itain. When the fortunes of Spain were low in 1713, she had been
forced not merely to cede Gibraltar but also to give to the British the
monopoly of supplying the Spanish colonies with negro slaves and the
right to send one ship a year to trade at Porto Bello in South America.
It seems a sufficiently ignoble bargain for a great nation to exact: the
monopoly of carrying and selling cargoes of black men and the right to
send a single ship yearly to a Spanish colony. We can hardly imagine
grave diplomats of our day haggling over such terms. But the eighteenth
century was not the twentieth. From the treaty the British expected
amazing results. The South Sea Company was formed to carry on a vast
trade with South America. One ship a year could, of course, carry
little, but the ships laden with negroes could smuggle into the
colonies merchandise and the one trading ship could be and was reloaded
fraudulently from lighters so that its cargo was multiplied manyfold.
Out of the belief in huge profits from this trade with its exaggerated
visions of profit grew in 1720 the famous South Sea Bubble which
inaugurated a period of frantic speculation in England. Worthless shares
in companies formed for trade in the South Seas sold at a thousand per
cent of their face value. It is a form of madness to which human greed
is ever liable. Walpole's financial insight condemned from the first the
wild outburst, and his common sense during the crisis helped to stem the
tide of disaster. The South Sea Bubble burst partly because Spain stood
sternly on her own rights and punished British smugglers. During
many years the tension between the two nations grew. No doubt
Spanish officials were harsh. Tales were repeated in England of their
brutalities to British sailors who fell into their hands. In 1739 the
story of a certain Captain Jenkins that his ear had been cut off by
Spanish captors and thrown in his face with an insulting message to his
government brought matters to a climax. Events in other parts of Europe
soon made the war general. When, in 1740, the young King of Prussia,
Frederick II, came to the throne, his first act was to march an army
into Silesia. To this province he had, he said, in the male line,
a better claim than that of the woman, Maria Theresa, who had just
inherited the Austrian crown. Frederick conquered Silesia and held
it. In 1744 he was allied with Spain and France, while Britain allied
herself with Austria, and thus Britai