1. Lat. Amer. Stud. r, I, I-30 Printed in Great Britain

British Policy and Spanish America, I783-I808

by JOHN LYNCH

'The liberation of South America', wrote Castlereagh in I807, 'must be

accomplished through the wishes and exertions of the inhabitants; but the

change can only be operated ... under the protection and with the support of an auxiliary British force '.1 The argument, familiar in political debate, was rare in official policy. Britain, it is true, had long regarded Spanish America as a source of strength for her rivals and a potential market for her manu- factures. After the Peace of 1783 interest became more intense as British

observers, impressed by the vulnerability of empires, claimed to see signs of

rapid decline in the empire of Spain. Intelligence reports on Spanish America accumulated in government departments; plans for British attacks flowed from official and private sources; and a section of merchant opinion increased its agitation for military intervention in the area. Yet, apart from the conquest of Trinidad in x797 and the attempted conquest of the Rio de la Plata in 1806-7, British policy towards Spanish America was diffident in its approach and vague in its intent. There were, indeed, compelling reasons

why Spanish America should remain on the margin of British policy. Britain's existing European and imperial interests necessarily dominated her

policy and absorbed her resources. Until 1806, moreover, existing channels of trade in Europe and the rest of the world were sufficient to take the bulk of British industrial production. And military resources were usually insuffi- cient to release troops either from Europe or the West Indies for major operations in a new theatre of war.2 British policy towards Spanish America, therefore, was essentially negative: it was easier for statesmen to see what

they should prevent-principally the extension of French power and ideology in the New World-than to determine what they should promote. Should

1 Charles W. Vane, Marquess of Londonderry (ed.), Correspondence, Despatches, and Other

Papers of Viscount Castlereagh, Second Marquess of Londonderry (hereinafter cited as

Castlereagh Papers) (I2 vols., London, I848-53), vII, 385. 2 It was for this reason that consideration was given to sending expeditions across the Pacific

from India, an operation which would involve great problems of timing, logistics and finance.

L.A.S.-I

I

2 John Lynch

Britain espouse a policy of conquest, of emancipation, or a combination of both? Whatever the option, there were a number of formidable deterrents.

The loss of the North American colonies did not in itself inhibit British

imperial activity in the years after 1783; dominion and colonization were still at the service of commerce if circumstances required.3 But even those observers who continued to believe in the value of empire doubted whether it should include acquisitions from the empire of Spain. The Earl of

Selkirk, for example, whose colonizing activities in North America have overshadowed his distinguished advocacy of a policy of emancipation in

Spanish America, argued in 1806 that 'it may be fairly doubted whether the revenue that would arise from these Spanish American provinces would be sufficient indemnification for the burdens which the possession would involve'.4 And he thought that a British colonial administration would be

incapable of governing Spanish Americans. These arguments he regarded as decisive against any policy of permanent conquest in Spanish America;

by promoting its independence, on the other hand, Britain would gain the commercial benefits of empire without its political obligations. This is not to say that British thinking was conditioned by a doctrinaire aversion to dominion in Spanish America; the real criterion was whether local conditions made it feasible.

A policy of conquest pre-supposed that the creoles would welcome a

change of imperial government. But any illusions about this were shattered in the Rio de la Plata in 1806-7. During the British occupation of Monte- video Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Bourke sounded creole opinion and found that it was 'entirely turned towards Independence, and the establishment of a Republic or Federal Government similar to that of North America. That the submitting to an English master would be the greatest possible bar to this project ... I have never heard a word of an English Party of which so much was said in London about the time of our sailing; nor do I believe that such a party ever existed.' 5 Another officer was even more pessimistic: 'You have not a friend among the inhabitants of South America. The

people here are not that soft, effeminate race they are in Old Spain, on the

contrary they are ferocious and want discipline only to make them formid- able.' 6 In the event they had discipline enough to eject the British invaders.

3 See Vincent T. Harlow, The Founding of the Second British Empire, 1763-93 (2 vols., London, 1952-64), and the commentaries of Richard Pares, English Historical Review, LXVIII

(I953), 282-5, and Ronald Hyam, 'British Imperial Expansion in the late Eighteenth Century ', The Historical Journal, x (I967), I13-24.

4 Thomas Douglas, fifth Earl of Selkirk, 'Observations on the proposed expedition against Spanish America' (7 June i806), British Museum, Add. 37884, ff. 16-17.

5 Bourke to Windham, 9 Feb. 1807, B.M., Add. 37886, ff. 38-9v. 6 Colonel Browne to General Walpole, 25 April I807, B.M., Add. 37886, ff. 253-5v.

British Policy and Spanish America, 1783-1808 3

The alternative to conquest was emancipation, but this raised further

problems. No British government would promote a revolution for indepen- dence if it was likely to unleash a social revolution. Aversion to social

change inhibited British policy towards Spanish America throughout this

period, especially after 1789 when the spectre of the French Revolution with its levelling doctrines, and the example of class and racial conflict in the

colony of Saint Domingue, haunted British statesmen for many years to come. These fears were later expressed by the Duke of Wellington, who had been prepared to execute a policy of emancipation that was an affront to all his conservative instincts: 'I always had a horror of revolutionising any country for a political object. I always said, if they rise of themselves, well and good, but do not stir them up; it is a fearful responsibility.' 7 Views of this kind conditioned British policy in the Rio de la Plata in I806-7, when military commanders were instructed that the object of the operation was not revolution but a change of imperial government, that they must avoid arousing 'a spirit of insurrection and revolt', and that they must do

nothing to impair 'the rights and privileges, or even established usages, of

any class of inhabitants '. The danger of social revolution, of course, could be used to justify a

somewhat different argument. Granted that the spirit of revolution already existed in Spanish America, should not Britain intervene to direct and con- trol it? This was the view of Henry Dundas, who questioned whether Britain was in a position to prevent the spread of a 'revolutionizing system' in Spanish America; Britain should act, with a policy of independence, in order to avoid the danger that would arise 'if this empire is to be permitted to revolutionize itself without guidance or control '. This was also the stand-

point of the Earl of Selkirk in i806. Recognizing that the fear of spreading 'Jacobin principles' had been a deterrent to British action in the previous war with Spain, he argued that revolutionary upheaval was now less likely to come from the imperialist policy of Napoleon than from the activities of Francisco de Miranda, who was then at large in the Caribbean. The Venezuelan revolutionary, he thought, 'may be unable to repress the dissen- tions among the different classes and orders of the colonists-to reconcile the

contending factions of the Whites, the Indians, the Negroes, Mulattoes, etc. ... the horrors of St. Domingo may be acted over again in the Caraccas '. 0

7 Philip Henry, fifth Earl of Stanhope, Notes of Conversations with the Duke of Wellington I83I-1851 (3rd ed., London, 1889), p. 69.

8 Instructions to Whitelocke, 5 March 1807, B.M., Add. 37886, f. I48. 9 'Memorandum for the consideration of the Cabinet', 3 Oct. 1799, Castlereagh Papers, viI,

284-5. 10 Selkirk, 'Observations', B.M., Add. 37884, ff. 20-2.

4 John Lynch

The presence of a British force, he concluded, would reduce these dangers. Finally, Lord Castlereagh himself, who was certainly prepared in 1808 to send a liberating expedition to Spanish America, met the argument that the new governments 'would become democratic and revolutionary' with the

simple assertion that in an emergency risks must be taken and as long as

anarchy was avoided the risks were justified.11 British analysis of the social structure in Spanish America, though rudi-

mentary, was accurate enough to make clear that support for a creole elite would not in itself involve basic social change. But there were further com-

plications. Support for creoles was rightly seen to entail an irrevocable commitment to independence. But Britain was unfamiliar with such a role. She had recent experience of resisting an independence movement, but no

experience at all of promoting one. On the other hand she was highly experienced in making colonial conquests, not necessarily with the intention of retaining them. Her ministers were not foolish enough, even in 1806 in the Rio de la Plata, to suppose that immense territories could be permanently held by a few thousand troops. But the practice of seizing colonies with the

object of trading them at the peace table was perfectly understood and

usually successful. Moreover, in a period when Britain's greatest enemy was

France, not Spain, and when it was frequently hoped to detach Spain from

France, a policy of barter was less hostile to Spain, because less irrevocable, than one of fomenting revolution and independence in Spain's empire.l2 Spanish Americans, however, would not risk their lives and property in

response to a British lead for independence unless Britain's commitment was

powerful enough to succeed and unambiguous enough to be permanent. The British government failed to resolve this dilemma in the Rio de la Plata in I806-7. General Beresford deliberately refrained from making any promises to the creoles about their future state, in order not to compromise Britain's freedom of action when the war ended. General Whitelocke was instructed that 'no other assurance . . . can be given them, but that His

Majesty will not surrender but with great reluctance, possessions to which he attaches so much value', and would never surrender them without

guarantees for the security of collaborators.l3 Assurances of this kind could

only damage the British cause. The burdens of conquest, the hazards of emancipation, these were

obstacles enough to the formation of a British policy towards Spanish America. But they were not the only ones. Any government would hesitate

11 Memorandum, I May I807, Castlereagh Papers, vI, 320-I. 12 For this argument, in a different form, see Castlereagh to Duke of Manchester, Governor of

Jamaica, 4 June i808, ibid., vi, 366-7. 13 Instructions to Whitelocke, 5 March I807, B.M., Add. 37886, f. 50o.

