Methuen Treaty would become a new theater of war. Finally, it regulated the establishment of trade relations, especially between England and Portugal. Until 1703 the Grand Alliance had never established any formal war aims. The Methuen Treaties changed this as it confirmed that the alliance would try to secure the entire Spanish Empire for Charles of Austria, the Habsburg claimant to the Spanish thrones. The first treaty also established the numbers of troops the various countries would provide to fight the campaign in Spain. The Portuguese also insisted that Archduke Charles would come to Portugal to lead the forces in order to
Jay Treaty postponed it until the United States was strong enough to handle it. Bradford Perkins argued in 1955 that the treaty was the first to establish a special relationship between Britain and the United States, with a second installment under Lord Salisbury. In his view, the treaty worked for ten years to secure peace between Britain and America: "The decade may be characterized as the period of 'The First Rapprochement.'" As Perkins concludes, For about ten years there was peace on the frontier, joint recognition of the value of commercial intercourse, and even, by comparison with both preceding and succeeding epochs,