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The War of the Spanish Succession Begins (1700 to 1702)

The dynastic and commercial war over the inheritance of the Spanish monarchy, opening with the death of Carlos II at Madrid on 1 November 1700 and the allied declarations of May 1702, and reaching the English plantations between June and July 1702, where at Jamaica the proclamation reopened lawful privateering within a day.

Also writtenThe outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession; Queen Anne's War, the opening; The declarations of war of May 1702; The Spanish succession crisis, 1700 to 1702

This is a context event, kept for what it did to the labour market of Atlantic violence. Between 1702 and 1713 four crowns licensed private men-of-war on a large scale, and the men who later filled the pirate crews of 1716 to 1726 learned the work inside that licensed system.

The inheritance

Carlos II of Spain died at Madrid on 1 November 1700, about three in the afternoon. His will was opened immediately after his death and appointed the Duke of Anjou his universal heir and successor to the whole monarchy, the succession settled in default upon the Duke of Berry, then the Archduke of Austria, then the Duke of Savoy, with seven regents named to govern during the new King's absence. Louis XIV afterwards recognised the son of James II as king in place of William III, an act recited against him in Anne's declaration of war of 4 May 1702.1

The commercial grievance ran alongside the dynastic one. The asiento, the contract to supply enslaved Africans to Spanish America, was held until 1713 by the French Guinea Company, which the British contract of 1713 barred from importing any enslaved person into the Indies after 1 May that year, on pain of confiscation. At Utrecht the contract passed to Britain, signed at Madrid on 26 March 1713 and binding its holders to bring 144,000 people into the Spanish West Indies in the thirty years from 1 May 1713, at 4,800 a year.2

The alliance, and one act with two dates

The second Grand Alliance was concluded at The Hague on 7 September 1701, between the Emperor, the King of Great Britain and the States General of the United Provinces. It bound the confederates to seek an equitable and reasonable satisfaction for the Emperor's pretension to the Spanish succession, security for the British and Dutch kingdoms and for their navigation and commerce, and the recovery of the provinces of the Spanish Low Countries so that they might be "a fence and rampart, commonly called a barrier, separating and distancing France from the United Provinces", along with Milan, Naples and Sicily and the lands and islands on the coasts of Tuscany; the confederates were to seize and keep what they could of the Spanish dominions in the Indies, and to make no peace unless British and Dutch subjects had the commercial privileges they had enjoyed before the late king's death. It did not at that stage propose to put the Archduke Charles on the Spanish throne, and the printed treaty makes the barrier a belt of provinces, saying nothing of Dutch garrisons in the barrier fortresses or of the Protestant succession.3

William III died at Kensington at eight in the morning on 8 March 1701 Old Style, that is 1702 by modern reckoning, and Anne was proclaimed the same afternoon before the gate of St James's, at Charing Cross, Temple Bar and the Royal Exchange. England declared war on France and Spain in a single instrument dated 4 May 1702 Old Style, proclaimed that morning before the gates of St James's by Clarenceux King of Arms.4

Carrying the news

The colonial dates that follow, and the day-counts drawn from them, are Old Style throughout. Between 4 and 6 May the Council of Trade and Plantations at Whitehall considered how to carry the declaration, and a "Mr. Randolph" proposed notifying the plantations "by way of Bermudas". On 5 May the Board told the Earl of Nottingham that the Bermuda route "may be convenient", but that advice-boats should go too, to New England and to Barbados.5

The news travelled roughly as planned, and slowly. Christopher Codrington had it at Antigua by 28 June, fifty-five days after the Whitehall date. Joseph Dudley had intelligence at Boston on 20 June but no order to publish; the declaration was read at the Town House on 30 June, "the Regiment attending in arms". Portsmouth in New Hampshire heard it on 7 July and Jamaica on 11 July, sixty-eight days out. One knot resists tidying: Beckford says his packets left Barbados on 1 July, yet the Barbados Council read the covering letter only on 14 July.5

