Abstract
This article explores three dimensions of the commercial and industrial activities developed in Galicia – a region located in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula – in the second half of the eighteenth century. First, the complex features of the Atlantic and Cantabrian coastline and the difficulties in ensuring adequate access to ports; second, knowledge of these conditions by the authorities of the Spanish Crown and by potential foreign parties interested in using these ports; and third, the location of the economic activities that came to be developed. We shall also consider whether the measures introduced to stimulate the economy had the desired effect, especially for industry. To this end we have drawn on the existing literature – focusing on three ports and on the merchants and industrialists – and sources found in Spanish and French national archives, as well as reports and descriptions published in the period studied
Know the coast to master it
The economic activity of the coast is subject to ease of access – natural bays and harbours – from the sea. Advances in hydraulic engineering in the eighteenth century alleviated the region’s deficiencies, both in terms of scientific expertise – through a proliferation of French and English treaties – and in terms of practical application. The creation of a corps of engineers, managed by Flemish-born Jorge Próspero de Verboom, in 1711, at the beginning of the reign of Philip V, was crucial; at the time, engineering was much more advanced in the Netherlands. This corps was charged with drawing up plans to rebuild the Spanish coastal defences until the establishment of the Naval Engineers in 1770, although, in truth, many more projects were designed than were implemented. The eighteenth century was a prolific time for the drafting of projects that either ended in failure or did not make it off the drawing board, which has left us with an enormous number of maps and plans of great value. In Galicia, several coastal surveys were conducted to identify the most suitable places to construct ports, arsenals, wharves, dikes, seawalls, etc., but the simplicity of the designs almost always clashed with economic reality. The most outstanding example, not only in the northwest, but in Spain as a whole, was that of the city and port of Ferrol, which was declared capital of the Northern Maritime Department.
Observing the state of the Galician ports at the beginning and end of the eighteenth century it may be concluded that construction plans went ahead in places, but that the Atlantic swept them away. The Crown never assumed responsibility for the commercial and fishing ports, which were self-financed with taxes and loans from locals and potential beneficiaries. This meant that there was no overall port development policy, but rather that each region and enclave was responsible for its own economic evolution. Galicia had the added problem of the diversity of jurisdictions: of the 68 ports, only seven were property of the Crown; five belonged to monasteries; 11 to bishops and chapters; 20 to the Archbishop of Santiago; 20 to nobles; and the other five were of mixed ownership (nobility and clergy). Thus, communication between these ports obeyed no other rule than that of necessity or convenience. Moreover, they were disconnected from the interior, which limited the profitability of their commercial and industrial activities. This communication deficit was not resolved until the end of the nineteenth century, leading to problems linking merchant houses, warehouses and factories with the domestic market, even with the Galician market. They therefore relied on sea links – the reason for there being so many boat owners, albeit of very small boats, in Galicia – and land transport by mule trains. This important inland transport was almost entirely monopolised by Maragato muleteers, who linked producing areas, such as the rías (estuaries) of Galicia, with Valladolid and Madrid; 1 the Maragatos had agents and contacts with the commercial bourgeoisie of the ports and provided an essential service. These difficult communication links also affected the management and administration of the coastal areas, as there was no halfway level of regional government between local and central, except for the corregidores of the ports of the Crown – Coruña, Baiona, Viveiro, Betanzos. Hence the figures of reference for the Crown were the Governor and the Real Audiencia, until the Navy was reformed (1717 to 1726–1737), the Department of Ferrol was created, the region was divided into partidos or provinces (1751), 2 and the Intendencia was established. However, the goal of these reforms was not economic but military, although they led to a greater protection of the coast.
