The unlicensed commerce which was carried on, mostly in British bottoms, between subjects of Great Britain and Spanish colonists in the West Indies, and the means resorted to by the Spanish Government for its prevention, had long furnished matter for complaint to both nations. The Spanish armed ships employed to watch the coasts, were authorised and directed to stop and search all British merchant vessels which should be found near any of their settlements; an extent which might be construed to comprehend every avenue to the Caribbean Sea. These orders gave opportunity to the guarda costas, when nothing contraband was found, to plague, detain, and in various ways to incommode, the ships that fell under their examination, and by that means to extort presents, as was practised by Shelvocke with the Portuguese ship on the coast of Brasil. Several English vessels were also wrongfully carried into Spanish ports and condemned. After much mutual remonstrance, the British Government peremptorily demanded that Spain should relinquish all claim to a right of visiting British ships except in her own ports. Spain, on the contrary, insisted on a general right to search suspected vessels, as the only way by which a contraband trade could be prevented. In 1739, these disputes ran so high, that letters of reprisal were issued by both parties, and declarations of war soon followed.