instructions "to endeavour to obtain and preserve a good correspondence
and free commerce with the plantations belonging to the King of Spain,"
even resorting to force if necessary.[156]

The question of English trade with the Spanish colonies in the Indies
had first come to the surface in the negotiations for the treaty of
1604, after the long wars between Elizabeth and Philip II. The endeavour
of the Spaniards to obtain an explicit prohibition of commerce was met
by the English demand for entire freedom. The Spaniards protested that
it had never been granted in former treaties or to other nations, or
even without restriction to Spanish subjects, and clamoured for at least
a private article on the subject; but the English commissioners
steadfastly refused, and offered to forbid trade only with ports
actually under Spanish authority. Finally a compromise was reached in
the words "in quibus ante bellum fuit commercium, juxta et secundum usum
et observantiam."[157] This article was renewed in Cottington's Treaty
of 1630. The Spaniards themselves, indeed, in 1630, were willing to
concede a free navigation in the American seas, and even offered to
recognise the English colony of Virginia if Charles I. would admit
articles prohibiting trade and navigation in certain harbours and bays.
Cottington, however, was too far-sighted, and wrote to Lord Dorchester:
"For my own part, I shall ever be far from advising His Majesty to think
of such restrictions, for certainly a little more time will open the
navigation to those parts so long as there are no negative capitulations
or articles to hinder it."[158] The monopolistic pretensions of the
Spanish government were evidently relaxing, for in 1634 the Conde de
Humanes confided to the English agent, Taylor, that there had been talk
in the Council of the Indies of admitting the English to a share in the
freight of ships sent to the West Indies, and even of granting them a
limited permission to go to those regions on their own account. And in
1637 the Conde de Linhares, recently appointed governor of Brazil, told
the English ambassador, Lord Aston, that he was very anxious that
English ships should do the carrying between Lisbon and Brazilian ports.

The settlement of the Windward and Leeward Islands and the conquest of
Jamaica had given a new impetus to contraband trade. The commercial
nations were setting up shop, as it were, at the very doors of the
Spanish Indies. The French and Engl