The History of Cuba, vol. 2

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

One of the most curious books of this kind was "A Voyage to Guinea, Brazil and the West Indies," published in London in the year 1735. Its author was John Atkins, surgeon of the Royal Navy, and though it contained an account of a trip made by him, it very plainly revealed an interest in the commerce of the countries visited and in the possibilities they offered, which, while natural in a business man, was quite surprising in a member of the medical fraternity. After devoting considerable space to the products of these southern lands, hurricanes, etc., he also discourses at length upon the slave-trade and gives interesting glimpses of the manner in which it was conducted. "To give dispatch," says he, "cajole the traders with Brandy," and continues: "Giving way to the ridiculous Humours and Gestures of the trading Negroes is no small artifice for success. If you look strange and are niggardly of your Drams, you frighten him. Sambo is gone, he never cares to treat with dry lips, and as the Expenses is in English Spirits of two Shillings a Gallon, brought partly for this purpose, the good Humour it brings them into, is found discounted in the sale of goods." Speaking of Cuba, he calls it a very pleasant and flourishing island, the Spanish building and improving for posterity without dreaming, as the English planters do, of any other homes. But he does not fail to add, "They make the best Sugars in the world."

Another publication aiming more directly at the mariners and merchants of Great Britain is by one Caleb Smith, called on the title page, the inventor of the "New Sea Quadrant." It was printed in 1740 and was a translation of Domingo Gonzales Carranza's description of the coasts, harbors and sea-ports of the Spanish West Indies. In the curious preface he says:

"The original was brought to England by a Sympathetic prisoner who had been in Havana where he procured it in manuscript and presented it to the Editor as a Testimony of his friendship and respect,"

and the dedication is addressed "to the Merchants of Great Britain, the Commanders of Ships, and others who were pleased to subscribe for this Treatise."

Thus was the mind of the people perpetually stimulated to look beyond the Atlantic for lands and seas which waited to be conquered by British prowess; and the defeat of Vernon in Santiago was hardly heeded. In the meantime negotiations had been going on between the European powers and a convention of their representatives had met at Aix-la-Chapelle to settle certain disputes and sign a treaty of peace. England and Spain on the one and England and France on the other hand had gained nothing by eight years of mutual fighting, but an immense national debt. As at other conferences for the establishment of the world's peace much was said and after all little was done. For when the document known since as the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed in 1748, it left some of the most harassing problems unsolved. Among them was the frontier of Florida and the right of Spanish ships to search British vessels suspected of smuggling. The assiente agreement, which had been found so profitable, was continued for four more years. In the light of later events the treaty was found to be only a makeshift for the moment, and did not prevent the outbreak of new hostilities between Great Britain and Spain when the ink with which the treaty was signed had barely dried on that document.

CHAPTER III

The alliances among the powers of Europe in the middle of the seventeenth century and the unsatisfactory settlements of some of the most harassing questions in dispute produced a state of unrest and tension throughout the world which the clever pourparlers and the fascinating fencing bouts of European diplomacy failed to relieve, and of which Cuba was destined to feel the effects. In spite of her insular isolation Great Britain was closely concerned with the intrigues that were being spun at the courts of the continent and were bound sooner or later to involve Europe in a new bloody conflict. She had on the one hand allied herself with Austria, bribing even some of the South German principalities to insure the election of Joseph II. to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire, and on the other hand with Russia, which was then a newcomer not yet vitally interested in the issues at stake. Both allies failed to keep their pledge; Austria turned away to enter into a confederacy with France, while Russia passed from one camp to the other. The growing ascendancy of Prussia under Frederick II. had long been watched with distrust by the immediate neighbors, but by this time even those whose territories seemed safe from his acquisitive aggressiveness were roused to the realization of the danger it foreboded.

When Saxony and some other German states, Austria, Hungary, Sweden, Russia and France combined to check the Prussian's ambitious designs, Great Britain, Hanover, Hesse-Cassel and Brunswick became the allies of Frederick. Spain with remarkable firmness decided to keep out of the general war which broke out in 1756 and, lasting until 1763, was to be known in history as The Seven Years' War. Even when Pitt, who was the ally of Frederick of Prussia, offered the conditional return of Gibraltar and the abandonment of the British settlements on the Mosquito Coast and in the Bay of Honduras, Fernando VI. resolutely refused to participate.

By this wise policy of non-interference this king secured for Spain a period of peace which brought with it a prosperity it had long lacked. The country recovered from the losses occasioned by previous wars, and when Carlos III. succeeded his father, he found fifteen millions of dollars in the treasury. He, too, was determined to keep peace, but the stubborn resistance of Great Britain to any equitable settlement of the question in dispute between the two countries, and the continual violation of international justice by her mariners were hard to bear and sorely tried the patience of the people. Bancroft says in his history of the United States (Vol. III, p. 264):

"The restitution of the merchant ships, which the English had seized before the war, was justly demanded. They were afloat on the ocean, under every guarantee of safety; they were the property of private citizens, who knew nothing, and could know nothing, of the diplomatic disputes of the two countries. The capture was unjustifiable by every reason of equity and public law. 'The cannon,' said Pitt, 'has settled the question in our favor; and, in the absence of a tribunal, this decision is a sentence.'"