Spain’s American Trade, 1708–1713

By the year 1708 the French had reasons to believe that they were on the point of an important break-through in their negotiations with the Spanish on the question of the transatlantic trade. It will be remembered that in 1706 the Spanish ministers of the Junta de comercio had finally yielded, in principle at least, to French insistence that the old system of galeones and flota should be abolished. The matter was again brought up in the spring of 1708, when a renewed French diplomatic effort attempted to implement the recommendations of the by-now defunct Junta. Once more French and Spanish officials sat down together to draft a revised set of regulations governing future trading practice with the colonies, based on the previous agreements of 1706. But although the French realised that tact and even compromise were still necessary if they were to gain any real advantage, they clearly hoped that at this stage the reforms would embody major concessions to their country’s diplomacy. However the series of articles, when they were eventually agreed upon in July 1708, represented for the French nothing more nor less than one step forward and two steps back from their very promising position of 1706. For while it was at last accepted that henceforth all foreigners might participate directly in the American trade (i.e. register cargoes for the Indies in their own names and not through Spanish agents) it was still roundly declared that the trade itself would continue to be the exclusive preserve of Spanish subjects.