Windsor Agreement of 1899

a secret British-Portuguese declaration signed on October 14 in Windsor, Great Britain. The agreement reaffirmed Article 1 of the treaty of friendship of Jan. 9, 1642, between Britain and Portugal and the concluding secret article of the British-Portuguese Treaty of June 23, 1661—Britain’s obligation to defend the inviolability of the Portuguese colonies. For its part the Portuguese government pledged that during the war between Great Britain and the Boer republics, it would refuse transit to Boer troops and would not allow the import and transit of arms and military equipment for the Boers. In effect, the Windsor Agreement marked the renunciation of plans for a British-German division of the Portuguese colonies, which had been provided for in the British-German Treaty of 1898.