After much deliberation on both sides, an instrument was drawn up and signed, in which the mutual claims for damages sustained in the overseas commerce were balanced and settled. The king of Spain demanded from the South Sea Company sixty-eight thousand pounds as his share of their profits, in the slave-trade; on the other hand he paid to the British merchants as indemnity for losses caused by unwarranted seizures the sum of ninety-five pounds. The question with regard to the boundaries of Florida was also disposed of; it was agreed that both nations were to retain the land then in their possession, until a duly appointed commission should determine the exact boundaries, which meant that Great Britain would hold jurisdiction over the country to the mouth of St. Mary's River. The discussion about this agreement in the British parliament did not add to the glory of the United Kingdom. Walpole spoke in favor of its acceptance, saying "It requires no great abilities in a minister to pursue such measures as make a war unavoidable. But how many ministers have known the art of avoiding war by making a safe and honorable peace?" The Duke of Newcastle, not credited with too much intelligence, opposed the measure. William Pitt, Pulteny and others sided with him. The opposition finally triumphed. Bancroft says of this disgraceful termination of a conference intended to seek equitable solution of a most harassing international problem: "In an ill hour for herself, in a happy one for America, England, on the twenty-third of October, 1639, declared war against Spain. If the rightfulness of the European colonial system be conceded, the declaration was a wanton invasion of it for immediate selfish purposes; but, in endeavoring to open the ports of Spanish America to the mercantile enterprise of her own people, she was beginning a war on colonial monopoly, which could not end till American colonies of her own, as well as of Spain, should obtain independence." Even before this official break between the two countries, the British had become guilty of movements that violated Spanish territory.