The day after the proclamation

Lieutenant Governor Peter Beckford published the declaration at Port Royal on 11 July 1702. "The following day all our seafaring people came unanimously to offer their services against the French and Spaniards and to desire commissions", he wrote. He granted them on the resolution of Council, for six months only, so that the holders "may not be long absent, or straggle too far from this Island", and against bonds with principal merchants as sureties. Eight sloops were fitted and ready to sail. Each constraint reads as a device for stopping a privateer becoming a pirate, though the document implies that purpose rather than stating it.6

Benbow's three stations

The same despatch shows the navy at that work. John Benbow had divided his West Indies fleet into three squadrons, between the capes of Hispaniola and Cuba, off Cape Alteville, and between Rio de la Hache and Cartagena. They lay for Ducasse, for the new Spanish governor bound for Cartagena, and for Chateaurenault's victuallers at Havana. Benbow met Ducasse off Cape Santa Marta on 19 August and fought him six days while several captains declined to close. Chain-shot broke his leg on 24 August; he died at Port Royal on 4 November.7

What a commission was for

An unsigned Jamaica paper of 19 June 1702, attributed editorially to Major-General Selwyn, protests that the admiral's new power to press "takes off the independency the privateers ought to have from any King's ship". Prize law raised the reward: the 1708 statute, cited as 6 Ann. c. 65 in the Statutes of the Realm and as 6 Ann. c. 13 in the Statutes at Large, abolished the Crown's share in captured merchant ships and their cargoes and in goods taken by privateers, leaving the full value with the captors.

One name

Captain Charles Johnson's General History of 1724 has it "that Privateers in Time of War are a Nursery for Pyrates against a Peace". Of the man it calls Edward Teach the same book says he "was a Bristol Man born, but had sailed some Time out of Jamaica in Privateers, in the late French War".8

Woodes Rogers is the documented case. He sailed from Bristol on 1 August 1708 in the Duke and Duchess under letters of marque of this war, took the Manila galleon, recovered Alexander Selkirk from Juan Fernandez, and reached the Thames on 14 October 1711. Commissioned governor of the Bahamas in January 1718, he came to Nassau that July to dismantle the haven.

What the sources cannot yet give is the list. The Minutes of Council of Jamaica of 11 July 1702, not read here, would name the eight sloops and their commanders, show the form of commission and bond, and let a later pirate's name be tested against it. No verified total of English letters of marque for 1702 to 1713 was obtained; Admiralty series HCA 25 and 26 hold the number and the names. The colonial passages above come from Headlam's 1912 calendar, which abstracts as often as it transcribes. The Mr. Randolph who proposed the Bermuda route is calendared without a forename, and his identification as Edward Randolph is an inference. The days on which the Dutch, the Emperor and the Imperial Diet declared, and the New Style equivalents of the English dates, are not in the papers read here. No commission, muster or prize record has been traced for Teach's wartime sailing, and the point in the war at which he served is unknown. The Madrid succession, the alliance at The Hague and the declaration of war rest on the London Gazette and on the printed text of the treaty.

What the evidence does not settle

The Port Royal sloops

  • The eight sloops fitted at Port Royal and their commanders are unnamed

Date of Beckford's despatch

  • Whether 10 July is a calendaring error is unresolvedUnverified

Hornigold's wartime service

  • Whether Hornigold served during the warPossible

Each line is one question with its own grade, taken from the register where a claim carries it. Nothing here is graded as a whole.

Sources for this record

Every statement above that rests on a checked claim carries a small number; the numbers lead here. Each entry gives what is claimed, how far the record supports it, and where it comes from.

