manded an absolute renunciation forever of the right of search and an express acknowledgment of all the British rights and claims in America. Those demands Spain rejected with all her old pride, and on October 19, 1739, war was proclaimed in London. The exultation of the populace knew no bounds: they ran through the streets shouting wild huzzas and rang the church bells as one method of expressing their joy. "They may ring the bells now," said Walpole, "but they will soon be wringing their hands."

The thing to do, however, was to make the war operations as effective as possible. Already in July, 1739, Vernon had sailed for America, and in 1740 Sir Chaloner Ogle, with a fleet of twenty-seven ships of the line and a number of frigates, fire-ships, bombketches, tenders, hospital-ships, and storeships, accompanied to Jamaica a large land force which was commanded by Lord Cathcart. At Jamaica they were joined by four battalions raised in the British colonies of North America. The object of this whole armament was to coöperate with Vernon against the Spanish settlements in and on the Atlantic. Commodore Anson was sent to the Pacific with a small squadron to assist Vernon by committing depredations on Peru, attacking Panama, and capturing the treasure fleet. It was confidently expected by most people in England that all these armaments would, between them, utterly overthrow the dominion of Spain in America.

Vernon, with his six ships, 2,735 men, and 370 pieces of ordnance, appeared before Porto Bello at dawn on November 21, 1739, and his fleet entered the harbor in line of battle. From daylight to dark a brisk battle was fought between the British ships and the Spanish forts. The issue was long in doubt, but eventually, after gallantly sustaining an almost point-blank bombardment, the city, the fortifications, and the ships in the harbor were surrendered to the British commander. The inhabitants were not molested, nor was the town pillaged, but some 10,000 pesos in

tended for the pay of the garrison were found and were distributed among the English sailors and troops. Having removed all the ammunition and the best of the cannon to his own ships, and spiked the other guns, Vernon demolished the fortifications that his batteries had left still standing, and sailed for Jamaica, where he refitted his fleet.

When the news of their fellow-countryman's success reached England the joy of the nation was boundless. London celebrated Vernon's birthday (November 12) in 1740 with public illuminations, 130 medals were struck in his honor, and he was reëlected-in his absence, of courseto parliament in February, 1741, and in the following May at a general election he was returned for three different constituencies and came near being elected by a fourth.

In the meantime the conqueror of Porto Bello had proceeded in February, 1740, from Jamaica to the mouth of the Chagre, and amused himself by committing depredations up and down the coast of Tierra Firme. In 1741 he joined Ogle's and Cathcart's forces at Jamaica, and was then in command of the greatest armament ever previously seen in those waters. He had thirty ships of the line, ninety other vessels, 15,000 sailors, and 12,000 soldiers. The capture of Fort San Lorenzo, demolished by Morgan in 1671 but afterwards rebuilt and much more strongly fortified, was easily effected, and then, toward the end of March, 1741, the whole British force bore down on Cartagena. The Spanish ships that lay athwart the harbor's mouth were soon destroyed or taken, the forts and castles on Boca Chica fell into the invaders' hands, their fleet sailed into the immense harbor, and the great outwork of Castillo Grande was abandoned by the Spaniards without striking a blow. Here, however, the success of the English ended. After a fierce and furious but unavailing attack by their land forces on Fort San Lorenzo, a council of war was called, and it was decided to abandon the

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In Roderick Random, Smollett, who was on this expedition, has left us a vivid picture of the famous but disastrous attack on Cartagena. The unhealthy climate had been more deadly to the men than even the guns of San Lorenzo: the 12,000 soldiers had been reduced to 3,000.

In July, in pursuance of orders from home, Vernon proceeded to Cuba, but failed again before Santiago in that island. A new reënforcing fleet of four ships of war with 3,000 more soldiers was sent to Vernon from England, but although in 1742 he sailed once more to Porto Bello, intending to land there and march to Panama, his plans were frustrated by the rainy season and by sickness and mortality among his troops, and he had effected nothing more when he was recalled. Sailing for England he landed at Bristol in January, 1743, with scarcely one-tenth of the number of men he had led from Jamaica to Cartagena.

