^{page 1 note 1} Smith College Studies in History, Vol. XV, Nos. I, 2. Studies in the History of Spain in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century, by Vera Lee Brown, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of History in Smith College.

^{page 2 note 1} Quoted from A Proposal for Humbling Spain, written in 1711 by “A Person of Distinction”.

^{page 2 note 2} Smith College Studies, u.s., p. 43.

^{page 3 note 1} There is an excellent sketch, of the career of Bubb Dodington by Lloyd Sanders, under the title of Patron and Place-hunter. Unfortunately Mr. Sanders regards commercial treaties as “an acquired taste” (p. 29), but his account of Bubb's mission to Spain is worth reading.

^{page 5 note 1} Keene's dispatches from Lisbon in 1746 are not in the Foreign State Papers at the Record Office. It was at one time thought that they had been lost. But they are to be found in the Newcastle Papers in the British Museum.

^{page 6 note 1} The publication of the Private Correspondence of Sir Benjamin Keene has been undertaken by the Cambridge University Press.

^{page 7 note 1} See a letter from Keene to Sir Thomas Robinson in B.M. Add. MSS. 23821 (Robinson Papers), fo. 170.

^{page 8 note 1} I have told the story of these simultaneous and overlapping negotiations in Studies in Eighteenth Century Diplomacy, chapters V and VI.

^{page 11 note 1} For extremely interesting documents on the history of the AngloSpanish disputes about the cutting of and trade in logwood, see Archives of British Honduras, Vol. I, edited by SirBurdon, John AlderGoogle Scholar.

^{page 12 note 1} The exact amount of this alleged debt was £I, 367, 387 3s. ½d. The memorial demanding payment, signed by Peter Burrell and John Bristow, the sub- and deputy-governors of the Company, was forwarded by Bedford to Keene on 9 March (o.s.), 1749 (S.P., Spain, 135).

^{page 13 note 1} Copies of the agreement and of Sandwich's apologetic letters to Stone are in S.P., Spain, 135. They were sent to Keene by Bedford on 11 May (o.s.), 1749. Three letters from Bedford, of the same date are printed in Bedford Correspondence, II, pp. 27–35Google Scholar.

^{page 14 note 1} Keene reported to Bedford Carvajal's first overture and the proposed bargain on 28 September, 1749. Bedford on 26 October (o.s.) intimated approval in principle of the bargain, on condition that the South Sea claims were passed over sub silentio and that the concessions to England were exclusive (S.P., Spain, 137).

^{page 15 note 1} The most secret dispatch from Bedford authorising Keene to give way on these points is dated 30 August (o.s.), 1750, and is printed in Bedford Correspondence, II, p. 51Google Scholar. The King and Newcastle were at Hanover, and their opinion had to be sent to London for submission, not to the Lords Justices or to the full Cabinet, but to “those Lords who are usually consulted upon the most secret affairs.” It was the decision of this inner Cabinet that Bedford transmitted to Keene, and that decision was based upon virtual instructions sent from Hanover by Newcastle. A copy of Newcastle's letter to Bedford, dated 19/30 August, which was enclosed to Keene, is in S.P., Spain, 138.

^{page 15 note 2} In the negotiation of this treaty valuable services were rendered by the Visconde de Ponte di Lima, the Portuguese ambassador in Madrid, and by General Wall, the Spanish minister in London, and Keene fully admits his obligations to both. Coxe, (Bourbon Kings, IV, p. 42Google Scholar) goes so far as to say that Wall had to be recalled from London to facilitate the conclusion of the treaty. For this statement I can find no justification in either the Keene Papers or the State Papers in the Record Office. The dispatch of 12 March, 1752, to which Coxe refers in a footnote, has no reference to the conclusion of the commercial treaty in 1750.

^{page 16 note 1} Recueil des Instructions, Espagne, III, p. 294Google Scholar. “Quoique il ne soit pas admis au secret de cette négotiation, il employera toutes les voies indirectes dont il pourra faire usage pour la traverser.”

^{page 16 note 2} Keene, to Bedford, , 8 12, 1750, most secretGoogle Scholar. “Spain has in some measure declared her divorce from France.” He added that “ one Spanish minister speaks the French language with pain, the other not at all,” and that Vaulgrenant was seriously handicapped because his knowledge of Spanish was very limited (S.P., Spain, 138).

^{page 16 note 3} In a private and particular letter to Bedford on 8 December Keene, expressed the hope that he “may receive some such marks of his Majesty's approbation as shall be thought proper to be conferred upon me” (Bedford, Correspondence, II, p. 63)Google Scholar.

^{page 16 note 4} Arneth, (Maria Theresia, IV, p. 336)Google Scholar asserts that the first move towards a reconciliation between the courts of Vienna and Madrid was made by Spain through the agency of Cardinal Portocarrero, the Spanish minister in Rome, who had been previously in the employ of Austria. This is partially supported by Keene, who reported on 15 July, 1751, to Holderness that Portocarrero had arrived in Spain and that he brought proposals from the Imperial Court.