As far as infrastructure was concerned, this was necessary for economic activity: the ocean opens up communication links and enables the movement of people and goods, or troops in times of war. Galicia has almost 1,500 kilometres of rugged coastline and difficult climatic conditions, but because of its location on the Europe-America route, with obligatory passage through Cape Finisterre, it was necessary to defend it; batteries were built at the end of the eighteenth century but the defences were weak, so in theory it was easy to attack. This weakness was so great that supplies could never be guaranteed for the Arsenal of Ferrol, which was Galicia’s main military port. The largest shipyard of the Crown, and a key component of the naval industry, it could easily have been captured by an enemy power with designs on it. 3 Ferrol needed all the essential supplies for shipbuilding – wood, rigging, canvas, spars – which came from as far away as the Baltic or Cuba. The capital of the Northern Maritime Department could be brought to a standstill without a single shot being fired: the 162 guns mounted on the castles and batteries at the entrance to the estuary and the 135 stationed at the Park in Ferrol were of no use, 4 even though no attack occurred until the nineteenth century. The capital had been established in a place criticised for its difficult defence, the opinion of the Marqués de La Ensenada outweighing that of the Marqués de la Victoria, a naval officer who opposed the project. Other ports, including Vigo, were ruled out; the future would prove the critics right.
As for the coastal defences, the Spanish and French archival sources reveal the disparity between what appeared on official documents, which claimed Galicia’s defences to be of sound quality, and the reality, marked by British attacks on Vigo and other locations in 1719, 1743, 1745 and 1800. 5 The coast was, therefore, poorly defended, and was also vulnerable to potential privateer attacks. Even as late as 1797, consideration was being given to a rapid alert system for suspicious or enemy vessels in Galicia. French accounts and the reports of the Spanish engineers pointed out the weakness of Ferrol and the other ports. Precisely because of this, knowledge of the northwest coast was essential: French consular correspondence reported the sinking of ships and gave clues as to the location of ‘black spots’ and lost cargoes, and the ships of the French Navy used their voyages to survey the shoreline and improve available data. 6 As for Spain, it was necessary to wait for the works carried out by the Navy under the direction of Vicente Tofiño; 7 this delay was due to the fact that the observers were never seafarers by profession. Thus, due to its privileged relations with Spain throughout the eighteenth century, France was in a magnificent position to observe the coasts, ports and arsenals, as well as the activities developed therein, which, as we will see, it later capitalised on. Fluid communications and good relations allowed French ships to enter the Ferrol estuary and to be repaired in its shipyards – in 1781, for example, when the fleet of Commander Kergariou took shelter there. 8 This ‘hospitality’ was extended along the entire coast of Galicia and was not restricted to the French navy, but it was undoubtedly the French who benefited the most.
France carried out several expeditions to survey the Galician coast and improve its hydrographic charts. In 1751, the most detailed study to date of the Galician coast was conducted by naval lieutenant Gabriel de Bory (1720–1801) in the corvette L’Amarante. 9 This did not mean that France could do as it wished in Spanish territorial waters, but it did acquire abundant information. The same was true with economic information, negative in its assessment of the Spanish economy – which foreigners capitalised on – but positive in relation to the position of Spanish ports for trade. The French navy logbooks provided information about the region’s coasts, ports and features – winds, currents, tides, route corrections, soundings, sandbanks, rocks, etc. – and corrections of errors in widely used maps and atlases. In this context, the French documents showed the estuary of A Coruña to be the easiest and most accessible on the Atlantic coast from La Rochelle, and, in effect, a French community settled there to make the most of this fact.
Commercial and industrial activities in the ports
All these deficiencies undoubtedly affected the economic activities of the Galician ports, limiting them and hindering their full development. 10 The truth is that most of the ports were founded and developed in the deepest recesses of the estuaries, where their safety was guaranteed by their difficult access. In his Descripción del Reino de Galicia (1804), the scholar Lucas Labrada explained that the mainstay of the Galician economy was its coastal villages with their dual industries: fishing and fish salting, and linen production. From east to west and from north to south, Ribadeo was the first of the ports, owing to its capacity for fishing and for the importation of flax and hemp – mainly from the Baltic, for which it had been authorised since 1789 – for the proto-industry of the surrounding area. Betanzos capitalised on the dynamism of Ferrol and had a group of merchants, mostly outsiders, dedicated to trade and industry, especially the tanning of skins from Uruguay. Ferrol/A Graña, with thousands of inhabitants, many of whom were in the service of the Arsenal, had a major impact on the many nearby villages. 11 Continuing towards the south, up to the border with Portugal, fishing, linen production and tanning drove the establishment of port towns. But Ferrol, A Coruña and Vigo were the main hubs.
