings of Spain, France, and Sardinia entered into an alliance against Austria.
It was now that doubtful measures and useless treaties were succeeded by active and extended hostilities. While one French army crossed the Rhine, and another passed the Alps, a Spanish army under Charles invaded Naples, and conquered it almost without an effort. Sicily was next reduced; and the infante, by order of Philip, was solemnly crowned king of the Two Sicilies. By the Treaty of Vienna, in 1735, the emperor, whose arms had been almost uniformly unfortunate, consented to acknowledge Charles, and in return he received Parma and Tuscany.
Omitting the petty intrigues in the cabinet of Madrid—the rise of one worthless favourite, or the ruin of another—the foreign transactions of the country continued to be sufficiently important. England was soon brought into hostile collision with this monarchy. One reason was the jealousy entertained of the Bourbon family by the recent acquisition; another was the opposition thrown in the way of English commerce by the ministers of Philip; a still greater was the contraband traffic which England resolved to maintain with the American colonies—a traffic not very honourable to England and deeply injurious to Spain. On the other hand, the royal officers in the West Indies, under the pretext of the right of search, made many illegal seizures; and, on all occasions, exhibited indirect hostility to the British trade. Her right of search arose from her sovereignty, and had been confirmed by successive treaties; but it was suddenly assailed by the English opposition.[l]
THE LAST OF THE ARMADA
There is no doubt that though the English were most frequently to blame in these transactions, several cases of injustice and violence might be imputed to the Spaniards. These cases were carefully culled out, and highly coloured by the British merchants: these were held out to the British public as fair samples of the rest, while a veil was thrown over the general practice of illicit traffic in America. The usual slowness of forms at Madrid and the difficulty of obtaining redress, even in the clearest cases, added to the national indignation in England: it was also inflamed by a denial of the right to cut logwood in the bay of Campeche, and disputes on the limits of the new settlement which the English had lately formed in North America, and which, in honour to the king, had received the name of Georgia.
These grievances of the British merchants, embodied in angry yet artful petitions, were urged by the opposition in repeated attacks and with combined exertions. First came a motion for papers, next the examination of witnesses, next a string of resolutions, then a bill for securing and encouraging trade to America. The tried ability of Pulteney led the van on these occasions, and under him were marshalled the practical knowledge of Barnard, the stately eloquence of Wyndham, and the rising genius of Pitt. William Murray, the future earl of Mansfield, also appeared at the bar as counsel for the petitioners, and thus commenced his brilliant public career. Every resource of oratory was applied to exaggerate the insults and cruelties of the Spaniards, and to brand as cowardice the minister’s wise and honourable love of peace. It was asserted that the prisoners taken from English merchant vessels had been not merely plundered of their property, but tortured in their persons, immured in dungeons, or compelled to work in the Spanish dockyards, with scanty and loathsome food, their legs cramped with irons, and their bodies overrun with vermin. Some captives and seamen who were brought to the bar gave testimony to these outrages, and were then implicitly believed. Yet calmer judgment may remember that they were not examined upon oath, and had every temptation to exaggerate which interest, party zeal, or resentment can afford; that to inveigh against the Spaniards was then considered a sure test of public spirit; and that they were told to expect, upon the fall of Walpole, a large and lucrative indemnity for their pretended wrongs.
[1738-1739 A.D.]
But the tale that produced the most effect upon the house, and found the loudest echo in the country, was what Burke has since ventured to call “the fable of Jenkins’ ears.” This Jenkins had been master of a trading sloop from Jamaica, which was boarded and searched by a Spanish guarda costa, and though no proofs of smuggling were discovered, yet, according to his own statement, he underwent the most barbarous usage. The Spanish captain, he said, had torn off one of his ears, bidding him carry it to his king, and tell his majesty that were he present he should be treated in the same manner.