British Policy and Spanish America, I783-I808 5

to commit an expensive expeditionary force to a distant continent without some confidence that the terrain was fruitful to its operations. This was

essentially an intelligence problem. And although the British government managed in some degree to penetrate the secrecy in which Spain enveloped its overseas empire, it could never act with the conviction derived from cer- tain knowledge. British intelligence on Spanish America came in part from

Spanish Americans themselves, from a small group of emigres and revolu- tionaries who converged on London in search of British support for emanci-

pation-Antonio Nariiio from New Granada, Pedro Jose Caro from Cuba, Mariano Castilla from Buenos Aires, Eugenio Cortes from Chile, Joseph Pavia from Mexico, and, the most distinguished and persistent of them all, Francisco de Miranda from Venezuela. Some of these, such as Miranda and

Pavia, received government patronage while they were sounded for infor- mation and held in reserve for use in possible operations. Others, like Caro, were rejected as untrustworthy. All these sources were regarded with some reserve because of their evident partiality.14 But the British government also

disposed of its own sources of intelligence, a small group of consultants who either volunteered information or were approached when the occasion arose. Travellers who had gained entry to South America, merchants who had traded on its coasts, naval and official personnel in the West Indies, all these

provided the government with a working knowledge of conditions in the

subcontinent, sometimes in circumstantial detail. In 1807, for example, infor- mation on Mexico was supplied to Sir Arthur Wellesley by Charles Frazer, a merchant who had traded on the coast of Mexico. In the same year Castle-

reagh consulted Mr J. D. R. Gordon who had spent six years in Mexico and was able to report on political conditions, communications and military establishments.15 One of the most prolific sources of information was William

Jacob, F.R.S., economist and merchant, who had traded for some years to

Spanish America. Jacob volunteered to the government a number of plans for liberating expeditions-like most of their kind highly unrealistic-and a succession of memoranda on conditions in the Spanish colonies. Not all of his information was first-hand, but his paper on Mexico in I806 revealed extensive and detailed knowledge, relatively recent, of communications and defence installations, as well as climatic and geographical conditions, while his other writings, including those on the Rio de la Plata, indicate that he was a serious student of the history, the laws and institutions, and the

14 See W. S. Robertson, The Life of Miranda (2 vols., Chapel Hill, 1929); M. Batllori, S.J., El Abate Viscardo, Historia y mito de la intervencion de los Jesuitas en la independencia de

Hispanoamerica (Caracas, I953). 15 Gordon to Castlereagh, 26 Jan. I808, Castlereagh Papers, vI, 426-41.

6 John Lynch

economy of Spanish America.16 In the eastern Caribbean the island of Trini- dad, close to the mainland and a haven for refugees, was a perfect base for the collection of information, a service which Colonel Thomas Picton, the first British governor, and his successor, Colonel Thomas Hislop, performed with enthusiasm. The navy too was a valuable instrument of intelligence. The Orinoco was surveyed by a gunboat up to Angostura in late I80o, when it was reported that Spain had no military post capable of resistance on the river.7 In May 1806 Governor Hislop forwarded a paper written by Lieu- tenant Briarly, who had made previous forays into Venezuelan territory and who had 'lately returned from Cumana, where he went in a coaster and

being an acquaintance of the Governor there was permitted to land and

passed two days on shore at Government House '.1 Briarly's report contained substantial economic and military intelligence on Venezuela.

The British government, therefore, was reasonably well informed on the state of Spanish defences. Its informants, however, invariably underestimated the potential and the loyalty of the creole militia, as it learnt to its cost in the Rio de la Plata. This indeed was the crux of the matter. Were the creoles on the verge of revolution and ready to take up arms against Spain? British officials and consultants usually reported on social as well as military con- ditions, and although their prejudices tended to warp their judgement, they were familiar enough with the main outline of the Spanish American social structure. They identified two prominent sources of creole discontent, exclu- sion from higher office and the Spanish commercial monopoly.l9 William

Jacob, whose analysis was rather more sophisticated than that of other con- sultants, also underlined a sense of local identity among Spanish Americans. In advice to the government on the administration of Buenos Aires in I8o6 he described the creole aristocracy of Mexico, Peru and New Granada, their

property and influence', their 'feelings of attachment to the land of their

nativity, in contempt for the government of Spain by the house of Bourbon, and in detestation of those Europeans who under the auspices of the present state are continually sent there to execute the offices of government, to an extent which the state of society is far from requiring'. With this he con- trasted the Rio de la Plata which, lacking the economic attraction of Peru, had never possessed a powerful creole aristocracy; its immigrants had been

16 Memorandum' on the attack of Mexico from the eastern side', II July I806, Castlereagh Papers, vII, 293-302; see also Jacob to Windham, 24 Sept. I8o6, B.M., Add. 37884, ff. 159- 68.

17 Plan of J. Sullivan for attack on Spanish America, B.M., Add. 37885, f. I85v. 18 Hislop to Sullivan, 20 May I8o6, enclosing 'Remarks relative to the Spanish colonies in

South America, by Lieut. Briarly of the Royal Navy', B.M., Add. 37883, ff. 263-7. 19 See, for example, the views of various consultants in Castlereagh Papers, vII, 270, 291, 435,

436; see also Selkirk, ' Observations ', B.M., Add. 37884, f. 12.

British Policy and Spanish America, I783-1808 7

'men of the lowest origin'; the profits of commerce had enriched some of their descendants, but had 'neither given them local attachments or exten- sive influence '.0 Jacob's pejorative views on the creoles of the Rio de la Plata were subsequently echoed by General Auchmuty, who thought that 'from their ignorance, their want of morals, and the barbarity of their dis-

position, they are totally unfitted to govern themselves'. 1 Yet most of the British experts assumed that the creoles were ready to revolt and only needed a lead from Britain. As Sir Arthur Wellesley, later Duke of Wellington, pointed out, there was no hard evidence for the assumption. Nor could there have been, for the mass of the creoles themselves had not yet clarified their

political objectives. On this essential point, therefore, the British government necessarily lacked conclusive information. There was no sound alternative but to wait and see.

While it was impossible to be certain whether the British would be accept- able in Spanish America as liberators, it appeared more than likely that they 'would be welcomed as traders; the creole desire for a free trade with Britain, it was urged, if properly exploited, would open an immense market for British exports and an important source of bullion and raw materials. But was the commercial argument for intervention in Spanish America powerful enough to outweigh the attendant political risks? The main routes of a limited British trade to Spanish America were already well established by the second half of the eighteenth century. During years of peace consider- able quantities of British manufactures went to Spanish America as re-

exports from Spain, and for this reason British commercial opinion welcomed the introduction of comercio libre between Spain and her colonies from

1765.22 And in the Americas there were two centres of an illegal trade with the Spanish colonies, the free ports in the British West Indies and Portu-

guese Brazil in the South Atlantic. The free port system, which in effect

placed the onus of breaking Spanish laws and evading Spanish patrols on the merchants and shippers of Spain herself, was designed precisely with the

object that Britain might enjoy 'all the advantages of the foreign colonies without being exposed to the expense of establishing or protecting them'.23 And it was successful. Although the lucrative and closely guarded Mexican trade largely eluded British penetration, Cuba, Venezuela, New Granada,

20 Jacob to Windham, 24 Sept. I806, B.M., Add. 37884, if. I59-68. 21 Auchmuty to Windham, 6 March 1807, The Proceedings of a General Court Martial ...

for the Trial of Gen. Whitelocke (2 vols., London, i808), n, 768. 22 Rochford to Conway, 28 Oct. I765, Public Record Office, London, S.P., Spain, 94/172. 23 Thomas Irving, Inspector General of Customs, Nov. I786, in Frances Armytage, The Free

Port System in the British West Indies. A Study in Commercial Policy, 1766-I822 (London, I953); see also B.M., Add. 38345, if. 208-13, for a text of Irving's report on the free port system.

8 John Lynch

and even Peru-via the Isthmus ports-were drawn within the trading orbit of the British West Indies, supplying raw materials such as hides, cochineal, and precious woods, and the most valuable and valued commodity of all, bullion, in return for linens and cottons, woollen goods and hardware. While complete statistics of the trade are lacking, a cautious official estimate

placed the total value of British manufactures exported from the West Indies in 1792, that is in time of peace, in the region of ?500,000.24 And during time of war with Spain, while the British navy blockaded Cadiz, British

exports via the free ports supplied the consequent shortages in the Spanish colonies. By i8o8 the value of such exports from Jamaica alone had probably grown to over ? i million.25

It was, of course, impossible to attempt a similar system of trade with southern Spanish America. But Brazil and its outpost at Colonia do Sacra- mento served as a valuable entrepot for contraband trade with the Rio de la Plata. British manufactures, lawfully introduced into Brazil, were taken in

Portuguese vessels to the Rio de la Plata and thence clandestinely or with official connivance to the provinces of the interior and Upper Peru. The

Spanish occupation of Colonia and the creation of the viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata in 1776, followed by the extension of comercio libre to southern South America in I776, were designed in part to close a vulnerable part of the empire to British penetration. But it was never completely closed. Goods continued to be landed from Brazil, a route which was widened in I795 by the permission granted to the Rio de la Plata to trade with foreign colonies.26 And from 1796 wartime shortages in Spain's southernmost colonies made them tempting markets for the foreigner, markets which the Spanish govern- ment was forced to open periodically to neutral shipping from November

I797. British activity in the South Atlantic in the 1790s, though primarily commercial in character, was large enough to raise a security problem in

Spanish eyes; and from 1796 the local authorities frequently reported that

English 'corsarios' in the South Atlantic and Pacific were given shelter and succour in Portuguese Brazil.27 While the British contraband trade in the

24 Armytage, The Free Port System, pp. 69-70, 92-3; see also D. B. Goebel, 'British Trade to the Spanish Colonies, I796-1823 ', American Historical Review, XLIII (I938), 288-320.

25 Armytage, The Free Port System, pp. 92-3. The total value of British exports to 'all

parts of the world ' rose from ?22 million to ?40 million between 1790 and i808, according to an official estimate.

