orsque ces commissionaires reviennent des Indes soit sur le flottes
galions ou navires particuliers, ils apportent leur argent dans leurs
coffres, la pluspart entre pont et sans connoissement." (Margry:
Relations et memoires inedits pour servir a l'histoire de la France dans
les pays d'outremer, p. 185.)

The importance to the maritime powers of preserving and protecting this
clandestine trade is evident, especially as the Spanish government
frequently found it a convenient instrument for retaliating upon those
nations against which it harboured some grudge. All that was necessary
was to sequester the vessels and goods of merchants belonging to the
nation at which it wished to strike. This happened frequently in the
course of the seventeenth century. Thus Lerma in 1601 arrested the
French merchants in Spain to revenge himself on Henry IV. In 1624
Olivares seized 160 Dutch vessels. The goods of Genoese merchants were
sequestered by Philip IV. in 1644; and in 1684 French merchandize was
again seized, and Mexican traders whose storehouses contained such goods
were fined 500,000 ecus, although the same storehouses contained English
and Dutch goods which were left unnoticed. The fine was later restored
upon Admiral d'Estrees' threat to bombard Cadiz. The solicitude of the
French government for this trade is expressed in a letter of Colbert to
the Marquis de Villars, ambassador at Madrid, dated 5th February
1672:--"Il est tellement necessaire d'avoir soin d'assister les
particuliers qui font leur trafic en Espagne, pour maintenir le plus
important commerce que nous ayons, que je suis persuade que vous ferez
toutes les instances qui pourront dependre de vous ... en sorte que
cette protection produira des avantages considerables au commerce des
sujets de Sa Majeste" (_ibid._, p. 188).

_Cf._ also the instructions of Louis XIV. to the Comte d'Estrees, 1st
April 1680. The French admiral was to visit all the ports of the
Spaniards in the West Indies, especially Cartagena and San Domingo; and
to be always informed of the situation and advantages of these ports,
and of the facilities and difficulties to be met with in case of an
attack upon them; so that the Spaniards might realise that if they
failed to do justice to the French merchants on the return of the
galleons, his Majesty was always ready to force them to do so, either by
attacking these galleons, or by capturing one of their West Indian ports
(_ibid._).]

[Footnote 6: W