It is the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment, during the Age of Sail. Locke’s Two Treatises of Government was published 2 years before; Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica was published the year before that. Leibniz, Descartes, and Spinoza advocated rationalism.

In Europe, the War of the Grand Alliance, as it is now called, started in 1688 between France and most of the other states and powers of Europe. King Louis XIV of France, the Sun King, attempts to expand France’s territory to achieve a secure nation-state border while impatiently waiting for the inbred Habsburg King Charles the Second of Spain to die and pass on his decaying empire to France. To this end, Louis XIV supports the Muslim Ottoman Empire and Protestant German princes against the Catholic Holy Roman Empire, while viciously persecuting Protestants in France. With a 400 thousand strong army trained in the most modern warfare techniques, Louis threatens to establish a “total kingdom” over Spain, France, and Germany. The threat of hegemonic France and outrage over treatment of French Protestants brought together the alliance of England (under William of Orange, of the Netherlands), Habsburg Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Swedish Empire.

The famous Spanish Treasure Fleet still makes it’s annual runs, gathering up merchants and escorts in Havana to make the transatlantic journey back to Seville. Although every naval officer and pirate dreams of winning a prized treasure ship, the fleet was only defeated once, in 1628. Many Spanish merchantmen sail alone on the Atlantic and along the coasts of New Spain. Many of these ships are essentially overt smugglers; the Casa de Contratación mandates that only a select and limited number of ports may officially engage in trade. Now, Spain is the sick man of Europe, degenerate and economically feeble like her inbred King. The economy has overheated on too much gold and silver from the new world while it’s closed ports yearn for manufactured goods from other lands.