Thus was the mind of the people perpetually stimulated to look beyond the Atlantic for lands and seas which waited to be conquered by British prowess; and the defeat of Vernon in Santiago was hardly heeded. In the meantime negotiations had been going on between the European powers and a convention of their representatives had met at Aix-la-Chapelle to settle certain disputes and sign a treaty of peace. England and Spain on the one and England and France on the other hand had gained nothing by eight years of mutual fighting, but an immense national debt. As at other conferences for the establishment of the world's peace much was said and after all little was done. For when the document known since as the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed in 1748, it left some of the most harassing problems unsolved. Among them was the frontier of Florida and the right of Spanish ships to search British vessels suspected of smuggling. The assiente agreement, which had been found so profitable, was continued for four more years. In the light of later events the treaty was found to be only a makeshift for the moment, and did not prevent the outbreak of new hostilities between Great Britain and Spain when the ink with which the treaty was signed had barely dried on that document. CHAPTER III The alliances among the powers of Europe in the middle of the seventeenth century and the unsatisfactory settlements of some of the most harassing questions in dispute produced a state of unrest and tension throughout the world which the clever pourparlers and the fascinating fencing bouts of European diplomacy failed to relieve, and of which Cuba was destined to feel the effects. In spite of her insular isolation Great Britain was closely concerned with the intrigues that were being spun at the courts of the continent and were bound sooner or later to involve Europe in a new bloody conflict. She had on the one hand allied herself with Austria, bribing even some of the South German principalities to insure the election of Joseph II. to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire, and on the other hand with Russia, which was then a newcomer not yet vitally interested in the issues at stake. Both allies failed to keep their pledge; Austria turned away to enter into a confederacy with France, while Russia passed from one camp to the other. The growing ascendancy of Prussia under Frederick II. had long been watched with distrust by the immediate neighbors, but by this time even those whose territories seemed safe from his acquisitive aggressiveness were roused to the realization of the danger it foreboded.