In the meantime Anson, who with six vessels had left England in the autumn of 1640, had encountered in the Pacific a fierce storm which lasted fifty-eight days and scattered his little fleet, so that when they finally rendezvoused at Juan Fernandez in June, 1741, only three ships were forthcoming and most of the men died of scurvy. At Juan Fernandez Anson remained 104 days, and then bore up the South American coast, where he emulated the performance of the buccaneers by burning towns and villages and making prize of every vessel he met. Vernon's failure at Cartagena, which Anson learned from some of the prisoners he took, rendered coöperation across the Isthmus a practical impossibility, and so the Commodore decided to leave Panama alone. He finally started with only one ship, the Centurion, to cross the Pacific, and on the way he fell in with and captured a Spanish galleon on her passage from Acapulco to Manila, having on board nearly 1,500,000 pesos. Returning to England by way of the Cape of

June 15, 1744, having spent three years and nine months in his circumnavigation of the globe.

The total treasure he brought back amounted to £1,250,000 sterling, and this was conveyed in solemn procession from Portsmouth to London in thirty wagons guarded by the ships' crews and preceded by the officers with swords drawn, bands playing, and colors flying. It was really a great performance on Anson's part, and he was duly rewarded by being appointed rear-admiral of the blue and one of the lords of the Admiralty, with greater honors and dignities yet to come; but the treasure he brought back did not go to the nation, and, even had it done so, it would have made but poor compensation for the millions of pounds sterling and the thousands of valuable lives that the West Indian expedition of 1739-1742 had cost England.

The war dragged on in dilatory fashion until it was brought to an end by the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in October, 1748. By this peace England secured from Spain the concession of none of the main principles for which the war had been in the first instance undertaken-neither the satisfaction of her commercial claims, nor the abolition of the right of search, nor the free trade for British shipping with the Spanish Main. The sole gain appears to have been the renewal of the Assiento for four years. It comes, therefore, as a sort of anti-climax to learn that two years later, in a time of peace, part at least of the demand in connection with those much disputed restrictions on trade was conceded by international agreement. By the Treaty of Madrid, signed on October 5, 1750, the British were restored to sundry privileges and put on the most-favored-nation footing. At the same time they gave up the remaining term of the Assiento, and obtained for the South Sea Company £100,000 by way of compensation in lieu thereof. An extraordinary fact is that the treaty did not contain one word about the right

of search, which had been the immediate cause of the war of 1739 and of the consequent destruction of so much property and so many lives.

During all the turmoil the new city of Panama was fortunate enough to escape conquests by a foreign foe; but on different occasions during the course of the eighteenth century it received serious setbacks from disastrous conflagrations. A fire, which raged for two days and two nights in February, 1737, laid low two-thirds of the city; half of it was similarly destroyed in March, 1756; and in April, 1771, another fire wrought sad havoc among its buildings.

Outside these occurrences, the second half of the eighteenth century passed away uneventfully and fairly peaceably for Tierra Firme. To this state of affairs many causes contributed, such, for example, as the disbanding of the buccaneers, the establishment of new trade centers and routes, and the political conditions in Europe and North America. Doubtless, however, the chief cause was that falling off in importance and wealth which has been previously mentioned. The peaceful condition was on the whole an unhealthy symptom, because it was evidence of a rapid decline. The isthmian cities, ceasing to be prosperous, no longer offered rich spoils to the raider, and were therefore no longer objects of desire. For this reason, among others, Tierra Firme, as a province of New Granada, enjoyed an internal tranquillity

that had been denied to it as an independent government or as a dependency of Peru, and was largely free from those struggles for supremacy and power, which, however disgraceful in themselves, made its earlier history so thrilling in fact and render it so fascinating in the reading.

