from the slave trade asiento were in smuggling contraband goods, which evaded import duties and deprived the authorities of much-needed revenue. An import duty of 33 pieces of eight was charged on each slave (although for this purpose two children were counted as one adult slave). In 1718 a declaration of war between England and Spain halted operations under the Asiento until 1721. The company's assets in South America were seized, at a cost claimed by the company to be £300,000. Any prospect of profit from trade, for which the company had purchased ships and had been planning its next ventures, disappeared. Similar conflicts interrupted the contract from 1727 to 1729 and 1739 to 1748. Increasing knowledge of illicit trading by the SSC resulted in the Spanish tightening on-site monitoring in the Americas during the 1730s. The Spanish then proceeded to seek recompense for clandestine trade carried on by the SSC and others under the veil of the supply of Negroes and the annual ship. Thus a key feature of the depredations crisis was the ongoing failure by the SSC to account and report transparently. Spain having raised objections to the asiento clauses, the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was supplemented by the Treaty of Madrid (5 October 1750). The matter of the asiento was not even mentioned in the treaty, as it had lessened in importance to both nations, although both parties had agreed to resolve outstanding concerns at a "proper time and place". The issue was finally settled in 1750 when Britain agreed to renounce its claim to the asiento in exchange for a payment of £100,000 and British trade with Spanish America under favourable conditions. In 1752 the African Company of Merchants was founded. It has been estimated that the company transported over 34,000 slaves with deaths comparable to its competitors, which was taken as competence in this area of work at the time. Meanwhile, it became a business for privately owned enterprises; the Dutch West India Company began to outsource the slave trade since 1730s? In 1740 a Havana company paid Spain for the Asiento to import slaves to Cuba. There was no asiento during the Austrian War of Succession (1740-1748). 1748-1750: Spain renewed the asiento with Britain for four years, but it ended with the Treaty of Madrid. The Spanish authorities "restore[d] the slave trade to the sphere of internal law from which it should never have