"The reason for their attack upon Cuba was, as is seen, the commercial and military importance of the island, which was at that epoch considered a necessary stopping place, a rallying point for the vessels going from Spain to America and from America to Spain. To be master of Cuba, thought they, was to be master of the road which the Spanish galleons followed. This rôle of port of supply and repairs for the damages sustained on the sea had made of Havana since the middle of the sixteenth century an important arsenal and dockyard, where there were continually in process of construction enormous ships destined for travel to Spain or South America. From 1747 to 1760 they fitted out seven ships of line, a frigate, a brigantine, and a packet-boat. The vessels which at the side of our fleet at Trafalgar fought those of Nelson had almost all come from the yards of Havana, which used the excellent timber of the island, commerce in which has somewhat diminished in our century." The notes and dispatches exchanged between France and Spain on the one, and Britain on the other side, prove how the two were slowly forced into an alliance against the latter. On the fifteenth of May, France presented a memorial asking that England give no help to the king of Prussia and simultaneously a paper was presented from Spain, demanding indemnity for seizure of ships, the right to fish at Newfoundland and the abandonment of the settlements in the Bay of Honduras. On the twenty-ninth, England demanded Canada, the fisheries, granting to the French a limited concession, unlikely to be of any use, the reduction of Dunkirk, half of the neutral islands; Senegal and Goree, which was equivalent to a monopoly of the slave trade; Minorca; freedom to give help to the king of Prussia; and British supremacy in East India. On the fifteenth of August, the French minister Choiseul concluded with Spain what was called a family compact, rallying all the Bourbons to check the arrogance of Britain. On the same day a special agreement was reached between France and Spain, empowering the latter, unless peace were concluded between France and England before the first of May, 1762, to declare war against England.