Reported On This Day 280 Years Ago (June 26 1739): Britain and Spain meet to discuss the tensions between them

SPAIN .

Madrid, May 19.

The king’s commissaries and those of Great-Britain have again assembled to debate about matters which have occasioned the difference between the two courts.

The 68,000l. due from the South-Sea company, and the 95,000l. for indemnifying the British merchants, are not only subjects of these conferences, the king’s right of visiting foreign ships, and the pretensions that he forms in America upon part of Georgia and Carolina, are likewise treated on.

Madrid, May 22.

The marquis de Villarias, secretary of state, has declared to Mr. Keene, the British minister, that in order to continue successfully the conferences between the commissaries of the two crowns, it is necessary that the British squadron commanded by admiral Haddock should be call’d hom from the Spanish seas, inasmuch as its stay there cannot but delay the settling of any affairs.

Don Joseph de la Quintana, secretary of state for the marine, has sent orders from the king into several ports of the kingdom for fitting up several men of war a squadron of 15 or 20 ships is to be form’d at first, and we are assured it will be encreased to 30 or 40 if occasion requires.

[Sebastián de la Cuadra, the marquis de Villarias, was effectively Spain’s prime minister. Admiral Haddock was British commander in chief in the Mediterranean]