r permit it to be done underhand.[69] In
September 1637 proposals were renewed in England for a West India
Company as the only method of obtaining a share in the wealth of
America. It was suggested that some convenient port be seized as a safe
retreat from which to plunder Spanish trade on land and sea, and that
the officers of the company be empowered to conquer and occupy any part
of the West Indies, build ships, levy soldiers and munitions of war, and
make reprisals.[70] The temper of Englishmen at this time was again
illustrated in 1640 when the Spanish ambassador, Alonzo de Cardenas,
protested to Charles I. against certain ships which the Earls of Warwick
and Marlborough were sending to the West Indies with the intention,
Cardenas declared, of committing hostilities against the Spaniards. The
Earl of Warwick, it seems, pretended to have received great injuries
from the latter and threatened to recoup his losses at their expense. He
procured from the king a broad commission which gave him the right to
trade in the West Indies, and to "offend" such as opposed him. Under
shelter of this commission the Earl of Marlborough was now going to sea
with three or four armed ships, and Cardenas prayed the king to restrain
him until he gave security not to commit any acts of violence against
the Spanish nation. The petition was referred to a committee of the
Lords, who concluded that as the peace had never been strictly observed
by either nation in the Indies they would not demand any security of the
Earl. "Whether the Spaniards will think this reasonable or not,"
concludes Secretary Windebank in his letter to Sir Arthur Hopton, "is no
great matter."[71]

During this century and a half between 1500 and 1650, the Spaniards were
by no means passive or indifferent to the attacks made upon their
authority and prestige in the New World. The hostility of the mariners
from the north they repaid with interest, and woe to the foreign
interloper or privateer who fell into their clutches. When Henry II. of
France in 1557 issued an order that Spanish prisoners be condemned to
the galleys, the Spanish government retaliated by commanding its
sea-captains to mete out the same treatment to their French captives,
except that captains, masters and officers taken in the navigation of
the Indies were to be hung or cast into the sea.[72] In December 1600
the governor of Cumana had suggested to the King, as a means of keeping
Dutch and English ships