In addition to the consequences of their own deeds and the basic statutes calling for their arrest and expulsion, unnaturalized foreigners resident in the Indies had another major worry. The kings periodically issued decrees calling for special efforts to round up these illegal aliens and to send both the foreigners and their wealth to Spain at the earliest opportunity. These cédulas came, characteristically, when the crown was most worried about the potential dangers foreigners represented to the empire. Need for the money that might be forthcoming in the seizure of the wealth of these persons also played an important part in the timing of orders for direct action against foreign residents. These round-ups thus tended to come just before or during wartime when both the royal concern for imperial defense and the need for increased revenues were most in evidence. There were several such ‘reprisals’ (represalias) in the course of the eighteenth century. The last came in 1794 and 1795 when orders went out to arrest all Frenchmen and to sequester their holdings. Philip V directed the first roundup of the century during the War of Spanish Succession.

In a cédula dated 24 July 1702, Philip told Viceroy Alburquerque of New Spain that England, Holland, and the Hapsburgs had declared war. Alburquerque was therefore to take ‘appropriate measures to embargo all Germans, Dutchmen, and Englishmen’ in his jurisdiction. He was to allow absolutely none of these foreigners nor any goods or estates pertaining to them to escape.