26 Real orden to Viceroy of Rio de la Plata, 4 March I795, Archivo General de Indias, Indif. Gen., 844; Documentos para la historia argentina (Buenos Aires, 1913), VII, 89.

27 Aviles to Saavedra, 5 June I799, 31 Dec. 800o, and passim, A.G.I., Estado 80; Soler to

Aviles, I8 July 800o, Aud. de Buenos Aires 39, referring to the 'scandalous introduction of every class of foreign merchandise '; Aviles to Governor of Montevideo, 25 June I8oo, Aud. de Buenos Aires 37. See also Sergio Villalobos R., Comercio y contrabando en el Rio de la Plata y Chile 1700-I8I1 (Buenos Aires, 2965).

British Policy and Spanish America, I783-1808 9

Rio de la Plata in the I79os and early I8oos sustained severe competition from French, German, Portuguese and United States shipping, its rivals

probably carried a considerable quantity of British goods.28 A section of British commercial opinion, of which William Jacob was

the most eloquent spokesman, argued in favour of a 'free intercourse with Spanish America', on the grounds that existing channels of trade were inadequate, that the needs of Britain and Spanish America were com-

plementary, and that the latter could consume goods equal in value to Britain's total exports to the rest of the world.29 This view assumed that British goods could undersell those of any rival if only the Spanish monopoly were broken, and that the Spanish American market was capable of almost limitless expansion. The first assumption was probably correct. At any rate

Spanish Americans were impressed by the cheapness of British goods wherever they could evade Spanish taxation. In i8o6 a report from the West Indies claimed that free port traders learnt from a Spanish source at Porto- bello 'that the value of a piece of Colchester Bays, which they sold for 35 pieces of eight, at the mines of Potosi amounted to 1,600 pieces of eight ... he accounted for it by the Spaniards' excessive laziness in those countries and consequent dearness of labour, want of every necessary for clothing, the distance of Potosi, the vast 40 per cent duties of the Crown, exaction of various Governors and variety of proprietors ...' 30 The second assumption was more questionable. British observers rarely bothered to analyse the real

potential of the Spanish American market, with its limited capacity and its

relatively small consumer population. One of the few who did was a soldier, Sir Arthur Wellesley, who relied for his information on experts like William Jacob. Wellesley argued that northern South America, though possessing great economic potential, would have little immediate value as a market because of its small population and the poverty of its communications with the rest of the subcontinent; he inferred that the limit of its demand for British goods had already been reached through existing channels of trade; and he argued that British occupation, bringing with it the abolition of the slave trade, could not be expected to improve production and consumption.31 28 See the correspondence of Gaspar de Santa Coloma, Spanish merchant in Buenos Aires, in

Enrique de Gandia, Buenos Aires colonial (Buenos Aires, 1957), pp. 35-55. 29 William Jacob, 'Plan for Occupying Spanish America, with observations on the character

and views of its inhabitants', 26 Oct. I804, P.R.O., Chatham Papers 30/8/345, and ' Memorial on the Advantages to be obtained by Great Britain from a Free Intercourse with Spanish America', I4 Feb. I806, F.O. 72/90.

30 Draft memorandum suggesting expedition to secure Isthmus of Panama, c. I806, B.M., Add. 37889, f. 295v; see also Selkirk, 'Observations', B.M., Add. 37884, f. 17.

31 Memorandum, 15 Feb. 1807, Arthur, second Duke of Wellington (ed.), Supplementary Despatches, Correspondence and Memoranda of Field Marshal, Arthur, Duke of Welling- ton (hereinafter cited as Supplementary Despatches) (15 vols., London, i858-72), vI, 59-60.

io John Lynch

The views of Wellesley may have been nearer the truth than those of

Jacob, though they were not perhaps valid for every part of Spanish America. At any rate the commercial argument for British intervention in

Spanish America was rarely regarded as powerful enough to justify fighting for new markets. Until the crisis years of 1806-7, when it appeared that the continent of Europe was being closed to British exports, existing outlets were regarded as adequate. At the end of the eighteenth century Britain may have exported about 35-40 per cent of its total industrial production.3 In

8o05, on the eve of the continental blockade, the greater part of these exports were absorbed by overseas markets, 27 per cent by the United States, 40 per cent by 'all parts of the world ', which meant in effect the British empire but also included South America; while the continent of Europe took 33 per cent. British exporters, therefore, had a variety of options and they were not utterly reliant on any one market or dependent on any one part of the world. Closure of the continent, even if it were complete, would only be disastrous if it coincided with closure of the United States. The latter was a

possibility, of course, and against this event exporters sought for alternative markets. But in this period disaster was never complete. This meant that the

Spanish American market, though useful in its existing proportions and

important enough to be expanded where possible, was never so vital that it was necessary to take it by force, either for dominion or for emancipation.

The absence of compelling political and commercial motives conditioned British policy towards Spanish America for many years after 1783. Spanish American agitators converging on London found the post-war environment

unpropitious for eliciting British interest in their cause.33 It was not until

179o, when the Nootka Sound dispute brought Britain to the verge of war with Spain, that the British government considered the possibility of attack-

ing Spain's colonies. It was now that Miranda first caught the eye of the

prime minister, William Pitt, through the mediation of his patron, Thomas

Pownall, a former governor in British North America and authority on

imperial affairs. The two men met-on I4 February and 6 May-but there

32 See Francois Crouzet, L'Economie Britannique et le Blocus Continentale (i806-1813) (2 vols., Paris, I958), I, 68-9. This figure is open to question. According to another estimate, about I805 the woollen industry exported 35 per cent of its final product, the iron and steel

industry 23.6 per cent; see Phyllis Deane and W. A. Cole, British Economic Growth I688-

1959 (2nd ed., Cambridge, I967), pp. I96, 225.

33 For examples of such attempts see 'Plan to deprive the House of Bourbon of its resources in the New World', signed Ed. Bott, Dec. I783, P.R.O., F.O. 30/8/345; 'Proposal of

several Mexicans for a treaty of amity and commerce with England', Io Nov. I785, ibid.;

'Proposals made by the Creoles of Santa Fe', March 1783, F.O. 30/8/35I. See also W. S.

Robertson, 'Francisco de Miranda and the Revolutionizing of Spanish America', American Historical Association Report, 1907 (Washington, I909), I, 202-6; Manuel Briceiio, Los

Comuneros, Historia de la insurreccion de 178I (Bogotai, I880), pp. 74, 23I-7.

British Policy and Spanish America, 1783-1808 II

was no meeting of minds. Miranda was attempting to mobilize a liberating expedition which would replace Spanish rule by a single constitutional

monarchy headed by an 'Inca' emperor. Pitt was seeking a possible theatre of war against Spain and a means of challenging her claims to monopoly of trade and territory on the west coast of North America; and he saw Miranda as no more than a useful source of information and liaison. In so far as a

plan of action emerged it was entirely British in its organization. Military preparations were entrusted to General Sir Archibald Campbell, who had seen service in North America, Jamaica and India; among those from whom advice was sought was Sir Home Riggs Popham, who was asked about the

suitability of bases on the Pacific coast. The strategy adopted was to become familiar in British military thinking-a pincer movement on the Spanish empire, with an attack on Mexico from the Atlantic side and an expedi- tionary force from India penetrating from bases on the Pacific coast. Ulti- mate objectives-conquest or emancipation-were unclear, In any case Pitt was merely exploring a possible course of action in case of a complete break with Spain.34 But the break never came. In view of Spain's isolation, with- out a French ally, there was no real danger that it would. The two powers reached agreement over Nootka Sound in October I790 when Spain aban- doned her exclusive claims to the west coast of North America and admitted the right of British subjects to navigate, trade and fish in the Pacific, in return for a British undertaking to prevent illicit trade with the Spanish colonies. This was a clear enough indication of Britain's limited aims in

Spanish America. 'I am sold', complained Miranda, 'by a treaty of commerce with Spain.'35

During the years '793-5, although Spain was an ally of Britain in the common struggle against revolutionary France, Spanish America was not

entirely absent from British war planning, for the government feared

Spanish defection.36 But from October 1796, when Spain joined France in a satellite role in war against Britain, the Spanish empire openly entered British calculations as a possible theatre of war where a diversionary blow

might be struck against French power. It was now that Henry Dundas, secretary of war, emerged as one of the leading advocates of a Spanish American policy. Dundas, possibly elaborating plans submitted by Governor Robert Brooke of St Helena and Nicholas Vansittart, a prominent young

3a Secret paper on South America, Popham to Yorke, 26 Nov. I803, Castlereagh Papers, vii, 288-9; Robertson, 'Francisco de Miranda and the Revolutionizing of Spanish America', A.H.A. Report, 1907, I, 276-7; John A. Schutz, 'Thomas Pownall's Proposed Atlantic Federation ', Hispanic American Historical Review, xxvi (1946), 263-8.

