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Updated: May 26, 2025
The French king, in order to enjoy all the advantages that could be derived from his union with Spain, established a company to open a trade with Mexico and Peru; and concluded a new Assiento treaty for supplying the Spanish plantations with negroes. At the same time he sent a strong squadron to the port of Cadiz.
The contracting parties agreed, that all prisoners on each side should be mutually released, without ransom, and all conquests restored; that the duchies of Parma, Placentia, and Guastalla, should be ceded as a settlement to the infant don Philip, and the heirs male of his body; but in case of his ascending the throne of Spain, or of the two Sicilies, or his dying without male issue, that they should revert to the house of Austria; that the king of Great Britain should, immediately after the ratification of this treaty, send two persons of rank and distinction, to reside in France, as hostages, until restitution should be made of Cape Breton, and all the other conquests which his Britannic majesty should have achieved in the East or West Indies, before or after the preliminaries were signed; that the assiento contract, with the article of the annual ship, should be confirmed for four years, during which the enjoyment of that privilege was suspended since the commencement of the present war; that Dunkirk should remain fortified on the land side, and towards the sea continue on the footing of former treaties.
Negotiations were set on foot, but their only result was the assiento contract, or the privilege of supplying the colonies with negroes for thirty years, and of sending once a year a vessel, limited both as to tonnage and value of cargo, to trade with Mexico, Peru, or Chili.
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? "The Assiento Treaty being fixed upon, the English ought to have kept it.
If, therefore, the settling of this part of Terra Australis should devolve on the South Sea Company, by way of equivalent for the loss of their Assiento contract, there is no sort of question but it might be as well performed by them as by any other, and the trade carried on without interfering with that which is at present carried on, either by the East India or African Companies.
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. This was the fact, perfectly well known in England, veiled over by mere smuggler pretences, and obstinately persisted in, so profitable was it.
The importation of negroes into the Spanish possessions had been carried on under contract from the very first. The assiento, which had been previously granted to Spanish subjects, was, in 1696, granted to the Portuguese Company of Guinea, and in 1702 to the Royal Guinea Company of France; but in 1713 England secured this lucrative monopoly and became the great slave-trading power of the world.
Ever since the assiento of 1713 had placed the slave trade in her hands, Great Britain had realized the possibilities of South American commerce, and the intercourse, which had been kept up with that country after the termination of the slave monopoly by smugglers, now that the danger was removed, became more regular and profitable.
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