There was, however, one section of the country, namely Darien, in which for a long time peace did not prevail, and in which the natives were never brought fully into subjection to Spanish rule. Missionaries failed to convert or civilize them; forts and strongholds were built among them in vain. The missionaries they derided or deceived or killed, the forts they pulled down and destroyed and put the garrisons to death. We have record of such happenings in 1751, 1756, and as late as 1773. In 1774 the governor, Andrés de Ariza, took active and skillful steps to cope with a situation that was always threatening and sometimes dangerous, and he gained greater success than any one who had preceded him; but the most that can be said of the result achieved is that his operations reduced the hostile native tribes to a sort of sullen submission that was more apparent than real. To this day many of the native inhabitants of Darien yield no allegiance to any government save their own tribal regulations, and in fact their territory is to all intents and purposes independent, and acts more or less as a buffer state between the present rival republics of Colombia and Panama.

ment which was ultimately to result in their independence. Nor was New Granada much behindhand. In 1810 the governor of Cartagena was arrested by the popular party and sent to Habana, and later in the year, the viceroy himself was seized in his own capital, Santa Fé de Bogotá, and sent first to Cartagena and afterwards to Spain. The juntas, which had so deftly and yet with such a high hand carried out these enterprises, next invited representatives of all the provinces of the vice-royalty to a congress for the purpose of discussing the adoption of a new form of government subject to the mother country. As yet they had not envisaged the prospect of breaking wholly with Spain. This congress, which assembled early in 1811, had no delegation from Panama, for the governor of that country refused either to take part himself or to allow other representatives from Tierra Firme to be present.

When Benito Perez, the recently appointed viceroy of New Granada, arrived in America in February, 1812, he was unable to proceed to the seat of his government at Santa Fé de Bogoát, which was then held by the revolutionists, and accordingly he established himself, with his audiencia and all the other paraphernalia of authority, first at Porto Bello and afterwards at Panama. Perez proceeded to direct operations from Panama against the insurgents, but he was signally unsuccessful, and he was ere long deposed by the home government. Francisco Montalvo, his successor, removed to Santa Marta, and thus left Tierra Firme comparatively free to work for its independence. The desire for freedom rapidly spread there, and when, late in 1813, it was proposed to establish a confederation consisting of New Granada, Quito, Venezuela, and Tierra Firme, the people of the last-mentioned country were enthusiastic in its favor. They were held in check, however, by Joaquin Carrion, the senior oidor of the audiencia of New Granada, which was left behind at Panama by Montalvo when he went to Santa Marta.

In 1815 Spain, seeing the danger of losing her hold on her American colonies, dispatched to the scene of hostilities an expedition of 15,000 men and a large fleet, well equipped with artillery and stores, under Mariscal de Campo Pablo Morillo, and soon afterward a fresh force under Alejandro de Hore was sent out to cooperate with Morillo and in particular to hold Tierra Firme. Hore was appointed governor of Panama and applied himself vigorously to the maintenance of Spanish rule throughout his province.

In December, 1818, an expedition was fitted out in England to abolish Spanish dominion on the isthmus. The moving spirits in this undertaking were Gregor MacGregor and José María del Real, and they succeeded in enlisting the sympathy and the financial support of some English merchants for their enterprise. On April 8, 1819, the invading force appeared with five ships before Porto Bello and easily captured it. José Elias Lopez and Joaquin Vargas Besgara were respectively proclaimed governor and vice-governor of Tierra Firme. Arrangements were then made for a march to Chagres and Panama, but the discipline of the newcomers was very lax, there were no funds to pay the troops, and sickness and death decimated their ranks. Hore, who was of a distinctly aggressive type, did not wait for the enemy to come to him, but carried the fight to them, and marching across the isthmus with about 500 men reached Porto Bello on April 29. Early the following morning an attack was made and Porto Bello was retaken, among those slain in the brief battle being the ill-starred newly appointed Governor Lopez. MacGregor escaped by rushing to the beach and swimming to one of his ships. After negotiation, the forts surrendered, and that was the end of MacGregor's raid.

The congress held in December, 1819, at Angostura, in Spanish Guiana, and presided over by Simon Bolivar, constituted New Granada, consisting of the modern Colombia, Venezuela, and Quito or Ecua