35 Robertson, Life of Miranda, I, 112. 36 Grenville to Bute, 13 April 1795, P.R.O., F.O. Spain, 37.

12 John Lynch

barrister and member of parliament, issued orders for an expedition from the Cape of Good Hope to the Rio de la Plata, though its destination was

subsequently changed to the south-west coast of Spanish America; provision was also made for a supporting expedition from India and New South Wales.37 The objectives of the expedition were almost as vague as its desti-

nation, but it was not exclusively a liberating one, for territorial acquisition and commercial advantages were equally envisaged. But at the end of

February I797 events closer to the heart of British interests-in particular the deteriorating situation in Europe-intervened to stop these ill-considered

plans. Pitt seems to have regretted having to abandon the project, and William Huskisson, under-secretary of war, declared that he had never put pen to paper with such reluctance as when he cancelled the orders for an

operation which promised such 'fair prospects of glory and permanent advantage '38

While the grand design of '797 came to nothing, a less spectacular but more fruitful channel of communication with Spanish America was opened in the same year. In February Trinidad was captured. The British govern- ment already possessed intelligence on the island's strategic possibilities in relation to the mainland.39 Now Dundas instructed the colony's first British

governor, Colonel Thomas Picton, to exploit these to the full, to make Trinidad an entrepot for British trade with Venezuela and a base for the subversion of Spanish rule there, and to promise Spanish Americans British assistance in the cause of independence.40 Picton was ready to do all this and more. His views on Spanish American independence coincided with those of Dundas; if Britain forswore colonial conquest, he argued, she would gain a great commercial conquest; and throughout the next five years he was a constant advocate of British intervention on behalf of emancipation. To fore- stall France, he urged, Britain should send an expedition from Barbados to the Orinoco, which 'opens an easy communication with the interior and

every part of the Province of Caraccas and would probably become the

37 Proposed Expedition from Cape to the Plata', I9 Jan. I797, P.R.O., W.O. I/I78. See

also J. W. Fortescue, A History of the British Army (Io vols., London, I899-I920), Iv,

527-8; Harlow, Founding of the Second British Empire, II, 650. 38 Fortescue, History of the British Army, iv, 528. In the final analysis Dundas's priorities

lay in Europe: 'I should consider both Trinidad and Buenos Ayres as poor acquisitions if

obtained by the sacrifice of the Mediterranean', Dundas to Huskisson, I4 June 1796, in

C. R. Fay, Huskisson and His Age (London, 195I), p. 68.

39 'Communication from Mr. Duff respecting the Island of Trinidad c. 1797', B.M., Add.

38354, ff. 319-22. A copy of Duff's paper fell into the hands of the Spanish authorities

and was forwarded to Madrid; see Castlereagh Papers, VII, 280-4. 40 Robertson, 'Francisco de Miranda and the Revolutionizing of Spanish America ', A.H.A.

Report, 1907, I, 313-I5.

British Policy and Spanish America, 1783-1808 13

centre of a general movement'. Meanwhile he also tried to mobilize the interest of his colleagues in the West Indies. 'The question is not', he

argued, 'whether a revolution in that country will be advantageous or not to Great Britain, which might easily be proved in the affirmative, but whether the inhabitants of these rich countries shall be indebted to England or to France for their emancipation . . . A great moral revolution, the fore- runner of a political one, has already taken place in that country.' 42

The views of Dundas and Picton, supported though they were by other advocates of British intervention in Venezuela, did not amount to a state- ment of policy by the British government.43 Picton complained that he lacked precise instructions, and for the moment he could do no more than collect information and employ the leaders of the Venezuelan conspiracy of

1797 'in carrying on a correspondence with the continent and in readiness for any more active employment'.4 And when, in England itself, Miranda renewed his pleas in January 1798 he found that the government was still non-committal. Pitt's reservations were understandable. Whom did Miranda

represent? Who could take seriously his claim to be the agent of a revolu-

tionary junta, composed of 'deputies' from Spanish America, which was

supposed to have met in Paris in December I797? Pitt was also concerned lest emancipation, for which there is little evidence that he entertained any serious sympathy, would mean the introduction of 'the French system' into

Spanish America. To reassure him Miranda stated that the form of govern- ment of a liberated Spanish America would be 'very similar to that of Great Britain'."4 His military proposals-a joint Anglo-American expedition- were equally unrealistic. Pitt showed no more than polite interest. His minis- ters, who considered the matter intermittently in the course of I798 and

1799, were divided. Dundas predictably was enthusiastic; William Wind-

ham, at the War Office, was somewhat less so; while Lord Grenville, at the

Foreign Office, trusting neither Miranda nor his ideas, was positively hostile.46 And Grenville's views prevailed. The essential issue in the eyes of the British government was the danger of French revolutionary influence. It was no part of its policy to evoke the spirit of the French Revolution in

Spanish America at the very time it was fighting it in Europe. As long as

41 Picton to Dundas, 21 April I799, B.M., Add. 36870, ff. I7-I8. 42 Picton to General Prigge, 22 April I799, B.M., Add. 36870, if. 20-I.

43 For further advocacy see Captain Dilkes, 'Relative to project of S. America', c. 1798-99, B.M., Add. 37878, f. 71; and the proposals of Sir Ralph Abercromby, Castlereagh Papers, VI, 270.

44 Picton to Dundas, 21 April I799, B.M., Add. 36870, f. I7-I8; Picton to Prigge, 5 July 1799, ibid., ff. 25v-6. 45 Robertson, Life of Miranda, I, 169.

46 Memorandum for the consideration of the cabinet, 3 Oct. 1799, Castlereagh Papers, vn, 284-5.

I4 John Lynch

Spain was able to preserve a measure of independence of France and pre- serve her empire from French penetration then Britain would not intervene in Spanish America.47

For the moment Napoleon's Eastern expedition and the formation of the Second Coalition were more urgent preoccupations of British policy. In the course of I800-i, however, renewed fear of French intentions in the New World brought the idea of British action in Spanish America out of cold

storage. Anxiety, no doubt exaggerated, was now expressed about Napoleon's imperialist ambitions in the western hemisphere. The acquisition of Louisi- ana was thought to place France within striking distance of Mexico, where a French agent was known to be operating.48 By this time, moreover, the

Spanish American lobby in England, if it may be so termed, a small group of interested politicians, businessmen, and naval and military personnel, was

increasing its pressure. The focus of this lobby was Dundas who, with his

junior ally Huskisson, gave it access to the administration. In a lengthy memorandum dated 31 March 800o Dundas argued that the war with France and the European problems it created should not cause Britain to lose sight of her permanent interests, especially the acquisition of markets in South America; these would be best secured not by dominion-though Britain should acquire a few bases for commercial penetration-but by help- ing the Spanish colonies to independence.49 This was a consistent doctrine of Dundas; he made a further attempt to apply it in I8oo-i; and his target was apparently the Rio de la Plata. The area had already featured in his

plan of 1797 and in his subsequent thinking.50 But how serious were his intentions in 800o-i? Significant evidence comes from Sir Home Popham, later to emerge as the enfant terrible of the Spanish American lobby, who makes it clear that already in I8oo he was privy to Dundas's policy. Writing to Huskisson in February I8o0 from H.M.S. Romney at the Cape of Good

Hope, where he was preparing to join the Red Sea Expedition, Popham remarked on the scarcity of grain at the Cape, especially in time of war 'when it cannot have recourse to Spanish America; such descriptions I have heard of Buenos Ayres, in fact the country on each side of the river, as

47 C. R. King (ed.), The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King (6 vols., New York, I894- 900o), iiI, 558, 561.

48 ' Paper concerning Napoleon's intentions regarding Florida and Mexico', I8 March i80o,

B.M., Add. 38357, ff. 31-2. See also John Rydjord, Foreign Interest in the Independence of New Spain (Durham, N.C., I935).

49 Carlos Roberts, Las invasiones inglesas del Rio de la Plata (I806-1807) (Buenos Aires, 5938), p. 32.

50 Memorandum proposing attack on Cuba, National Library of Scotland, Melville MSS 1075, fl. 110-27, unsigned, probably written in July 800o, and advocating an attack on Buenos Aires as well as Cuba. For material from the National Library of Scotland I am indebted to Professor R. A. Humphreys.

British Policy and Spanish America, I783-1808 15

really from its plenty and capability to supply this country in the most ample manner, offer very additional reasons for your pressing Mr. Dundas to make his intended attack as soon as possible; the force he proposed is certainly in

every respect fully adequate to the service; we might if we have a good passage from Bombay from whence I would sail in September go direct without touching anywhere'.51

Yet Dundas's plan for an expedition to Buenos Aires had still not been

given cabinet sanction when Pitt's administration fell in February I80o and was succeeded by the Addington ministry. The lobbyists tried to keep the scheme alive in the new government, where it had a distinguished advocate in Nicholas Vansittart, joint secretary of the treasury.52 But a final decision was again postponed, first because troops were more urgently needed in

Egypt, then because of the opening of peace negotiations with France. These were concluded at Amiens in March I802. The long war had brought no significant change in Britain's Spanish American policy.

The peace of Amiens was short-lived and on 18 May 1803 war was renewed between Britain and France. In the course of this year Vansittart introduced Popham and Miranda and the former indicated that he wished to serve 'in whatsoever expedition may be formed to establish the indepen- dence of South America '.3 Thus began an association which added new

vigour to the Spanish American lobby and brought it closer to its objectives. Popham's commitment to independence, of course, was always ambiguous, for he also seems to have had in mind the establishment of a British colony or at least a British satellite somewhere in Spanish America. This can be inferred from the plan which he submitted to the government in November

1803, when he pleaded for an expedition against Buenos Aires in order to establish a military base ancillary to Miranda's main target, Venezuela.54 With the support of private enterprise-Alexander Davison, a successful

government contractor was an enthusiastic associate-preparations actually got under way, though Addington halted them early in 1804 as there was still no decisive rupture between Britain and Spain. This was not the end. The lobbyists renewed their pressure when Pitt formed his second adminis- tration in May 1804 and Dundas, now Viscount Melville, returned to office

51 Popham to Huskisson, 19 Feb. I801, B.M., Add. 38736, ff. 283-4. 52 ' Note sent in circulation', Sept. I8o0, Castlereagh Papers, vn, 287-8; Robertson, Life of

Miranda, I, 235. 53 According to Miranda, I Aug. I803, in Robertson, Life of Miranda,, , 257. 54 Popham to Yorke, 26 Nov. I803, Castlereagh Papers, vni, 288-93. Miranda subsequently

claimed that conquest in the Rio de la Plata ' may have been the plans of General Beresford and Sir Home Popham but they certainly never were of the British Ministers I have just mentioned [Melville, Pitt and Addington], nor of mine', Miranda to Alex. Cochrane, 4 June I807, N.L.S., Cochrane Papers 2320, f. 114.

