import a negro slave into Spanish America.

This trade in human flesh was duly organized and carried on by a stock company which promised enormous profits. King Philip V., sorely in need of money with which to execute all his plans for the reconstruction of his kingdom, anticipated great gains from such an investment and bought one quarter of the stock. Queen Anne was the owner of another quarter and the remainder was sold among her loyal subjects. Thus the sovereigns of these two kingdoms became the leading slave-merchants in the world and by the provisions of the agreement "her Britannic Majesty" enjoyed the somewhat dubious distinction of being for the Spanish colonies in the Gulf of Mexico, on the Atlantic and along the Pacific coasts, the exclusive slave-trader.

No trade required as little outlay in capital as the slave-trade. Trifles, trinkets and refuse stock of every possible kind of merchandise including discarded weapons, were exchanged for the human cargoes on the African coast; who, crowded into vessels, crossed the seas, and upon their arrival in the New World were sold to the colonists who wanted cheap labor and a cheaper service. A fever of speculation which had in it no little touch of adventure, seemed to sweep over England and to delude the people with visions of wealth to be acquired by a conquest of the Spanish possessions from Florida south, including Mexico and Peru. Wild schemes of colonization promised to open Golcondas on the fields of sugar-cane and tobacco, and in the mines holding inestimable treasures of gold and silver. For the realization of those plans negro labor was needed. Even in the West Indies it was welcomed especially by those settlements engaged in the raising of sugar cane.

That the Assiento opened the door to all sorts of clandestine commercial operations, as also to insidious political intrigue was soon to become evident. Agents of the Assiento had the right to enter any Spanish port in America and from there send other agents to inland settlements; they had the right to establish warehouses for their supplies, safe against search unless proof of fraudulent operations, that is importations, was incontestable. They could send every year a ship of five hundred tons with a cargo of merchandise to the West Indies and without paying any duty sell these goods at the annual fair. On the return trip this ship was allowed to carry products of the country, including gold and silver, directly to Europe. The assientists urged the American colonies to furnish them supplies in small vessels. Now it was known that such vessels were particularly favored by the smuggling trade. Hence British trade in negro slaves was indirectly used to encourage smuggling and thus undermine Spanish commerce.

To estimate the extent of the smuggling trade directly traceable to the loop-holes which the Assiento offered, was impossible. Jamaica, the stronghold of British power in the West Indies, and ever a hotbed of political and commercial intrigue against the Spanish neighbors, became a beehive of smuggling activities. In places formerly used as bases of buccaneer operations a lively business was carried on with contraband goods. The danger to legitimate commerce in and with the West Indies became so great that the Cuban authorities were forced towards the end of Governor Guazo's administration to adopt strenuous methods in dealing with such offenders. D. Benito Manzano, Andrez Gonzales and other mariners and soldiers of experience and known valor were sent out against them and made important seizures in this service. The governor was authorized to organize cuadrillos (patrols) of custom officers and equip custom house cutters that watched for and descended upon all vessels found without proper clearance papers or that had failed to register their cargoes in conformity to the laws of the island. The smugglers were tried and condemned to suffer various penalties, ranging from loss of property, hard labor and imprisonment, to death.

Governor Guazo's reorganization of the military forces gave proof of his extraordinary foresight and his executive power. He formed a battalion of infantry composed of seven companies of one hundred men and besides two other companies, one of artillery, the other of light cavalry, which was later changed to mounted dragoons. Two more companies of seventy men each were added some years later by order of the king. For the lodgment of these troops Governor Guazo ordered built the rastrille (gateway of a palisade), which became later part of the fortress and the quarters that run along the southern part.

Governor Guazo was a man of action and enterprise, besides being endowed with no little military genius. Never once during his administration did he lapse into that passive attitude which was in a large degree responsible for the slow pace at which the Spanish colonies progressed. One of his first aims was to inflict an exemplary punishment upon the outlaws of the seas that rendered insecure the coasts of the Spanish island colonies, and interfered seriously with commerce in the Gulf of Mexico. The militia of Havana had on previous occasions, when called into service on the sea, proved its mettle and displayed so much bravery and perseverance in the pursuit of its tasks that he had unlimited confidence in its ability to do the work he planned. He conferred with the governor of Florida, and they agreed upon concerted action against the English colony of St. George in the Carolinas. He made it known that he intended to dislodge the pirates on the island of the Bahamas called New Providence and for some time settled by the British. For that purpose he fitted out fourteen light vessels, ten bilanders (small one-mast ships, one of them of fourteen pieces), two brigantines (two-masted vessels with square sails) and other smaller ships with munitions and sufficient stores. Then he gathered a force of one thousand volunteers, one hundred veteran soldiers and a few of the prominent residents of the city to whom he entrusted the command of some of the ships. As head of the expedition he named D. Alfonso Carrascesa, a dependable official, and as his assistant D. Esteban Severino de Berrea, a native of Havana and the oldest captain of the white militia.

The story of this enterprise as related by Guiteras gives a somewhat different version of the struggles between the French and the Spaniards for the possession of Pensacola as that contained in the preceding chapter. According to Guiteras the armada organized in Havana and placed under command of Carrascesa sailed on the fourth of July, 1719. But it had barely left the harbor, when it sighted two French warships. They were coming from Pensacola, which the French had just captured, and had on board as prisoners the governor and the whole garrison. Carrascesa did not for a moment lose his calm assurance at this unexpected intermezzo. He stopped the French when they turned to flee, and they were in turn captured. With the rescued Spaniards from Pensacola he returned to Havana, considering this easy victory of happy augury for the expedition upon which he had set out. But Governor Guazo persuaded him that the reconquest of Pensacola was of paramount importance. Carrascesa yielded to Guazo's arguments and the entreaties of the governor of Florida's stronghold and started upon his new task. He succeeded in recovering Pensacola and reinstalling the Spanish governor with his garrison. Of the ultimate defeat of the expedition Guiteras has nothing to say.

Carrascesa, too, was a man of untiring activity and did not rest upon the laurels of his victory over the French. He made several expeditions to the ports of Masacra, Mobile and other places, laying waste rice fields and sugar plantations. He captured a number of transports carrying army provisions, and also took many negroes that had been brought over by the company carrying on slave trade, prisoners. So encouraged was he by his successes, that he planned another attack upon Masacra, which was