Diplomacy leading to peaceful commerce could help the English against their French enemies at the same time that they gained access to Spanish lands. If the English could intervene and become the primary suppliers of European goods to the Spanish empire, this suggests, they might both deal a blow to French profits and enjoy their own rewards.
If this opportunity did not by itself convince the English to move into the area, the mistreatment of their own subjects might do so. While Dampier appears to have had extensive contact with subjects of the Spanish empire during his time along the coasts, and this seems to have been for the most part friendly and productive for him, other Englishmen did not fare as well. Dampier brought aboard a man named William Wooders, for example, a sailor from Jamaica who was captured by the Spanish and lived as a prisoner in Mexico City for many months.19 Wooders, whose knowledge of the area and its waters kept Dampier’s ships out of danger, was but one of many Englishmen who had been imprisoned by defenders of the Spanish empire. Trade could not be expected to flourish in the area as long as the Spanish had such a degree of power over members of other European empires in such a great swath of the Americas. This threat provided an additional argument for hurting the Spanish empire by taking its lands; moving into South America was both an opportunity and a means of defense for the small but growing English empire.
Not all the information these men collected about the Spanish Americas was intended for wide publication. Perhaps in an attempt to ingratiate himself to the officials in London in the face of accusations of piracy, in 1698 Wafer constructed his “Secret Report,” providing the English with key information about the Spanish empire. He was enthusiastic about trade and especially settlement in large parts of the continents. He noted that the Rio de la Plata was particularly well situated to allow trade into the rest of the Spanish empire, writing that “Hear a factory wold be of great Use to us.”20 If English merchants could live near the Rio de la Plata, they might do business with local Spanish subjects in need of an alternate source of European goods to the sporadic trade fairs at Portobello. They might also begin to expand English knowledge of the Spanish empire, possibly creating an opportunity for a more permanent expansion into Spanish holdings, as well as damaging Spanish trade and weakening their position on the American continents. Drawing on his knowledge of the native peoples in these areas, Wafer assured the duke of Leeds, to whom the report was addressed, that they would be eager to join with the English against the Spanish threat.21
Though this “Secret Report” was not widely published at the time, many of Wafer’s observations about the benefits of specific Spanish ports also appeared to one degree or another in his Voyage and Description, published the following year. In the first edition, he assured his readers that he intended mainly to describe the Isthmus of Darien. In his preface to the 1704 edition, written after the beginning of the War of the Spanish Succession, Wafer became bolder. He explicitly argued for the creation of an English “establishment” in the area, which he insisted to readers “might be very easily effected.”22
The publications circulating in the English-speaking world gave readers and hearers of these tales a sense of the immense possibilities for riches in the Americas. Along with this, the writers inculcated their audiences with the sense that only English settlement could properly control these areas; anywhere the Spanish held, they argued, they would spread Catholicism, cruelty, and bad management. The extent, climate, and topography of these lands, along with the entrenchment of the Spanish presence, however, made full-scale seizure of the continents impossible. The English merchants and colonizers instead had to pursue a number of complementary as well as competing approaches in order to secure American profits for themselves, both allowing the creation of small settlements, some quite close to Spanish shores, and moving toward an increasingly close trade with the Spanish Americas.23 These attempts to encroach on Spanish trade and territory were undertaken on the part of the English government, independent traders, other individuals, and eventually, the British South Sea Company. Both governmental and nongovernmental actors made important efforts toward securing Spanish American profits, and unofficial acts could often influence the development of official policy. While it still faced challenges from the Spanish, the British navy had undergone growth, and government ships shared the ports with a significant merchant fleet.24 Along with the experience of Spanish trade made possible by the diplomacy of an earlier age, this positioned the English well to take advantage of Spanish American trading opportunities in the early eighteenth century.
While he did not voyage far from home again, Wafer continued to promote the expansion of colonists and trade from what would soon become Great Britain into the Spanish Americas in other ways. In 1697 and 1698 he acted as an advisor to the Company of Scotland, which created a brief Scottish settlement at Darien, in modern-day Panama.25 He encouraged the venture, giving the company more detail than was available from any other source about the landscape, dangers, and native inhabitants. The settlement’s location near one of the quickest land routes between the Atlantic and the Pacific made it particularly strategic if the emerging and ultimately unrealized Scottish empire wished to engage in large-scale trade from the Americas. Landing on the coast in 1698, the small group of twelve hundred Scottish settlers encountered a group of native Kuna Indians, who they called Dariens. This group had a long history of interaction with Europeans, including English buccaneers who raided the coast, but the Kuna were not living under Spanish rule.26 A Scottish pamphleteer explained that despite controlling many of the lands around Darien, “the Spaniards cannot pretend a Title to that Country by Inheritance, Marriage, or the Donation of Prince and People; and as to Conquest it would be ridiculous to alledge it, since the Dariens are in actual possession of their Liberty, and were never subdued, nor receiv’d any Spanish Governour or Garrison amongst them.”27 If the local Indians owned the area, the Scots could contract with them directly to settle on the land without Spanish interference. Those wishing to expand European empires did not only have to consider other Europeans when choosing locations and making connections; the loyalties of the Darien Indians would remain an important consideration for at least the next half-century.28 By advising the Company of Scotland and publishing his book in London only a year into their settlement, Wafer simultaneously supported the two linked nations’ attempts on Spanish territories, offering his support to those who would pay for it.29 Like many of his buccaneering and smuggling counterparts, Wafer privileged his purse over any strict allegiance to his country of birth.
Despite the initial problems the Scottish adventurers encountered with the nearby Spanish settlers, the news that filtered back to Scotland and England was not entirely negative. The Darien colony did fail in 1699, due to a combination of internal divisions and external pressures, but interactions with local peoples suggested that the idea of incursions into the area might be profitably revisited.30 In particular, Darien settler Francis Borland and others noted that the native people living near Darien welcomed the Scottish colonists and encouraged their plans. Reports indicated that “the chief Indians here being friendly to them, welcomed them to settle in their Countrey, and consented to a Grant unto them of that Place and Lands adjacent.”31 Native peoples from Panama would not only tolerate, but in fact welcome the Scots, preferring their alliance to the poor treatment they received from the Spanish. Those who supported English colonial expansion took this as evidence that the English too might benefit from settling in the area, given the limited success that the much smaller Scottish empire had enjoyed. This hope would persist for decades, through the union of the countries.
The Spanish government in Madrid had long been anxious about the persistent English presence within what they considered to be their own sphere. The records of the Spanish empire reveal a marked concern with the location of English settlements, their fortifications, and their status with regard to native groups in the borderland areas, information similar to that recorded by English travelers. Though initially quite small, the settlement of Jamestown in 1607 sparked debate in Spain about appropriate responses to what seemed an obvious challenge to Spain’s claims on the Americas. The Council of War attempted to increase their forces at Saint Augustine in Florida, the nearest Spanish fortifications. In addition, the Spanish ambassador, Pedro de Zúñiga, relayed information about England’s colonial efforts
