In the argument supporting war at sea during the War of the Spanish Succession, maritime war, especially war against Spanish America, was inseparably associated with two broad economic advantages. The first is an economic advantage intertwined with strategic considerations. Supporters of colonial maritime war claimed that maritime war in Spanish America was an economical or even profitable, means of warfare: it could subdue the enemy – Spain and France – quickly by cutting off their supposed source of the sinews of war – silver supply from Spanish America – while correspondingly bringing riches to England. They also often invoked glorious memory of war at sea during the Elizabethan period to support their argument.

In addition to these strategic and economic concerns combined with economic motives, colonial maritime war was often supported out of commercial considerations. This is the second economic advantage. Some of the supporters of colonial maritime war regarded colonial expeditions as a means to recover the Spanish colonial market, which was threatened by the increasing presence of French merchants in the Spanish-American trade, especially the South Sea trade. The supporters expected that by sending expeditions, Britain could put pressure on the Spanish colonists and open Spanish-American markets, or seize part of Spanish America, such as Havana, the Isthmus of Panama, Chile and the River Plate, to use it as a trading base. The supporters defended the conquest on the grounds of the sixth article of the Treaty of the Grand Alliance, which allowed England and the Netherlands to capture and hold enemy territory.