In 1672, the merchant John Aylward moved to Spain − ‘the Darling and the Silver Mine of England’ − with the aim of establishing himself within Anglo-Spanish trade. There, he joined the British community of expatriates which had been settling in Iberian ports since the late Middle Ages. English, Scottish, and Irish merchants had been operating in Spanish ports for many centuries and possibly since before the Norman conquest. The number of Catholics living in Spanish ports, particularly those from Ireland, increased after the Cromwellian conquest of their kingdom (1649–1653). The English soon turned to commerce when landowning was no longer viable due to heavy taxation and so, with the new ability to buy and sell properties and engage in commerce, thousands of foreign Catholics began to establish themselves in Spain, particularly in the port of Cadiz, the most important harbour in the peninsula due to its access route to colonial trade. For centuries, Cadiz's position on the Atlantic had fostered successful exchanges between the north of Europe, the Maghreb, and the Western Mediterranean ports. The North African coasts were now a gateway to the Saharan and Sub-Saharan trading routes, and trade along these was ‘immemorial and ancient’; thus throughout the sixteenth century, Cadiz became part of a redistribution network of North European fabrics and American goods.

In the 1670s and 1680s, British Catholics saw life in Spain as an excellent opportunity to initiate new career paths through which – as this chapter will assess – their economic strategies, abilities, and the fortuitous circumstances before them might allow them to flourish as traders. The survey of their papers offers the possibility of a thorough analysis of the places, contacts, and goods which featured in their deals, suggesting that although Catholic contacts facilitated initial settlement, in trade, Catholics showed no religious communality, but only a desire to profit. The Atlantic economy promoted new religious and social orders and it seems that Catholics seized these new opportunities and promoted the national interests by working alongside their Protestant neighbours.

Context

In order to assess British Catholics in commerce, it is fundamental to explore their economic, religious, and political environment.