I6 John Lynch

as first lord of the admiralty. And conditions now seemed to favour their cause as never before.

Britain's relations with Spain, whose subordination to France was now almost complete, were fast deteriorating. In October 1803 Spain had agreed to pay France a yearly subsidy of almost ?3 million, and in the course of

1804 it seemed that she was also prepared to place her naval resources at the

disposition of her neighbour. In reply Britain blockaded Ferrol, and on

5 October British frigates intercepted a large bullion shipment from the Rio de la Plata, sank one Spanish vessel and captured three others carrying about ?2 million. In conditions of virtual warfare with Spain, and with

tangible evidence that the wealth of the Spanish empire was indeed being used to sustain France, the British government was again ready to look at

plans of attack on Spanish America. Blue-prints there were in plenty.55 But the most pressing advocacy again came from Popham and Miranda. Miranda's plan was to use Trinidad as a base for a liberating expedition to Venezuela; for this he required the support of a small British military and naval force, and from mid-September Popham was urging Melville to hasten its preparation.56 He secured a private conference with Pitt and Melville, ' explaining all General Miranda's views', and he was instructed to consult with the Venezuelan and submit a specific scheme. This was the origin of

Popham's memorandum of 14 October I804, an unremarkable document and in itself evidence of nothing more than that these matters were being ventilated by the government.57

In addition to the commercial argument for British intervention, Popham urged the strategic importance of anticipating Napoleon in Spanish America and of depriving France of an important source of revenue. He referred

certainly to Miranda's 'great object', the emancipation of South America, but he also argued that while the conquest of the entire subcontinent was out of the question 'the possibility of gaining all its prominent points, alienating it from its present European connexions, fixing on some military position and enjoying all its commercial advantages can be reduced to a fair

55 William Jacob, 'Plan for Occupying Spanish America', 26 Oct. I804, P.R.O., Chatham

Papers 30/8/345, a well-informed plan advocating a triple attack, from Britain on the Rio de la Plata, from India on the Pacific coast, and from the West Indies on the Isthmus, for

emancipation, not dominion. 56 Popham to Melville, i8 Sept. I804, B.M., Add. 41080, ff. 46-9v. Popham wrote that even

should Miranda do no more than open channels of communication with Venezuela then 'Trinidad will be one of the finest possessions under the Crown and independent of its

military advantages and naval capabilities it will be the most liberal export channel for all our manufactures that I am acquainted with ', Popham to Melville, II Oct. 1804, Add. 41080, if. 70-Iv.

57 Printed in 'Miranda and the British Admiralty, 1804-1806 ', American Historical Review, vi (I90I), 509-I7.

British Policy and Spanish America, 1783-1808 17

calculation, if not a certain operation'. And he urged that in addition to the

major expedition to Venezuela, a subsidiary one should be sent to the Rio de la Plata. These views masked a basic difference of objectives between

Popham and Miranda, though this did not show itself immediately. For the plan was kept in cold storage. Throughout November Popham urged Mel- ville to sanction the operation, but there was no definite commitment from the government and Miranda himself was forbidden to leave the country.58 Even when Spain declared war on Britain (12 December I804) Pitt was loath to act. His hesitancy was due in part to the belief that Spain was not

irrevocably committed to the French cause and might yet be brought into the Third Coalition then being negotiated.59 But when in the second half of

i8o5 this belief was shattered, the Third Coalition itself was broken by Napoleon's great victories, and voices again rose urging Britain to seek com-

pensation in the New World for losses in the Old, Pitt still held back. And his indecision can only be explained by those traditional and compelling factors inhibiting British policy in Spanish America, fear of the political consequences of disrupting the area, reluctance to undertake the heavy military commitment involved, and lack of conviction in the commercial

argument. The same considerations affected the policy of Lord Grenville who, after

the death of Pitt in January 1806, headed the Ministry of all the Talents. Yet Grenville was under far greater pressure to act in Spanish America than

any of his predecessors had been. During the first half of I8o6 an unprece- dented number of plans and memoranda relating to Spanish America poured into government departments. This renewed agitation derived its impetus from the success of French arms on the continent of Europe and a sense of crisis in Britain's political and economic affairs. Even if Europe were lost, it was argued, Britain still had her overwhelming naval power, and this could be best deployed in attacking the colonies of France's satellite, simul-

taneously depriving the enemy of vital revenue and securing alternative

export markets. These anxieties prompted a flood of projects for transatlantic

expeditions, most of them based on the assumption that the government had the matter under serious consideration. William Jacob formulated plans for attacks on South America and Mexico.60 Governor Hislop of Trinidad

urged an expedition to Venezuela.6l Another advocate pleaded for an

58 Miranda to Popham, I2 Nov. I804, Popham to Melville, 23 Nov. I804 and 24 Nov. 1804, B.M., Add. 4I080, ff. 80, 88-9v., 9o-I.

59 The evidence for this comes from Popham himself, in Minutes of a Court Martial . . . of Capt. Sir Home Popham (London, i807), p. 80.

60 Plan for an 'attack on Mexico from the eastern side ', July I806, Castlereagh Papers, vii, 293-302; see also references in n. 29.

61 See reference in n. I8.

i8 John Lynch

expedition from the Cape, to be composed of ' 15,000 Blacks from the West Coast of Africa ', its destination the Rio de la Plata, where the creoles would

fly to its assistance.62 Yet another advised the occupation of a number of key strategic and commercial bases, 'of Buenos Ayres and of Valdivia, with a fleet of gun boats upon the Lake of Nicaragua and the Orinoco'.63 New reinforcements were brought to do battle with the government. These were mobilized by Sir John Hippisley, whose interest in the subject dated from

1779 when, as British agent in Italy, he was in touch with Spanish American

Jesuit exiles and advocated their use as instruments of British policy. From

early in I806 Hippisley pressed on Windham plans for an expedition to liberate Spanish America and establish its independence.64 His most distin-

guished recruit to the cause was the Earl of Selkirk, hitherto noted for his

colonizing activities in Canada. The well-informed paper which Selkirk sub- mitted to Windham in June i8o6 'on the proposed expedition against Spanish America', however unrealistic in its military details, displayed a

quality of political thought uncharacteristic of most contemporary plans.65 Selkirk advocated the liberation of the Spanish colonies, the replacement of

Spanish officials by a creole elite, respect for persons and property, and the substitution of a more equitable fiscal and commercial system for the old

monopoly. 'The immense field of commercial enterprize which would thus be opened to Britain', he thought, would constitute 'the most material

advantage', and this could be obtained without permanent conquest and the creation of a new monopoly. Selkirk, a believer in Spanish American inde-

pendence, also believed that British interests would best be served not by the establishment of a monarchy-the occupant of which would presumably not be British-but by the creation of a number of small republics.

While the Ministry of all the Talents was being inundated with Spanish American projects, Miranda and Popham, in their separate ways, took matters into their own hands. Despairing of obtaining a decision from the British government, Miranda left England in September I805 and in the

following year, from the United States, led an anarchic and abortive expedi-

62 J. Erskine to Windham, i8 May i806, B.M., Add. 37883, ff. 256-6I. 63 Plan of J. Sullivan, I806, B.M., Add. 37885, ff. I70-90. 64 Hippisley to Windham, 22 Aug. I794 and 22 Oct. 1803, B.M., Add. 37849, ff. 97-I03, 267;

Selkirk to Hippisley, 22 March I806, ibid., ff. 290-3; Lord St John to Hippisley, 24 March

i806, Add. 37884, if. 294-7. Hippisley was M.P. I790-6 and 1802-19 and a notable advocate of Catholic emancipation; for his previous interest in Spanish America see Castlereagh Papers, vII, 260-9.

65 'Observations on the proposed expedition against Spanish America', 7 June i8o6, B.M., Add. 37884, f. II-22. Selkirk subsequently submitted his memorandum to Grenville and

Canning (15 Oct. 1806), both of whom considered the time inopportune for British action in

Spanish America; see John Perry Pritchett, ' Selkirk's views on British policy towards the

Spanish American colonies, 8o6 ', Canadian Historical Review, xxiv (I943), 38I-96.

British Policy and Spanish America, I783-1808 19

tion to the coast of Venezuela.66 He received supply facilities and some naval support from local British authorities in the West Indies, though not

enough to compensate for his failure to raise the creole population. As

Castlereagh later charged, 'the operation proceeded from a British port, with

just enough of co-operation on our part to mix us in the policy and failure of the effort, but without any adequate prospect of rendering it successful '67 The British government, indeed, was caught unprepared: as Grenville remarked, 'the thing was launched by our predecessors, as a matter of connivance only, without any plan for acting in consequence of it'.68 Some there were-Windham inside the government and a number of merchants in the country-who thought that the opportunity provided by Miranda should be exploited.69 But by the middle of July the cabinet had decided that the

opportunity was too nebulous and the military cost too high.70 The ill-prepared scheme of a Venezuelan revolutionary was one thing.

The capture of Buenos Aires, unauthorized though it was, by a British

expedition on 27 June i8o6 was another. And while the admiralty rejected the argument of its commander, Sir Home Popham, that the operation was sanctioned by his previous negotiations with Pitt, political and commercial

opinion in Britain reacted warmly to his resounding, if temporary, success.7 The Rio de la Plata had long been an object of British strategic and com- mercial interest, as well as a target of British intelligence.72 At the War Office, Windham, besieged by demands for action in Spanish America and

desperate for an outlet for the British war effort, grasped at the opportunity to develop a new theatre of war and acquire colonial conquests. At the Board of Trade, Lord Auckland saw the acquisition as a means of satisfying merchant pressure for new markets.73 Popham claimed that the Buenos Aires market alone would 'consume nearly two millions annually of our

66 See 'Miranda and the British Admiralty, 1804-1806', American Historical Review, vi, 508-30; Castlereagh Papers, vii, 419-21.

