A revolt of the Catalonians on the French frontier led to a difficulty with France, which was finally adjusted by the celebrated "treaty of the Pyrenees." In this treaty was included the marriage of the young King Louis XIV. and Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip IV., the King of Spain. The European Powers would only consent to this union upon condition that Louis should solemnly renounce all claim to the Spanish crown for himself and his heirs; which promise had later a somewhat eventful history. Seven of the United Provinces had achieved their independence during the reign of the third Philip, who had also driven out of his kingdom six hundred thousand Moriscos; by far the most skilled and industrious portion of the community. And now, at the close of the reign of Philip IV., the kingdom was further diminished by the loss of Portugal; which, in 1664, the Lusitanians recovered, and proclaimed the Duke of Braganza King. When we add to this the loss of much of the Netherlands, and of the island of Jamaica, and concessions here and there to France and to Italy, it will be obvious that a process of contraction had soon followed that of Spain's phenomenal expansion! During the reign of Carlos II., who succeeded his father (1665), Spain was still further diminished by the cession to Louis XIV., in 1678, of more provinces in the Low Countries and also of the region now known as Alsace and Lorraine; which, it will be remembered, have in our own time passed from the keeping of France to that of victorious Germany. In the year 1655 the island of Jamaica was captured by an expedition sent out by Cromwell. It was between the years 1670 and 1686 that the Spaniard and the Anglo-Saxon had their first collision in America. St. Augustine had been founded in 1565, and the old Spanish colony was much disturbed in 1663, when Charles II. of England planted an English colony in their near neighborhood (the Carolinas). During the war between Spain and England at the time above mentioned, feeling ran high between Florida and the Carolinas, and houses were burned and blood was shed. Spain had felt no concern about the little English colony planted on the bleak New England coast in 1620. Death by exposure and starvation promised speedily to remove that. But the settlement on the Carolinas was more serious, and at the same time the French were planting a colony of their own at the mouth of the Mississippi. The "lords of America" began to feel anxious about their control of the Gulf of Mexico. The cloud was a very small one, but it was not to be the last which would dim their skies in the West.