In 1727, Spain mounted an unsuccessful attempt to recapture Gibraltar from Britain, which had held the peninsula since 1704. The Treaty of Seville ended this military conflict and contributed to the rising power of Britain and the decline of Spain in the eighteenth century.
During the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714),
Spain’s King Philip V and his new Italian queen, Isabella Farnese, soon actively resisted the provisions of the treaty. They sent military expeditions in 1717 and in 1718 to attempt to regain some of their empire’s former Italian territories. These Spanish incursions into Italy led to war with Britain and France from December, 1718, to 1721. Spain next attempted the diplomatic route: The Spanish negotiated with Austria to regain Gibraltar and their Italian lands, signing the First Treaty of Vienna
By the end of 1726, Philip V decided to retake Gibraltar by force. The loss of Gibraltar had been particularly galling to the Spanish, because Spain had held Gibraltar since 1462. Moreover, the seizure of the peninsula represented the first time since Arabs invaded the country in the Middle Ages that Spain had lost part of its own soil to a foreign power. Philip effectively declared war on January 1, 1727, when he sent a letter to London stating that Article 10 of the Treaty of Utrecht was null and void as a result of British infringements of prior agreements. Spanish troops were assembled under Count de Las Torres, who decided against a direct, surprise attack on the fortress of Gibraltar. He chose, instead, the formalized and systematic operation of a siege—often the preferred mode of warfare in the first half of the eighteenth century, because it tended to be of short duration with fewer casualties than pitched battles. By early February, his forces began digging trenches and building batteries with which to initiate the attack.
On February 22, 1727, the military conflict began. The British, under the command of Lieutenant Governor Jasper Clayton, fired the first shots, seeking to halt construction of the batteries and trenches. By the end of March, 1727, despite damage to their construction efforts and weapons, Spanish batteries had launched a ten-day barrage of cannon fire. Heavy rain in April slowed the siege, as it filled the trenches and swept away batteries, but in May the Spanish launched a massive bombardment against the British that again ultimately failed.
The Spanish troops were at a disadvantage, because the British were quite secure in their elevated position at the top of the Rock of Gibraltar. British weapons and batteries, like the famous Willis’s Battery, were already in place, and most of the damage to the defenders’ armaments could be repaired at night. Furthermore, the fleet in the bay, under the command of Admiral Sir Charles Wager, kept the British protected and supplied with fresh provisions. The Spanish troops were also weakened by weather-related illnesses, by drunkenness, and by desertion—a common problem among mercenary troops. More than half of de Las Torres’s troops were foreigners, and of the twenty-four hundred men the Spanish lost, nine hundred deserted.
With a total loss of only three hundred men, the fortified Gibraltar proved to be impregnable to a land attack by means of eighteenth century weaponry. After five months of conflict, a seven-article truce for a cease-fire was agreed to on June 24 between de Las Torres and Gibraltar’s governor, David Colyear, Lord Patmore. Troops, however, remained in place on both sides until March, 1728, when Philip V ordered the cessation of the siege.
The formal resolution of the British-Spanish hostilities in 1727 was a long, drawn-out diplomatic affair. In May, 1727, even before the military action had ceased, France’s new prime minister, Cardinal André-Hercule de Fleury, brokered preliminary points of agreement between Spain and Britain in line with stipulations from Britain’s prime minister, Robert Walpole. On March 6, 1728, the preliminary agreements were signed at the Convention of Pardo, officially ending the siege, with further negotiations to be held in a general congress in Soissons, France, beginning June 14. Lasting for more than one year, the discussions at Soissons laid the foundation for the Treaty of Seville between Britain, Spain, and France, which was finally signed on November 9, 1729. In July, 1731, Austria agreed to accept the terms of the treaty, and the treaty’s complete and final version was signed in February, 1732.
The Treaty of Seville confirmed the general terms of agreement of the Treaty of Utrecht with a few adjustments. Although Spain was allowed to take possession of fortifications in Livorno, Parma, Piacenza, and Tuscany, it had to cede Sardinia to Savoy and Sicily to Austria. Austria agreed to suspend the operation of its Ostend India Trading Company
Britain profited the most from the treaty, because the agreement dramatically strengthened Robert Walpole’s ability to achieve his longstanding goals for economic expansion. Britain’s commercial privileges were reinstated, particularly the Spanish asiento de negros
The treaty, however, left untouched two areas of serious disagreement. First, demands for compensation brought by Spain and Britain against each other for longstanding trade grievances were left unresolved. Prior incidents of Spanish seizures of British ships and of illegal trading by the British remained disputes that dragged on in the courts from 1732 to 1738. Second, the ownership of Gibraltar was not explicitly discussed at the diplomatic table. The unresolved tensions over these issues would later lead to more hostilities.
The Treaty of Seville essentially returned Europe to its political and economical status quo before the war. The retention of Gibraltar helped Britain remain the supreme power in the western Mediterranean and continued to give it an important base of operations for trade with the New World. With the reinstatement of the asiento, Britain was again poised to become the dominant commercial power in Europe and to increase its colonial power overseas. Spain, on the other hand, continued to regress militarily and economically throughout the rest of the century.
The failure of the treaty to resolve compensation issues and officially to confirm the status of Gibraltar eventually led to further conflict. Within a decade, old and new trade grievances between Spain and Britain erupted into the War of Jenkins’s Ear.
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Black, Jeremy. The British Seaborne Empire. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004. Focuses on the naval component of the expansion of the British Empire, in Europe and the Americas, from its beginning to the present. Extensive notes, index. -
Harvey, Maurice. Gibraltar. Kent, England: Spellmount, 1996. Good historical overview with helpful maps, illustrations. -
Jackson, Sir William G. F. The Rock of the Gibraltarians: A History of Gibraltar. Cranbury, N.J.: Associated University Presses, 1987. Detailed accounts of all the sieges of Gibraltar; illustrations, photos, maps and appendices, including the text of Article 10 of the Treaty of Utrecht. -
Kamen, Henry. Philip V of Spain: The King Who Reigned Twice. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. Favorable biography of Philip; detailed account of the treaty. Glossary, index. -
_______. Spain’s Road to Empire: The Making of a World Power, 1492-1763. New York: Penguin Putnam, 2002. Account of Spain’s rise and fall, militarily and economically. -
Thomas, Hugh. The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440-1870. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997. Excellent in-depth discussion of the political and economic contexts for slave trade; good explanation of asiento and its history. Notes, bibliography, index.
War of the Spanish Succession
Treaty of Utrecht
Development of Great Britain’s Office of Prime Minister
War of Jenkins’s Ear
Charles III Gains the Spanish Throne
Spanish-Algerine War
Siege of Gibraltar
Charles III; André-Hercule de Fleury; George I; Philip V; Robert Walpole.