Читать книгу The Life of Sir Henry Morgan. With an account of the English settlement of the island of Jamaica онлайн

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The treaty of Breda, signed on the 21st of July, 1667, between England and Holland, had been followed by a fit of rigid economy in public affairs on the part of the English ministry. The Lord High Admiral was instructed that the annual expenditure on the royal navy would be limited to two hundred thousand pounds, to begin on Lady day following. Half this sum was allotted for the construction of new ships. It was estimated that the other half would maintain twenty-four ships at sea in the summer and ten in the winter. One or perhaps two of these ships would be available for service at Jamaica. All crews were to be reduced by one half.[149]

After many months of tedious and unsatisfactory negotiations a treaty for the "continuation and renewal of peace between Charles II, King of Spain, and Charles II, King of England," had been signed at Madrid on the 23rd of May, 1667, by the Earl of Sandwich, the envoy extraordinary appointed for that purpose. The Spanish ministers had still obstinately refused to recognize the sovereignty of the King of England over Jamaica, and no mention was made of the West Indies in the treaty. Its principal article provided for the safe passage of the subjects of either monarch "by land and water through the territories, dominions, possessions, cities, towns, villages enclosed with walls, fortified or unfortified, their havens and ports, where they have been accustomed hitherto to deal or trade." Sandwich, indeed, asserted that the terms of the treaty were intended to apply to any part of the world, but it soon appeared that the Spanish government would not interpret them in that way.[150]