writer with some severity, there were not already jackasses enough in London alone. [38. See note 16, p. 249, on Union with Scotland, Darien Scheme and Methuen Treaty.] All this mania for investing capital, however, shows how prosperous England had now become, and how great a quantity of wealth had been accumulated, partly by trade, but also by the growth of manufactures and improvements in agriculture. Englishmen now felt strong enough to have another struggle for the monopoly of trade, with the result that fresh wars were undertaken, and the country was heavily burdened with debt. But the wars were on the whole a success, though the wish for a monopoly was a mistake. § 6. FURTHER WARS WITH FRANCE AND SPAIN—All the wars in which England now engaged had some commercial object in view. People had yet to learn that the best way to extend a nation’s trade is to promote general peace. In default of that, however, it seemed well to provoke a general war. Mistaken as England’s policy was, it was no more so than that of her neighbours, for all believed, as many do still, in the sole market theory. Moreover, England was provoked into war by the secret “Family Compact” between the related rulers of France and Spain, by which Philip V. of Spain agreed to take away the South American trade from England, and give it to his nephew, Louis XV. of France. The result was a system of annoyance to English vessels trading in the South Seas, culminating in the mutilation of an English {127} captain, one Jenkins, and war was declared openly in 1739. This war merged into the war of the Austrian Succession, which lasted for eight years (1740–48), a matter with which England was in no way concerned, but which afforded a good excuse to renew the struggle against the commercial growth of France as well as Spain. We gained nothing by it except the final annihilation of the hopes of the Stuarts, and a small increase of British power upon the high seas.