The pamphlets reproduced here deal with Walpole's declining reputation and especially with his handling of Spanish policy. The causes of the English differences with Spain go back to 1713 and the Treaty of Utrecht in which the South Sea Company had been granted, amongst other privileges, the right to send one trading vessel a year to the Spanish possessions.[14] This right had been grossly abused by English merchants eager to make large profits and a great number of English trading ships annually smuggled goods to Spanish America. The Spanish governors were only too pleased to accept such contraband trade for by it they avoided payment of duties to the King of Spain. In order to defend themselves against this illegal traffic the Spanish authorities established a fleet of _guarda-costas_ to intercept, search, and, if necessary, punish the English ships. The _guarda-costas_ did this with great effect and, on occasion, with considerable cruelty. The most notorious example concerned the capture, near Jamaica in 1731, of Captain Robert Jenkins' ship, the _Rebecca_, and the ensuing removal of one of Jenkins' ears. It was with Jenkins' presentation of this ear, which "wrapt up in cotton, he always carried about him,"[15] before the House of Commons seven years later in March 1738 that Anglo-Spanish differences came to a head. The Patriots demanded war and revenge: Walpole, however, was committed to a policy of peace. Accordingly, he spent the rest of the year trying to patch things up and the ill-fated Convention of Pardo concluded on 14 January 1739 was the result. The Convention involved compromise on both sides. England claimed that Spain owed her L343,277 by way of reparation for damages done to English vessels, and Spain claimed that England owed her L180,000 by way of arrears on duties due to the King of Spain. This left a balance of L163,277 and England agreed to accept L95,000 as a total discharge in return for payment within four months.[16]