When intimacy is interpreted as betrayal. Minorca 1781 (chapter 1)

On August 19, 1781, the squad of Lieutenant General Duke of Crillon, supported by a contingent of French troops, landed in Menorca to conquer its territory. From then on, the old ambition of recovering one of the two enclaves lost by the Spanish Crown after the War of Succession ended began to materialize. Due to its privileged geopolitical situation in the Mediterranean, the island’s sovereignty meant gaining control and seeking to defend naval traffic, hitherto harassed by Mahon corsairs operating under the English flag, in addition to annulling its primary condition as a political link and with Gibraltar, in an operation considered to be of indisputable international significance.

To begin to take control of this territory, the Spanish authorities settled in the city of Mahón, the capital chosen in 1722 by the occupants, given the urgency of besieging the British garrison which, together with part of their civilian compatriots, he had garrisoned in the fortress of San Felipe.

Despite having counted from the moment of the conquest with the support of the civil population, the imposition of the new sovereignty supposed the increase of the precautions on the possible cases of treason on the part of the inhabitants of the island. The insecurity stemmed from the eventual existence of Mahonians affected by British rule who could be implicated in presumable sabotage against the interests of the Spanish monarchy. The reason for these conspiracies was because they could lose the protection of privateering and the subsequent marketing of these products through England, that is, the more than lax tax collection policy to which those who traded with the British are subject would end, changing it for strict taxation of the Spanish crown.