ABSTRACT
Many of the complaints about the way in which the terms of the 1654 treaty were observed concerned taxes and customs duties. Under Article 3, Englishmen were obliged, when exporting goods from Portugal, to take their wares through the customs and to pay 3 per cent consulado. The Portuguese were, of course quite correct in saying that the added taxes were not in breach of Article 10, although they were in breach of the Secret Article and Article 3 of the 1654 treaty. The Secret Article was one of the few articles in the 1654 treaty which was reciprocal. Because the Secret Article was reciprocal, Portuguese merchants in England were entitled to pay the rate ruling in 1654 even if the bill of rates was increased at a future date after consultation. During the seventeenth century the Secret Article seems to have been relatively well observed by both England and Portugal.