67 Memorandum, i May I807, Castlereagh Papers, vi, 315. 68 Grenville to Auckland, 5 June i806, Historical Manuscripts Commission. Manuscripts of

I. B. Fortescue preserved at Dropmore (hereinafter cited as Dropmore Papers) (io vols., London, 1892-1927), vIII, 179.

69 John Turnbull to Miranda, 5 and 7 June i806, N.L.S., Cochrane Papers 2320, f. 16; Vansittart to Windham, 22 Jan. i807, B.M., Add. 37885, f. 231; Windham to Grenville, ii Sept. i806, Dropmore Papers, viii, 321.

70 Howick to Windham, 13 July I806, B.M., Add. 37847, f. 255; Dropmore Papers, vmII, 236. 71 See R. A. Humphreys, Liberation in South America, 1806-1827. The career of James

Paroissien (London, 1952), pp. 1-14, and H. S. Ferns, Britain and Argentina in the Nineteenth Century (Oxford, I96I), pp. 47-50.

72 See Ricardo R. Caillet-Bois, 'Los ingleses y el Rio de la Plata, 1780-I806 ', Humanidades, xxnIl (I933), I67-202; John Street, 'La influencia britanica en la independencia de las

provincias del Rio de la Plata ', Revista Historica, XIX (Montevideo, 1953), I81-257; Roberts, Las invasiones inglesas, pp. 43-8, 53-6. 73 Dropmore Papers, vII, 209, 321; vIII, 302, 332.

20 John Lynch

manufactures', an exaggeration no doubt, but one which reflected the great shortage of vital consumer goods which he observed in the Rio de la Plata.74 Merchant houses reacted enthusiastically. The towns of Manchester and Sal- ford rejoiced in the conquest, regarding its commercial prospects as 'exten- sive beyond calculations' and particularly important 'in the present state of continental trade'. To one correspondent of Auckland it appeared 'almost a miraculous interposition of divine Providence to frustrate the malignant designs of the Corsican for the destruction of our trade'. And another

reported that 'the capture of Buenos Ayres has revived the drooping spirits of our merchants and manufacturers. The loom is again very busily employed.' 75 According to William Jacob, the new colony was valuable not

only as a market but also as a potential source of naval stores, of hemp and

flax, which would 'enrich Great Britain and render her independent both of Russia and India '.7 And when in November, having crushed Prussia, Napoleon decreed from Berlin the exclusion of British commerce from all

ports under his control, the case for decisive action in Spanish America seemed complete.

The government succumbed to the prevailing mania. Reinforcements were sent to the Rio de la Plata and yet another force was despatched to extend the conquest to Chile. Plans were drawn up for a major expedition to Venezuela and Mexico with supporting operations across the Pacific from India.77 Sir Arthur Wellesley was consulted and in a series of brisk memo- randa lent his support to the idea of a Caribbean-based expedition, not because he was positively interested-he regarded conquest as unrealistic and

emancipation as hazardous-but on the grounds that if Britain 'should not take possession of these territories during the war . . . the French govern- ment will take possession of them after the peace .78 And while in London the experts drew up their plans, across the Atlantic scores of British mer- chantmen converged on Buenos Aires. As is well known, government and merchants alike anticipated as well as exaggerated their prospects. At the end of January I807, when rumours that Buenos Aires had already been lost were confirmed, the government's policy was suddenly reduced to salvaging

7- Popham to Melville, 12 July I8o6, enclosed in Alex. Davison (a merchant in close touch with Popham) to Melville, 13 Sept. I8o6, N.L.S., Melville MSS o075, f. 82; Melville to Davison, i8 Sept. I8o6, ibid., f. 86.

75 Resolution of the town of Manchester, 25 Sept. I8o6, B.M., Add. 34457, f. 40; letters to

Auckland, 2I Sept. and 9 Oct. I806, ibid., if. 38, 73. 76 Jacob to Windham, 24 Sept. I806, B.M., Add. 37884, f. I67. 77 See C. F. Mullett, 'British Schemes against Spanish America in 8o6 ', Hispanic American

Historical Review, xxvIf (947), 269-78; Dropmore Papers, vmi, 386-7, 415-20. 78 Memorandum, 15 Feb. I807, Supplementary Despatches, vI, 59-60; Dropmore Papers, Ix,

41-4. See also B.M., Stowe 307, ff. 250-3, 'Spanish America. Calculation of time for the

different parts of a combined attack'.

British Policy and Spanish America, 1783-1808 21

the British position in the Rio de la Plata. But this too was hopeless. General Whitelocke, commanding a further expedition, failed to recapture Buenos Aires and agreed to evacuate Montevideo. His military conduct was con- demned in England as 'extravagantly incapable and criminal', and so it was. But his own explanation was not without point: 'I shall evacuate a

province which the force I was authorized to calculate upon could never maintain, and which from the very hostile disposition of its inhabitants was in truth not worth maintaining '.7

British statesmen and experts all professed that the disaster in the Rio de la Plata confirmed the view or taught the lesson that Britain would only succeed in Spanish America with a policy of emancipation.80 But the real criticism of British policy in 80o6-7 is that it fell between two stools, pro- claiming neither emancipation nor dominion. Grenville, far from promoting an imperial policy, saw Buenos Aires as little more than a bargaining counter at a peace table.81 His plans for Mexico and Venezuela, on the other hand, in so far as he had any, did not exclude the possibility of their inde-

pendence.82 The policy of this administration, indeed, was marked by neither

imperialism nor liberalism but by utter improvisation. It was precisely this lack of principle which outraged the serious advocates

of a Spanish American policy and prompted a re-appraisal of Britain's role in the subcontinent. The Ministry of all the Talents resigned on I8 March 1807, and in the new administration, formed by the Duke of Portland, Castlereagh occupied the war and colonial office. Castlereagh had already shown an interest in Spanish America in November i806 when, moved per- haps by the French victory at Jena, he had sought Wellesley's opinion on the prospect of attacking Mexico. Now, in a memorandum of i May 1807, written when it was still assumed that Whitelocke's reinforcing expedition would recapture Buenos Aires, he sharply criticized the late administration's

vagueness of intent in the Rio de la Plata and advocated instead a policy which would accord with the interests of the people of South America, a

79 Whitelocke to Windham, Io July 18o7, B.M., Add. 37887, ff. 67-73; Auckland to Grenville, 23 Nov. 1807, Dropmore Papers, Ix, 150-i.

80 E. Corke to Auckland, 26 Sept. 18o7, B.M., Add. 34457, f. 357; Lord Temple to Auckland, 2 Oct. 80o7, ibid., ff. 369-72; Auckland to Grenville, 23 Nov. 1807, Dropmore Papers, ix, 150-I.

81 See reference in n. 13 above; see also Grenville to Earl of Lauderdale, 22 Sept. I806, and Grenville to Howick, 29 Sept. 80o6, Dropmore Papers, viI, 352, 367.

82 This, at any rate, was the assumption of Wellesley, memorandum of Nov. i8o6 and I5 Feb. I807, Supplementary Despatches, vI, 50, 59-60. The attempts of historians (for example, Roberts, Las invasiones inglesas, 82, I86, and Street, Revista Histdrica, xix, 21I-I2) to contrast a Tory policy of emancipation with a Whig policy of conquest are not supported by a sufficient amount of continuous evidence; it would be difficult to say how far Melville's policy was accepted by Tory cabinets.

22 John Lynch

policy which would relieve Britain ' from the hopeless task of conquering this extensive country against the temper of its population', and would at once

deprive the enemy of vital resources and provide Britain with important markets.83 By the end of December I807 the matter had acquired more

urgency. The Portuguese court had fled to Brazil. Spanish independence of France seemed more tenuous than ever. From his new position of strength in the Iberian peninsula Napoleon might next strike across the Atlantic, not

only subverting the Spanish colonies but also endangering Brazil. Castle-

reagh, therefore, intensified his efforts to persuade the cabinet to act. He

thought that Montevideo, recklessly abandoned, might be easily recovered. In this case, he argued, Britain, without committing itself to independence, should disavow conquest, by declaring that the only objective was 'to estab- lish a commercial intercourse with the country, under the protection of the

military occupancy of an armed post'.84 The proposal was ambiguous, of

course, but Castlereagh was probably deferring to cabinet opinion, which feared the effect of Spanish American independence on the Portuguese position in Brazil.

Meanwhile, Castlereagh canvassed further opinion. Sir Arthur Wellesley was again consulted and he now came out explicitly in favour of indepen- dence. 'From what has lately passed at Buenos Ayres ', he wrote, ' and from all that I have read of these countries, I am convinced that any attempt to

conquer them, with a view to their future subjection to the British Crown, would certainly fail.' He saw no alternative to an independent regime, endowed with a monarchy and a manageable legislature, with suffrage based on age and property qualifications. The target for British action, he advised, should be first Mexico, then Venezuela.85 Castlereagh received complemen- tary advice from General Beresford, who had emerged from the fiasco of Buenos Aires with his reputation intact and now advocated its recapture; it would be an illusion, he argued, to expect creole support for a policy of

conquest; success could only be guaranteed with an offer of independence.86 Miranda too added his voice to the growing chorus, believing that now at

last, with a government favourably disposed towards emancipation, his goal was in sight.87

By the beginning of I808, therefore, most of the major obstacles to British intervention in Spanish America appeared to have been removed. The

83 Memorandum of I May 1807, Castlereagh Papers, vI, 3I4-24. 84 Memorandum of 21 Dec. 1807, ibid., vII, 98-9. 85 Memorandum of 8 Feb. I808, Supplementary Despatches, vi, 62-6. 86 Beresford to Castlereagh, 23 Jan. I808, P.R.O., W.O. I/354. 87 Miranda to Melville, I7 March I808, N.L.S., Melville MSS w.I.c.I.; see also Castlereagh

Papers, vni, 405-12.

