Middlemen in English Business 353 



supercargoes were therefore in use in the West Indies trade; first, 

 those of Cadiz who were resident and native factors of Cadiz, serving 

 English merchant principals, but who were willing to do a clandes- 

 tine trade to the Spanish West Indies in the capacity of supercargo, 

 apparently for native Cadiz houses but in reality in the employ of 

 English merchants. This class was instituted for the very purpose 

 of evading Spain's restrictions on the West Indies' trade, and the\' 

 served well their purpose. The other class were those employed 

 directly and openly by the South Sea Company; they were English- 

 men and ostensibly did and were sent to do open and honest business, 

 but, although agents of the Company they were implicated in various 

 fraudulent deals in collusion with other officers of the Company both 

 against the Company and against the Spanish traders.^ The institu- 

 tion of the supercargo method had been designed as a corrective of 

 frauds heretofore committed by the Company's factors against the 

 Company itself; however it opened the way to greater misconduct. 

 The tendency of both classes was, therefore, to further the extrava- 

 gant smuggling trade in Spanish America, which reached its climax- 

 in the "Merchants' War" with Spain in 1739. 



The Cadiz supercargoes were in touch with the whole Spanish 

 American trade.- Cadiz was the ''Embarcardero of the Spanish 

 Indies; from the Port of Cadiz the Galleons and Flota set out and 

 thither they returned again loaden with all the Riches of the Indies."^ 



The French conducted a like commerce through Cadiz.'* The 

 French did not even discharge their goods at Cadiz but transferred 

 their French ships to the Galleons of Spain. They paid their Cadiz 

 "Correspondents" as commission £8 per pack of merchandise, not a 

 percentage rate on the selling price. In a calculation given for the 

 "annual Permission Ship," 1733, it appears that the annual adventure 

 amounted to £350,000 sterling, of which £20,000 or nearly 6 per cent 

 was paid as commission to the supercargoes, but on the basis of cost 

 of the cargo the commission was 10 per cent.^ 



1 Templeman, South Sea Co.; the whole pamphlet, sixty-two pages, is an exposi- 

 tion of their frauds; ''An Inquiry into the Misconduct," is devoted to the same 

 purpose; Anderson, Origin, III, 166. 



- For an excellent description of the distribution of the goods shipped from 

 Cadiz to Spanish America, see Allen, Essay; Allen had resided for some years in 

 Peru. See also, Anderson, Origin, TIT, 165. 



3 Allen, 9. 



<Savar>-, II, 174-82. 



^ Anderson, Origin, III, 198. 