  1. Carlos II of Spain died at Madrid on 1 November 1700, about three in the afternoon, and his will, opened immediately after his death, appointed the Duke of Anjou his universal heir and successor to the whole monarchy, the succession settled in default upon the Duke of Berry, then the Archduke of Austria, then the Duke of Savoy, with seven regents named to govern during the new King's absence. Louis XIV afterwards recognised the son of James II as king in place of William III, an act recited in Anne's declaration of war of 4 May 1702 as "a great Affront and Indignity to Us, and Our Kingdoms, in taking upon him to Declare the Pretended Prince of Wales King of England, Scotland and Ireland". The offer of the throne on 9 November, the proclamation as Philip V on 16 November 1700, the description of Philip as Louis's second grandson, and the registering of his claim to the French succession in early 1701 are carried by nothing read here. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Official gazette: The London Gazette, numb. 3655 (November 1700), Madrid letter of 4 November, read in the scanned page: "On the first Instant, about 3 in the afternoon, dyed here Charles the Second, King of Spain, &c. to the Great Grief of this Court, and of this whole Kingdom... Immediately after his Death, the Councellors of State, the Grandees, and the Chief of the Nobility met, and his Will was opened; by which the Duke of Anjou is appointed his Universal Heir and Successor, and in case he dyes without Issue, or that the Crown of France falls to him, and he prefers it to that of Spain, the Duke of Berry is named the next Heir"; and The London Gazette, numb. 3807, from Monday 4 May to Thursday 7 May 1702, printing Her Majesty's Declaration of War against France and Spain
  2. The asiento passed to Britain at Utrecht. The contract signed by the Catholic King at Madrid on 26 March 1713 and printed in London the same year binds the assientists to bring into the Spanish West Indies, in the thirty years beginning 1 May 1713, "One hundred and forty four thousand Negroes, Piezas de India, of both Sexes, and of all Ages, at the Rate of Four thousand and eight hundred Negroes, Piezas de India, in each of the said Thirty years". The immediately preceding holder was the French Guinea Company, which the same contract forbids from 1 May 1713 to "introduce any Negro Slave into India" on pain of confiscation, and whose earlier concessions, with those of the Portuguese company and the previous Spanish assientists, it carries forward in its own favour. The terms of the French contract, the figure of 48,000 over ten years, the capital of 100,000 livres, the quarter shares held by the kings of France and Spain, and the year and day of the French grant are carried by nothing read here. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Printed contract: The Assiento, or Contract for Allowing to the Subjects of Great Britain the Liberty of Importing Negroes into the Spanish America, signed by the Catholick King at Madrid the twenty sixth day of March 1713, printed by John Baskett, London, 1713, Articles I, XVIII and XXXIX, read in a scanned copy of the printed edition on the Internet Archive
  3. The second Grand Alliance was concluded at The Hague on 7 September 1701 between the Emperor, the King of Great Britain and the States General of the United Provinces. Its terms bound the confederates to seek "an equitable and reasonable satisfaction to his Imperial Majesty, for his pretension to the Spanish succession" together with security for the British and Dutch kingdoms and for their navigation and commerce; to recover the provinces of the Spanish Low Countries so that they might be "a fence and rampart, commonly called a barrier, separating and distancing France from the United Provinces", along with the duchy of Milan, the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, and the lands and islands on the coasts of Tuscany; to seize and keep what they could of the Spanish dominions in the Indies; and to make no peace unless British and Dutch subjects enjoyed the privileges of commerce in Spain, the Mediterranean and the late king of Spain's possessions that they had enjoyed before his death. It did not at that stage propose to place the Archduke Charles on the Spanish throne. The treaty as printed makes the barrier a belt of provinces and does not stipulate Dutch garrisons in the barrier fortresses, and it says nothing of the Protestant succession. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Printed treaty text: The second grand alliance, or the treaty concluded between the Emperor, the King of Great Britain, and the States General, September 7. 1701, Articles II, III, V, VI and VIII, printed in A Collection of All the Treaties of Peace, Alliance, and Commerce, between Great-Britain and Other Powers, from the Revolution in 1688 to the Present Time, volume 1 (London, 1772), pp. 40-45, read in a scanned copy on the Internet Archive; the printed subscription reads "At the Hague, the 7th Day of September, 1701"
