destiny was nearly over, and he was taking {161} measures to act accordingly. All that Newcastle could do as Secretary for Foreign Affairs was done to make peace impossible. [Sidenote: 1739--The Convention] Walpole thought the time had fully come when it would be right for him to show that, while still striving for peace, he was not unprepared for war. He sent a squadron of line-of-battle ships to the Mediterranean and several cruisers to the West Indies, and he allowed letters of marque to be issued. These demonstrations had the effect of making the Spanish Government somewhat lower their tone--at least they had the effect of making that Government seem more willing to come to terms. Long negotiations as to the amount of claim on the one side and of set-off on the other were gone into both in London and Madrid. We need not study the figures, for nothing came of the proposed arrangement. It was impossible that anything could come of it. England and Spain were quarrelling over several great international questions. Even these questions were themselves only symbolical of a still greater one, of a paramount question which was never put into words: the question whether England or Spain was to have the ascendent in the new world across the Atlantic. Walpole and the Spanish Government drew up an arrangement, or rather professed to find a basis of arrangement, for the paying off of certain money claims. A convention was agreed upon, and was signed on January 14, 1739. The convention arranged that a certain sum of money was to be paid by Spain to England within a given time, but that this discharge of claims should not extend to any dispute between the King of Spain and the South Sea Company as holders of the Asiento Contract; and that two plenipotentiaries from each side should meet at Madrid to settle the claims of England and Spain with regard to the rights of trade in the New World and the boundaries of Carolina and Florida. This convention, it will be seen, left the really important subjects of dispute exactly where they were before. {162}