Cover Letter and Memorandum from Charles Hope to Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, 1804, October 22

The Charles Hope Papers contain a twelve-page memorandum, with accompanying three-page cover letter, written by Scottish judge and politician Charles Hope on October 22, 1804. The memo, titled "Hints as to the Conduct of this Country, in the event of a Spanish war,” is addressed to Scottish politician Henry Dundas, then head of the British Royal Navy.

The memorandum outlines a plan for how Britain could use a potential war with Spain to gain commercial supremacy in Latin America. Hope proposes that in such a war, “it is not in our interest to humble and weaken Spain.” Instead of seeking to govern Spanish colonies, he says, Britain should occupy regions in South America, Mexico, and the Caribbean for the purpose of creating opportunities there for British trade. Hope says that this more peaceful tactic would win over the Spanish government and its colonies in the Americas and weaken the influence of the French Empire. “It will give us a great part of the Bullion [sic] of America, without bringing with it the evils which Spain experienced from the possession of the riches of Mexico & Peru,” Hope writes. “To us the gold & silver of these countries will flow in the natural & beneficial channels of industry & commerce.”