  4. William III died at Kensington at eight in the morning on 8 March 1701 Old Style, that is 1702 by modern reckoning, and Anne was proclaimed the same afternoon before the gate of St James's, at Charing Cross, Temple Bar and the Royal Exchange, the proclamation being given at the Court at St James's the eighth day of March. England declared war on France and Spain in a single instrument dated 4 May 1702 Old Style, proclaimed that morning before the gates of St James's by Clarenceux King of Arms. The dates of the Dutch, Imperial and Diet declarations, and the New Style equivalents, are carried by nothing read here. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Official gazette: The London Gazette, numb. 3790, from Thursday 5 March to Monday 9 March 1701, read in the scanned page: "St. James's, March 8. On Wednesday last Our late most Gracious Sovereign King William the Third was seized with an Ague Fit and a Feaver, which returning upon him the following days, reduced him to a very weak and languishing Condition; All proper Remedies were applied, but not having the wished-for Effect His Majesty expired at Kensington at Eight a Clock this Morning; whereupon the Lords of the Privy Council assembling together at St. James's, Her present Majesty made a most Gracious Declaration to them", with the accession proclamation "Given at the Court at St. James's the Eighth Day of March, 1701"; and The London Gazette, numb. 3807, from Monday 4 May to Thursday 7 May 1702: "St. James's, May 4. This Morning, pursuant to Her Majesty's Warrant in Council, for Declaring War against France and Spain, Clarenceux King of Arms... read the Declaration", the Declaration itself "Given at Our Court at St. James's the Fourth Day of May, 1702. In the First Year of Our Reign"
  5. The Council of Trade and Plantations considered the transmission of the declaration to the plantations between 4 and 6 May 1702, when a proposal to notify them by way of Bermuda was laid before the Board by a person calendared only as Mr. Randolph, and on 5 May advised the Earl of Nottingham that advice-boats be sent besides, one to New England and one to Barbados with duplicates; the declaration reached Christopher Codrington at Antigua by 28 June 1702, was published at Boston on 30 June, at Portsmouth in New Hampshire on 7 July and in Jamaica on 11 July, and the Barbados Council read the enclosing letter of 8 May only on 14 July, which can be squared with Beckford's statement that his packets were forwarded from Barbados on 1 July only if more than one despatch reached Barbados or if the material forwarded on 1 July preceded the formal Council reading. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Calendared state paper: Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, volume 20, 1702, ed. Cecil Headlam (HMSO, 1912), items 415 and 417 (C.O. 324, 8, pp. 151, 152), 674, 679 (C.O. 5, 788, pp. 165 to 170), 713 (C.O. 5, 789, p. 93), 743 (C.O. 137, 5, No. 72) and 757 (C.O. 31, 6, pp. 243 to 245)
  6. Lieutenant Governor Peter Beckford published the declaration of war in Jamaica on 11 July 1702 and reported that the following day all the island's seafaring people came to offer their services and to desire commissions, which he granted on the resolution of Council for six months only, so that the holders might not be long absent or straggle too far from the island, and against bonds entered with principal merchants who stood surety for obedience to instructions; eight sloops were already fitted and ready to sail. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Calendared state paper: Lieutenant Governor Beckford to the Council of Trade and Plantations, Jamaica, calendared under 10 July 1702, item 743, with enclosed Minutes of Council of Jamaica of 11 July 1702, item 743.i, C.O. 137, 5, Nos. 72, 72.i, in Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, volume 20, 1702
  7. Vice-Admiral John Benbow had divided his West Indies fleet into three squadrons, one between the capes of Hispaniola and Cuba, one off Cape Alteville on the south side of Hispaniola and one between Rio de la Hache and Cartagena, stationed to intercept Ducasse, the new Spanish governor designed for Cartagena and the victuallers intended for Chateaurenault's fleet at Havana; he engaged Ducasse off Cape Santa Marta from 19 to 24 August 1702 while several of his captains declined to close, had his leg broken by chain-shot on 24 August, and died at Port Royal on 4 November 1702. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Calendared state paper: Beckford to the Council of Trade and Plantations, item 743, C.O. 137, 5, No. 72, in Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, volume 20, 1702
  8. The wartime service of the later pirates rests on evidence of unequal strength: the 1724 General History states that Edward Teach was a Bristol man born who had sailed some time out of Jamaica in privateers in the late French war, with no commission, muster or prize record found and the point in the war unknown. Possible Consistent with the evidence, not established. Period narrative: A General History of the Pyrates, second edition, London, printed for T. Warner, 1724, attributed to Captain Charles Johnson