Land

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Tangier and Bombay.

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Bombay came to England as a result of Charles II's marriage. Under the marriage treaty of June 1661, Portugal agreed to give the island of Bombay, along with Tangier and a large sum of money, as part of Catherine of Braganza's dowry. Portugal wanted English help in its war of independence against Spain, so it offered England valuable bases overseas.

Taking control proved much harder than expected. In 1662 an English fleet under the Earl of Marlborough arrived with soldiers commanded by Sir Abraham Shipman. However, the Portuguese governor refused to hand the island over, arguing about what the treaty meant, and many Portuguese in India did not want to give up a good harbour to a trading rival. The English soldiers were left on the small island of Anjediva, further down the coast, where many died of disease, including Shipman himself in 1664.

As a result, Bombay was handed over only in 1665, to Humphrey Cooke, who had led the survivors, and even then the Portuguese kept the neighbouring islands such as Salsette. The delay meant that the Crown had lost men and money before it gained anything.

Once it had Bombay, the Crown found it expensive to defend and govern from so far away, and it produced little revenue. At the same time, the East India Company wanted a safer base than Surat, which had been raided by the Maratha leader Shivaji in 1664. These two needs came together in 1668, when Charles granted Bombay to the Company for a rent of 10 pounds a year, with the power to make laws for it and defend it. The Company took control in September 1668. This meant that Bombay became the Company's first territory ruled in full sovereignty, and under Gerald Aungier it soon began to grow.

Model answer

Henry Morgan's attacks on the Spanish empire grew out of Jamaica's weakness. England had captured the island from Spain in 1655, but it had few royal troops or warships to defend it. The governor, Sir Thomas Modyford, therefore gave commissions to privateers based at Port Royal to attack the Spanish, arguing that this kept Spain on the defensive. The buccaneers, for their part, wanted plunder.

In 1668 the buccaneers chose Morgan as their admiral. His first raid, on Puerto Principe in Cuba, brought little loot, so later that year he attacked Portobelo, a rich port on the Panama coast through which Spanish silver passed. His men stormed the forts and held the town for ransom, bringing back a huge haul, by most accounts about 250,000 pieces of eight. Alexandre Exquemelin, who had sailed with the buccaneers, later claimed that Morgan forced priests and nuns to carry the scaling ladders and that prisoners were tortured to reveal hidden treasure.

This success encouraged a bigger raid. In 1669 Morgan sailed into Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela and plundered Maracaibo and Gibraltar. When a Spanish squadron trapped him at the entrance to the lake, he destroyed its flagship with a fireship disguised as a warship and escaped by tricking the fort's defenders.

In 1670 Spanish raids on Jamaica led Modyford to give Morgan a new commission. With more than a thousand men he captured Fort San Lorenzo at the mouth of the Chagres River, went upriver and marched across the isthmus, and on 28 January 1671 defeated the Spanish outside Panama. The city burned, and the plunder was smaller than hoped. However, England and Spain had signed the Treaty of Madrid in July 1670, in which Spain recognised English Jamaica, so the raid caused a diplomatic crisis. As a result, Modyford was recalled and sent to the Tower, and in 1672 Morgan was arrested and sent to England.

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Henry Morgan did both good and harm to England's position in the Caribbean. In the 1660s his raids helped to protect and enrich a weak Jamaica and put pressure on Spain, but after the peace of 1670 his attack on Panama threatened England's interests. Overall, I think he did more good than harm, partly because he later served the new policy of peace.

Morgan did a great deal of good for Jamaica's defence. England captured the island from Spain in 1655, but in the 1660s it had few royal warships or troops, and Spain wanted it back. Governor Sir Thomas Modyford used privateers to keep the Spanish on the defensive, and Morgan was the most successful. His raids on Puerto Principe and Portobelo in 1668 and Maracaibo in 1669 showed that Spain's towns were vulnerable and kept Spanish forces busy defending them rather than attacking Jamaica.

His raids also brought wealth. The haul from Portobelo was enormous, and much of the plunder was spent in Port Royal, which became one of the richest towns in the Americas. Some was invested in land and sugar plantations, helping the colony to grow and attract settlers.

The pressure of the privateers also had diplomatic results. In the Treaty of Madrid in July 1670, Spain for the first time recognised English possession of Jamaica and the other English islands. This was a major gain for England's position in the Caribbean, and the privateers' raids helped to persuade Spain to make it.

However, Morgan also did harm. His raid on Panama in January 1671 came after the Treaty of Madrid had been signed, and it endangered the new peace. England valued peace and trade with Spain, both in Europe and through legal and illegal trade with Spanish America, and Charles II had to recall Modyford, send him to the Tower and arrest Morgan. The raids also encouraged a culture of piracy at Port Royal: when commissions stopped, many buccaneers simply became pirates, which damaged trade, including English trade. The reported cruelty of Morgan's men, publicised by Exquemelin, gave England a reputation for brutality and gave Spain reasons for revenge against English ships and logwood cutters.

Yet Morgan's later career reduced the harm. Knighted and made Lieutenant-Governor in 1674, he acted against the pirates he had once led and supported the move from plunder to planting, becoming a sugar planter himself. Although he quarrelled with governors and was removed from the council in 1683, he had helped Jamaica make the transition to a settled colony.

Overall, I disagree with the statement. The Panama raid did real harm to relations with Spain and encouraged piracy, but in the 1660s Morgan helped to secure Jamaica when it had no other defence, brought it wealth and helped push Spain into recognising English possession in 1670. Since Jamaica became one of England's most valuable colonies, and Morgan later supported the policy of peace, I think the good he did outweighed the harm.