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It was into this hornets' nest that Britain was drawn early in the seventeenth century, to protect her growing trade with the Levant and India, and this soon led to a close association with Minorca. British merchants themselves had petitioned James I in 1617 for protection, and the first British naval squadron entered the Mediterranean shortly after. We read that in 1620 and 1621 Admiral Sir Robert Mansell 'put about for Minorca and took in wood and water'.
Britain's arrival in the 'Great Sea' was an historic event. She had absorbed in the past much of the Mediterranean culture of Greece and Rome and was now unwittingly returning to the source of that inspiration.

The sudden violence of Mediterranean storms soon turned Britain's attention to the possibility of Port Mahon as a base. Oliver Cromwell had been among the first to suggest it, but it was Charles II who negotiated treaty rights for the use of Port Mahon as early as 1664. We read that he instructed Sir Richard Fanshaw, Ambassador in Madrid, 'to request immediate permission for British ships to use Balearic ports and particularly Port Mahon'. 
The immediate result was that the British Navy found at their disposal, for the first time, an ideal winter base and repair and victualling depot within the Mediterranean.

From then on the Union flag was seen increasingly in Port Mahon, and British sailors were a common sight in the walled town. Mahon became a regular port of call for merchantmen sailing between England and Leghorn, and was used with great effect as a base for operations against the Algerian pirates. This arrangement continued until about 1680, during which time Minorcans and British got to know a little of each other's ways.
During this period Samuel Pepys became very familiar with Minorca through his former secretary Richard Gibson, who was then victualling officer at Port Mahon. Gibson was a prodigious worker as well as a prolific letter-writer, and we have many letters and dispatches in the Calendars of State Papers of the day, which give a vivid picture of this association, and life in Minorca at the time. Minorcans seem at last to emerge from the shadows of history, and appear as real men.
In addition, Admiral Sir Thomas Allin, a staunch Royalist who had been rewarded by Charles II with the post of commander-in-chief of the navy in the Mediterranean, described his stays in Port Mahon between punitive expeditions, in private journals which he wrote during 1669-70, and which have come down to us.
After one such expedition, we read of his return to Port Mahon on 25 October 1669:

Calm all the morning. At seven o'clock we saw the north-west end of Minorca, and the round hills which I judge to be near the centre of the island. We came to northward of the harbour, but the wind blew right out, and we could not get in. Sir Edward Spragge and those with him whom we missed from Algiers we found there [they came out to meet him]. They all came aboard, and promised to send their boats in the morning to help us in.

After an uncomfortable night at sea, they got into port next day. He continues: 
'The Governor of the Castle after we had saluted his post with eleven guns and [he] answered, came in his boat to the ship's side, and desired us to go to the pratique house for health clearance, or he dared not come aboard.'

When this had been done:  the Governor of the Castle first came aboard, and presently the Governor of the Island, with his son, and half a dozen grave men who stayed half an hour in compliment, offering his service in anything that lay in his powers. They took leave, having already dined, to do ten leagues to Ciudadela, as his wife lay sick. The other Governor and a Captain stayed to dinner.

On this occasion Allin made gifts to his visitors: 'to each Governor - a Moor, two quantities of fish, gloves and scarlet cloth for coats'.
There was a return invitation for Sir Thomas to the castle, of which he noted in his Journal afterwards: 'They treated me very civilly - and a very great dinner. Nine guns before I entered the Castle, and a guard from the port to the stairs of the Governor's lodging. And presented me in compliment the sole command as to lay down the guards' arms, and no one to enter but by my leave; and showed me the Castle.'
It was a polite charade, but no doubt pleased him. Relations were not always so friendly. Mindful of the past, the Spanish authorities on the island were nervous about too great a concentration of foreign ships in Port Mahon, lest a coup should follow. Richard Gibson describes his return to the island in 1670 after an absence, when he had to go ashore in a small ketch, having left the parent ship four leagues out at sea, as the Governor of the Castle would not allow more than seven or eight British ships in harbour at a time. 
This was contrary to the articles agreed through our ambassador in Madrid, and Sir Thomas Allin complained frequently about it to the Navy Commissioners, begging Godolphin to seek redress through court - 'that Spanish friendship may be rendered something better than nothing'. The lower deck tersely stated the problem in a unique poem by John Baltharpe (an ex-galley slave) in 'The Straights Voyage', published in London in 1671:
 

Good harbour this same is upon Minork
For shipping very useful 'gainst the Turk. 
The King of Spain doth to our King it lend, 
As in the Line before, to that same end.
The entrance into this same place, is not wide: 
Not 'bove a pistol shot from side to side.

Likewise a Castle of great force there stands, 
Which ships as they go in and out commands. 
The Spaniards they are jealous of our Fleet. 
No more than seven a time will he admit
For to come in, lest that we should him wrong, 
Of that same place, which he has had so long.

Another frequent grievance of British admirals was the question of gun salutes, the Spaniards demanding five British salvoes in return for only three Spanish ones. Allin and his fellow admirals usually swallowed the 'insult', as it was expedient to do so.
Sir Thomas Allin returned to England in November 1670, and was succeeded by his second-in-command Sir Edward Spragge, who successfully used Port Mahon as his base, until he too returned home in March 1672. Pepys described Allin as 'a man of known courage and service' and Spragge 'a merry man that sang a pleasant song pleasantly', which conjures up convivial occasions on board ship at Port Mahon after a successful expedition. During his time at Mahon, Spragge relied heavily on Richard Gibson in tackling the many difficulties which arose.
 

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