CHAPTER I

When the Treaty of Utrecht was signed on the eleventh of April, 1713, the Spanish colonies in America felt as if they were entering upon a new era, an era of peace and unhindered growth and prosperity. They did not realize until the first elation over the establishment of peace had spent itself, that this treaty contained the seeds of future wars which were bound to be quickened by the powerful spirit of commercial rivalry, which had been awakened in the European nations and was alarmingly dimming the justice and righteousness of their policies. By losing the European possessions, the population of Spain had been so seriously diminished that it was entirely out of proportion to the area of her over-seas dominion. While the Bourbon king had nothing more to fear from France, even her pirates having palpably decreased their operations against the Spanish colonies in America, he had in England a rival and enemy whose power he had reason to dread. For all the maritime and commercial agreements of the treaty favored England.

George Bancroft justly characterizes the spirit of the period in the second volume of his "History of the United States" when he says (