British Policy and Spanish America, 1783-1808 23

danger from French ideology was regarded as a thing of the past. The issue of conquest versus independence seemed to have been resolved. And as, by the end of 1807, the whole of continental Europe with the exception of Sweden had been forced into Napoleon's blockade, the commercial argu- ment for intervention appeared unanswerable, not least to mercantile

pressure groups. There remained only the question whether Spain could be reclaimed from the French cause. This too seemed to be answered in the

catastrophic events of the next few months. By May 80o8, with a French

army in Madrid and the Spanish monarchy in collapse, Spain seemed lost

beyond recall. Castlereagh now advised the government that it should take immediate steps to prevent the Spanish colonies from suffering the same fate as Spain herself, and at last he had an attentive audience.88 It was decided to assemble an expeditionary force at Cork, and by I June its commander, Sir Arthur Wellesley, was making preparations for its departure. He was instructed to join General Spencer's force near Cadiz, and if circumstances were not propitious for intervention in the peninsula the joint force was to

proceed to attack Spanish America. The exact destination of the expedition cannot be determined, for the claims of Mexico, Venezuela, and the Rio de la Plata had all been canvassed and it is possible that more than one point of attack was envisaged.89 Nor can we be certain that undiluted independence was the message its commander carried for Spanish Americans. These uncertainties can never be resolved, for the final orders were never given.

The Spanish uprising against the French invaders transformed the situa- tion and removed one of the major pre-conditions of British intervention in

Spanish America. On 8 June agents of the Spanish resistance movement-

representing, unlike Miranda, a resistance which had already begun- approached the British government and were quickly assured of its assistance. 'As, by the insurrection in the Asturias', wrote Castlereagh, 'some prob- ability of restoring the Spanish monarchy is revived . . . it is wished to

suspend any measure tending to divide and therefore to weaken that mon-

archy.' 90 On 4 July Britain published a formal proclamation of peace with

Spain, and in these circumstances Wellesley's expedition sailed not to secure the independence of Spanish America but to restore the independence of

Spain. Britain's disavowal of intervention in Spanish America in i808 was based

on powerful considerations long inherent in her policy. Equally powerful,

88 Castlereagh Papers, vI, 365-7. 89 Melville to Castlereagh, 8 June i8o8, Castlereagh Papers, vII, 442-8; Wellesley, memo-

randum of 6 June I808, Supplementary Despatches, vI, 74, 78-9, 80-2. 90 Castlereagh to Duke of Manchester, Governor of Jamaica, 20 June 18o8, Castlereagh Papers,

VI, 375.

24 John Lynch

however, had been the demand for new commercial outlets. If, as many assumed, Britain faced economic disaster unless she found alternative mar- kets, how can we account for British restraint in Spanish America in the critical years from I806 to 1808? The answer is that the economic argument was never as strong as it appeared, even after Napoleon's Berlin Decree. British commercial policy towards Spanish America was to a large degree resolved without the need of direct intervention.

Already from I796 trade with the enemy in Spanish America had been

encouraged by ministers and practised by merchants. The main channel of trade continued to be the free ports in the West Indies, especially those of Jamaica. In the first nine months of i806 bullion imports alone into Kingston amounted to i,527,000 dollars, and to 1,412,000 dollars in the first six months of 1807; and the value of Jamaica's exports between July 1807 and

July i8o8 was about ?I million sterling.91 The free port system, moreover, had been augmented by the acquisition of Trinidad, a new entrepot for

exports and inroad into the resources of Venezuela and New Granada. In

1799 Governor Picton reported that trade with the mainland had 'increased as to become an object of importance, taking off British manufactures to the amount of ?i,ooo,ooo sterling annually'.92

Some British merchants, it is true, wanted more than an indirect trade with Spanish America. And there was hardly any doubt that, had she so

wished, Britain could have forced direct commercial relations on the Spanish colonies during the war owing to the latter's isolation from their metropolis. John Turnbull, Miranda's financial associate, who before the war had been active in the Cadiz trade, was one of those anxious to develop a commerce in neutral vessels sailing directly to the Spanish colonies. But the British

government long opposed such a trade, for it was not anxious to provide facilities for neutral vessels or outlets for Spanish exports, and preferred to

encourage the contraband trade through the free ports, which were supplied from Britain in British vessels. There were further reasons why the Board of Trade refused licences to trade between Spain and her colonies: a direct trade in neutral vessels was thought to be an uncontrolled trade, for there would be no means of ensuring that the conditions of the licence-that

cargoes should contain a proportion of British goods, for example, or that the returns should be made in specie to British ports-were fulfilled.93

91 Armytage, The Free Port System, pp. 92-123, i6o. 92 Picton to Dundas, 26 Jan. I799 and 21 April 1799, B.M., Add. 36870, if. i, i6v-I7.

Governor Hislop, however, reported exports for I805 at ?200,000; Armytage, The Free Port System, p. 92.

93 Paper by the Earl of Liverpool relative to the application for leave to trade with the

Spanish colonies made by Messrs. Bird, Savage and Bird, Nov. I799, B.M., Add. 38355, f. III-I2.

British Policy and Spanish America, 1783-1808 25

An exception was made, however, for trade with the Rio de la Plata and the Pacific coast of South America, areas which hardly came within the influence of the free ports, 'in order to encourage the exportation of British

manufactures, and to receive in return dollars, hides, tallow, and other raw

materials, essentially necessary to the prosperity of the country '.9 For its

part the Spanish crown was equally ready to issue licences, often to aristo- cratic favourites like the Duke of Osuna, to export to this area foreign goods from foreign ports. The licences granted by the British government for trade with these colonies up to I806, though limited in number, effected signifi- cant breaches of the Spanish monopoly. One type of operation was that of

Antony Gibbs, an English merchant in Cadiz, who on his return to England at the outbreak of war obtained a licence, subsequently accompanied by a

Spanish licence, authorizing him to complete a transaction which he had

begun before the renewal of hostilities, namely, the export from Cadiz to Lima of a sizeable cargo of woollen cloth; for this he freighted a Spanish vessel which sailed from Cadiz in December I8o6.95 Licences were also

granted for the export of goods to Spanish South America in neutral vessels from English ports, transactions which the Spanish government itself sanc- tioned, to the dismay of the monopolists in Buenos Aires."6 The trade to the Rio de la Plata under the licensing system, though not large, was regarded as lucrative, and could no doubt have been expanded had exporters paid more attention to consumer demand.97

Spanish America, therefore, along with the United States and the West Indies, already provided an important compensating market for Britain

during the war with Napoleon. Up to i8o6 the war had damaged but had not basically altered the British trading system. A year of prosperity in 1802 was followed by a period of depression in 803-4, but I805 saw some

improvement and by i8o6 British trade was buoyant again.98 The situation

only began to worsen appreciably in late I8o6, when Napoleon's victory over Prussia closed northern Germany to British exports. This development would have been critical had not Britain possessed expanding outlets else-

where, principally in the New World. Exports to the United States rose from i8.8 per cent of total exports in the period 1803-5 to 23.6 per cent in

94 'Observations on the licensed trade with the Spanish colonies', 1805, B.M., Stowe 307, ff. 254-5.

95 Crouzet, L'Economie Britannique et le Blocus Continentale, I, I6o. 96 See the complaints of Santa Coloma about English and Hamburg shipments and their silver

returns in his correspondence during I803-5, in Gandia, Buenos Aires colonial, pp. 56, 65-6, 69, 74.

97 'Actual State and Exports from Buenos Ayres and Paraguay', unsigned memorandum, c. i8o6, B.M., Add. 37885, ff. i68-9v.

98 Crouzet, L'Economie Britannique et le Blocus Continentale, I, i6I, 206.

26 John Lynch

1806; and exports to all parts of the world rose from 34-8 per cent of total

exports in 1803-5 to 40.2 per cent in 1806. The expansion of trade to 'all

parts of the world' in 1806 is accounted for principally by exports to the West Indies, which also fed the free port trade with Spanish America. It is also explained by the opening of direct trade between Britain and the

Spanish colonies. And this in turn was due, not to the spectacular assault on the Rfo de la Plata in 1806-7, but to the extension of the licensed trade with

Spanish America, a development which preceded Popham's unofficial

expedition and owed much to the policy of the Grenville government. From February 1806 the new administration was forced to reconsider the

traditional opposition to a direct trade with Spanish America, partly because of merchant pressure, partly because of the evident advantages to be ob- tained. A number of merchants, some of whom had already received Spanish permits, were requesting British licences, especially for trade with Vera Cruz. Lord Auckland, President of the Board of Trade, was favourably disposed, on the ground that 'an exchange of British manufactures for

dyeing woods, cochineal, and dollars is so peculiarly expedient in our actual circumstances'." Grenville agreed, and on 21 February the Privy Council decided to issue export and import licences for trade with Vera Cruz.' The decision was explained by the desire to stimulate exports; as Auckland remarked, 'encouragement in that respect is very important, for I hear that some of our manufacturing towns (more especially in Lancashire) are suffer-

ing much under want of orders for export'.2 Almost immediately the

government was pressed to authorize more complex operations. A certain

J. Taylor, recommended to Auckland by Nicholas Vansittart as 'a friend of mine in the City' and acting on behalf of a business group headed by the house of Fermin de Tastet and Co., requested leave to trade with Spanish America, having already procured a Spanish licence. Taylor sought the pro- tection of a licence for the purchase of bills at Madrid drawn on the royal treasuries in Spanish America and payable in bullion returns to Britain.3 After some hesitation Grenville and Auckland agreed, on condition that

Taylor and his associates exported to the Spanish colonies British manufac- tures equal in value to the bills of exchange. And on 3 June Fermin de Tastet and Co. received two licences authorizing them to buy in Madrid

99 Auckland to Grenville, i8 Feb. i806; Dropmore Papers, vmI, 36. 1 P.R.O., P.C. 4/14/51-2, 54-6; Dropmore Papers, vmII, 36-7. 2 Auckland to Grenville, i6 March, 21 March and 9 April I806; Dropmore Papers, vmII, 59,

63, 87. 3 Vansittart to Auckland, 19 Feb. I806, Taylor to Board of Trade, 19 March I806, B.M.,

Add. 34456, if. 387, 434.

