A common interest drew France and Spain into alliance against us, but the causes of hostility were various. As regards Spain, they go back to the reign of Charles II. From the time of our settlement in Jamaica it had been our constant wish to secure the right of trading with the Spanish colonies, while firmly refusing the Spaniards all access to our own. The buccaneer wars, in so far as they were more than plundering raids conducted by miscellaneous scoundrels, were the attempts of private adventurers to carry out this policy. By the Peace of Utrecht we secured the right to share in the trade of Spanish America. Agents were allowed to establish themselves at Carthagena on the Eastern, and Panama on the Western side. We secured an _asiento_, or contract for the supply of negroes. We were also authorised to send one trading ship of 500 tons burden laden with manufactured goods to the Spanish Main in each year. This arrangement led, as it was bound to lead, to much smuggling. As Spain revived, under the more intelligent administration of the Bourbon dynasty, the abuse of English treaty rights was resented. The Spaniards said that the treaty ship was continually supplied with fresh goods by tenders, and complained that other smugglers haunted their coast, and were guilty of many excesses. To protect themselves, they insisted on searching English vessels found near their coast, and condemning those they considered guilty, and Spanish adventurers retaliated by piracy. Hence arose a long angry conflict of claims and counter-claims between England and Spain, complicated by political disputes in Europe, and only prevented from ripening into war by the resolute peace policy of Walpole. The Parliamentary Opposition, composed largely of disappointed office-seekers, and, as they afterwards proved, incapable administrators, took up the cause of the West India traders. There was much general denunciation of the atrocities of the Spaniards. The best known instance given was that of a certain John Jenkins, master of a trading vessel called the =Rebecca= of Glasgow. Jenkins asserted that in 1730 his vessel had been boarded by a Spanish _guarda costa_, or revenue cutter, in the West Indies, and that the Spanish captain, who is habitually described as “the infamous Fandino,” had cut his ear off. His vessel was undoubtedly searched near Havana, but was allowed to proceed on her voyage, and there is no evidence for the story that his ear was cut off except his own word. As the country grew tired of the long predominance of Walpole, and was worked into a pugnacious mood by the Patriots, use was made of Jenkins’s case to appeal to popular sentiment. A theatrical scene was arranged before a Committee of the House of Commons, and the man was prompted to declare “that he had recommended his soul to god, and his cause to his country” when he was subject to the violence of Fandino. At last Walpole, seeing that the