ABSTRACT
The State Papers, Portugal, and those of the Board of Trade, covering the period 1650–1810, contain a continuous stream of complaints about Portugal’s non-compliance with the terms of the treaties of 1654, 1661 and December, 1703. In the Torre do Tombo there is a group of papers from the Madeira archives. Among them, for the relevant period, are a customs entry book, a register of treasury accounts and a letter book. From the letter book it is possible to confirm that the half custom due to the English under the terms of Article 25 of the 1654 treaty, was withheld from them in Madeira until 17 December 1660. Owing to factors embedded in the Portuguese fiscal system during the seventeenth century, it could have been expected that the Portuguese customs officers would withhold the half custom for three months, six months or a year. In the mid-seventeenth century, the same system of farming the customs was general throughout Europe.