British Policy and Spanish America, 1783-I808 27

bills drawn on Mexico and Buenos Aires to the amount of ?40,000 each, and to transport the bullion to Jamaica or Britain.4

Another financial group headed by W. Gordon and J. Murphy concluded in March i806 a contract with the Treasury for the supply of dollars. Murphy then secured from the Spanish government orders on the colonial treasury for a sum of 10 million dollars, on condition that he obtained British licences for ten neutral vessels to carry cargoes to Spanish America consisting partly of British and partly of Spanish goods, the returns to be in either colonial

produce or precious metals and to be imported into a British port. After serious hesitation, caused by the size of the operation and the amount of

Spanish goods involved, the British government eventually agreed (6 June 1806) to grant Gordon and Murphy the ten licences requested for trading with Vera Cruz, and after various vicissitudes the 10 million dollars reached British ports.5 Licences such as these were obviously issued to procure vital bullion supplies.6 In effect they allowed Spain to transfer in time of war funds from Spanish America to Europe, and in the case of the Gordon and

Murphy operation even authorized direct trade between Spain and her colonies. At the same time, however, operations on this scale greatly expanded direct trade between Britain and Spanish America, with the con- nivance of Spain; indeed it would seem that a great part of Britain's trade with the Spanish colonies in the period I806-8 was made under the licence of the Spanish crown. This 'secret trade', as contemporaries called it, affronted the British navy, especially when it was ordered to refrain from

molesting enemy vessels or even to escort them against the possibility of French attacks.7 The admiralty strenuously objected to protecting the trade of the enemy, but this was also the trade of Britain and exports took

precedence over prize-money. It is difficult to estimate the total value of the licensed trade to Spanish

4 P.R.O., P.C. 2/170/310-12, P.C. 4/14/61; Grenville to Auckland, i8 March I8o6, B.M., Add. 34456, f. 433; Auckland to Grenville, i6 March, 21 March 1806, Dropmore Papers, vIII, 59, 63.

5 P.R.O., P.C. 4/15/285-304; Draft contract, Gordon and Murphy, Dec. I8o5, B.M., Add. 38766, if. i-II; Grenville to Auckland, 5 June I806, Dropmore Papers, viII, I78-9; Auck- land to Grenville, 5 June, 28 Oct. and 29 Oct. I8o6, ibid., viII, 178-9, 405, 407-8. Gordon and Murphy had begun their negotiations with the previous administration and the opera- tion had been anticipated by the huge transaction authorized by Pitt, whereby the con- sortium of Ouvrard, Hope and Baring procured dollars at Vera Cruz and transported them in British warships; see memorandum of Sir Francis Baring to Pitt and Huskisson, Dec. 1805, B.M., Add. 38738, if. Io3-Io; Andre Fugier, Napoleon et I'Espagne, I799-I808 (2 vols., Paris, 1930), I, 283, ii, 8-22, 52-60.

6 See Crouzet, L'Economie Britannique et le Blocus Continentale, I, 120-I. 7 T. Grenville, Admiralty, 26 Feb. 1807, B.M., Add. 34457, ff. 231-2, objecting to having

to provide ' the protection of a frigate to the port of Valparaiso'.

28 John Lynch

America conducted under the ruling of 28 February I806.8 In the course of that year 16 vessels were licensed to export from Great Britain (in some cases via a neutral port) to Spanish America; a further 50 were licensed to

export from other ports, though carrying largely British goods; and 81 vessels were authorized to import from the Spanish colonies to Great Britain.9 The total exports under licence to Spanish America from Great Britain in i8o6 probably exceeded ?50,oo00 in real value, and greatly exceeded that amount in 1807. In September i8o6 Auckland reported that the Board of Trade had granted licences in the last four months 'to ten

principal houses engaged in the secret trade to South America; to the extent

certainly of one million sterling, and perhaps more than double that amount'.70 An exaggeration perhaps but one indicating the impression created on officials by the size of the trade. It was a difficult trade and not

always greatly profitable to its promoters. The slowness of returns from distant markets like Lima and Buenos Aires meant that only firms possess- ing large capital resources could participate in it. But those who did

inaugurated a new phase in the British penetration of Spanish America, a

phase which was overlooked by contemporary advocates of conquest or

emancipation and overshadowed by the more spectacular assault on the Rio de la Plata from June i8o6. Yet even here, in spite of the unsuitable

exports, the unscrupulous speculation, the glutting of the market and the

sharp drop in prices, the incident was not without benefit.1l Stocks piling up in the industrial centres of Britain were liquidated and production boosted. And this large-scale unloading of goods, especially textiles, at Montevideo, while it made few fortunes in Britain, enabled British exports to secure a

greater share of the market in the Rio de la Plata and created a permanent demand for them there. For in spite of the heavy penalties for anyone handling them they managed to penetrate via local merchants and hacen- dados to the most distant parts of the viceroyalty.l2 Moreover the temporary British presence in the Rio de la Plata encouraged British shipping to make a further penetration of the South American market via Peruvian ports

8 See the valuable discussion in Crouzet, L'Economie Britannique et le Blocus Continentale, I, 182-4, on which this paragraph is based.

9 In the second category 25 of the licences were issued for trade to Buenos Aires after its

occupation by Popham's expedition. 10 Auckland to Grenville, 14 Sept. i8o6, Dropmore Papers, vm, 332. 11 In May 1807 Auchmuty estimated from customs receipts that the value of merchandise

disposed of was ?1,210,000; see Humphreys, Liberation in South America, pp. I-I4; see also Ferns, Britain and Argentina, pp. 50-1.

12 See German 0. E. Tjarks and Alicia Vidaurreta de Tjarks, El comercio ingles y el contra- bando. Nuevos aspectos en el estudio de la politica econdmica en el Rio de la Plata (I807-

I8Io) (Buenos Aires, I962), p. I2.

British Policy and Spanish America, I783-1808 29

which in 1807 were described as 'infested with English vessels'.13 But in the final analysis it was the established licensed trade to the Rio de la Plata, Lima and Vera Cruz, combined with the expanding trade of the free ports, which offered the greater compensation for British losses in Europe.

And compensations were vitally needed. By the end of 1807 Napoleon's continental system had been greatly extended and was more rigorously en- forced. Simultaneously the worsening of relations with the United States caused a drop in British exports to this important market. Total exports in the second half of 1807 declined by 25 per cent on those of the first half of the year, and Britain experienced a serious industrial depression which worsened in i808.14 In this period of crisis the only branch of foreign trade which experienced a great expansion and on which centred the hopes of British rulers and businessmen was the trade with Brazil, whose ports were thrown open by the Portuguese court in exile in January i8o8. But direct trade with Brazil meant further trade with Spanish America, for which Brazil was used as an entrepot. Buenos Aires, under the tolerant viceroy Liniers, absorbed sizeable quantities of British re-exports from Brazil.l5 From March to June i8o8 merchandise valued at ?12o,ooo was exported from Rio de Janeiro to Buenos Aires; and the trade was actively encouraged by the Privy Council, which decided (i April I8o8) that the British minister at Rio de Janeiro, after the fashion of a colonial governor in the West Indies, be authorized to issue licences protecting it. But even apart from the

entrepot in Brazil, the Spanish American market continued to play its part in providing a safety-valve for the British economy. During the first half of i8o8 twelve vessels were authorized to export to the Spanish colonies from British and five from non-British ports, while twenty-one were authorized to import therefrom. In the winter of I807-8 eleven British vessels, with

cargoes valued at ?933,000, sailed for Chile and Peru.l6 Meanwhile, the contraband trade from the free ports in the West Indies continued to develop with great vigour, stimulated now by the American embargo and the British Orders-in-Council which further isolated the Spanish colonies and forced them to turn still more to Jamaica and Trinidad.

In view of the existing trade between Britain and the Spanish colonies in the years I806-8, it is possible to appreciate why the commercial argument for British intervention in Spanish America lost some of its force. No doubt a freer access to the market would have been welcome and remained an

13 Correspondence of Santa Coloma, 2 June 1807, in Gandia, Buenos Aires colonial, p. Ioo. 14 Crouzet, L'Economie Britannique et le Blocus Continentale, I, 248-72, 284-313, 322-55. 15 R. A. Humphreys (ed.), British Consular Reports on the Trade and Politics of Latin

America, 1824-1826 (London, I940), p. 20.

16 Ibid., p. 127, n. 2.

30 John Lynch

objective, but the situation was not so desperate that the commercial argu- ment was likely to outweigh other factors. And when, in June 1808, the reversal of alliances caused Britain to step back from the brink of war in

Spanish America, she was able to do so without serious economic conse-

quences. British policy had shed other prejudices in these years, notably the

quest for conquest, and dominion. As for Spanish American independence, if there was any lesson to be learnt from the events of this period it was that British policy should follow, not anticipate, events in Spanish America itself. The experience acquired in the years 1783-I808, therefore, prepared Britain in some degree for the great age of Spanish American independence.