^{page 17 note 1} Newcastle to Keene (very private), 5 August, 1751: “My late colleague was a very great man—my present one is a very amiable one” (B.M. Add. Mss. 32829, fo. 74).

^{page 19 note 1} This lengthy and most secret dispatch from Keene to Holderness of 5 August, 1751, is in S.P., Spain, 140. Part of it is printed in Coxe, , Bourbon Kings, IV, p. 73Google Scholar.

^{page 20 note 1} In a private letter to Keene of 24 October, 1751, Newcastle did not conceal his chagrin nor his belief that he had been misled by too confident reports from Madrid. “Dear Keene, what a figure shall we make if we are baffled in this attempt? And that by our friends the Spaniards? How will the Court of Vienna laugh at us, and Bartenstein triumph for his impertinence? How will our geniuses at home ridicule us for offering ourselves and our fleets and being accepted by nobody? And you! France certainly thinks you govern all at Madrid” (B.M. Add. MSS. 32831, fo. 83).

^{page 22 note 1} Keene wrote to Amyand on 15 May, 1752: “Pray tell my Lord Holderness that Migazzi is a mettled archbishop, rather wanting in ceremony for that title and this country” (S.P., Spain, 141). Keene found him easier to deal with and less reserved than Esterhazy had been.

^{page 23 note 1} Keene to Newcastle (cypher), 29 May, 1752, in S.P., Spain, 141.

^{page 24 note 1} Arneth, always eager to lay stress upon English selfishness as an excuse for Austrian desertion from the alliance, states that this clause induced England to oppose the conclusion of the treaty. There is absolutely no foundation for this assertion. In the first place England actively promoted the treaty. In the second place, Keene only discovered the commercial clause late in the negotiations; he makes but one mention of it in his dispatches, and it is never referred to in his instructions.

^{page 26 note 1} His real name was Carlo Broschi. It is probable that his political influence was much exaggerated by contemporary rumours.

^{page 27 note 1} Huescar was sent to Spain in February, 1746, by Elizabeth Farnese, at the moment when she was exasperated to find that the Marquis d'Argenson had negotiated behind her back a treaty with Sardinia. See my Studies in Eighteenth Century Diplomacy, p. 109. The treaty did not take effect, but it was always held in Spain that France merely took advantage of the Spanish campaigns in Italy in order to divert Austrian forces from the Netherlands and thus to facilitate French successes in their favourite scene of operations.

^{page 29 note 1} This curious letter did not escape Coxe's notice and he printed it, with characteristic inaccuracy, in Vol. IV, p. 137.

^{page 30 note 1} Huescar's father, the twelfth Duke of Alva, had supported the Habsburg claimant in the War of the Spanish Succession, and the son had been born at Vienna in 1712. So it was natural to accuse him of Austrian sympathies.

^{page 33 note 1} Keene wrote to Castres on 6 October: “M. Duras and his lady and family left this place on Saturday, …but tell old Gold [the Viscount Ponte de Lima] that he has not carryed the Fleece with him nor has his second son been made a Grande of Spain, tho' really both the one and the other were not lost for want of asking” (Keene Papers).

^{page 35 note 1} Keene's letters to Castres are full of expressions of his enmity to Carvalho, whose elevation to office he had desired to prevent. To Robinson, he wrote on 17 10, 1755: “I believe Carvalho would be an arrant Frenchman if he dared, and he would dare if he saw any bent that way in his Master” (S.P., Spain, 149)Google Scholar. After the earthquake, however, Keene expressed warm admiration of Carvalho's labours for the recovery of Portugal.

^{page 37 note 1} Holderness wrote to Mitchell, Andrew on 9 07, 1756: “Spain is now become the arbiter of all the southern courts.”Google Scholar

^{page 38 note 1} Keene reported this conversation to Pitt, in a “most secret and confidential” dispatch on 28 02, 1757 (S.P., Spain, 154)Google Scholar.

^{page 41 note 1} Pitt's dispatch of 23 August and Keene's reply of 26 September are in S.P., Spain, 151. They are both printed in the first volume of the Chatham Correspondence.

^{page 42 note 1} It is worth while to quote a French estimate of Keene. “Ce ministre joignoit à beaucoup d'esprit et d'expérience dans le maniement des affaires, une adresse et un art d'autant plus efficaces qu'il les couvroit souvent du voile d'une simplicité qui paroissoit naturelle, et d'une franchise apparente, qui alloit meme quelquefois jusqu' à lui faire blâmer les opérations, tant militaires que politiques, de sa cour. Sa longue résidence en Espagne lui avoit appris à connoître la nation espagnole, à laquelle il avoit su se rendre fort agréable. Ou prétendoit qu'il répandoit beaucoup d'argent à Madrid, soit dans les différens bureaux de l'administration, soit parmi les personnes les plus accréditées, mais c'étoit sur quoi l'on ne pouvoit que former des conjectures” (Recueil des Instructions, Espagne, III, p. 333). Duras reported that between May, 1753, and January, 1755, Keene distributed some £200,000 sterling in Spain (ibid., p. 309). This was the wildest of conjectures, and was accepted as such at Versailles.