Ferrol: A military hub with commercial aspirations
Between 1752 and 1787, the population of Ferrol grew from 1,251 permanent inhabitants and 6,384 workers at the Arsenal, to 24,993 inhabitants. The Arsenal generated a huge demand for products and gave rise to good business opportunities: in 1752 there were only three merchants and 22 shopkeepers, a figure that grew to 53 and 72, respectively, in 1767, and to 59 and 81, in 1797. They came from the rest of Spain or, in their majority, were foreigners, particularly French (70 in 1767), but also British and Italian; in 1797, there were even more: 85 French, 40 Italian, 16 Portuguese, etc. 12 Outsiders came to Ferrol seeking the opportunities offered by the Arsenal, but as it was supplied by the crown procurement agents, they traded food, construction materials and other materials for the Arsenal – the Catalan Felix Grau, the French blacksmith Juan Obertin – and, in particular, they imported cereals and wines into the city. The leading importers of grains and flours from France, Holland, and later, due to conflict, from Castile (via Santander), and Philadelphia, were French – Juan Dufós, Michel Doubaud, Juan Lestache, Pedro Michel, Juan Lembeye, Santiago Beaujardin, Francisco Bucan – although the traders also hailed from Britain, Asturias and Catalonia; the latter were key in the introduction of wines. These articles were safe and highly profitable, bordering on the limits of legality. Another significant activity was the salting of fish by a notable group of Catalan merchants: Joaquín Jofré & Cía., Soler, Domenech & Cía, D. Antonio Serracant & Cía. and Torrent, Martí & Cía. Thus, the economic possibilities of Ferrol in the second half of the eighteenth century led to the consolidation of a strong group of businessmen. This group was weakened by the crisis of the early nineteenth century, when the French were dispossessed and expelled in the banishment order of 1793 and in subsequent reprisals, and although their properties were returned to them, this collective dwindled in size and the economy suffered as a result.
Another effect of Ferrol’s growth and the establishment of the outsider bourgeoisie was the impact on the nearest coastal towns, where Catalan merchants concentrated, and on rural areas where various industrialists built grain mills, in particular the French businessman Juan Lestache, whose mills ground 70,000 bushels of cereal a year. The need for diversification, high demand and the massive inflow of hides through A Coruña from Montevideo/Buenos Aires led to the establishment of numerous tanneries around the town between 1770 and 1814 by merchants that had settled in Ferrol. But colonial trade was a missing element of its diversification. Ferrol was not a commercial port and consequently relied heavily on the royal treasury: in 1764, 1767 and 1785 the town authorities requested trading rights, but they were not granted until 1797.
A Coruña: The impact of the Correos Marítimos
In 1764, Charles III chose A Coruña as the base for the Correos Marítimos, the packet trade service to Havana, thus opening up trade routes between Galicia and the Americas. The packet ships could carry cargo, and so stimulated the commercial and industrial economy and broke the monopoly of Cadiz. In 1765, the port of A Coruña, along with seven others, was granted trading rights with Cuba, Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Margarita, and in 1767 a second Correos Marítimos route to Montevideo was created. The system began to be disrupted in 1778 with the Decree on Free Trade and it was further affected by the wars with England and France. But until then, the Galician economy and, in particular, the port of A Coruña, had benefited from this monopoly of sorts. The Correos packet ships facilitated safe, low-risk transportation, which made up for the deficient infrastructure for Galician merchants, who lacked ships, maritime insurance and companies. This period was dominated by the Buenos Aires/Montevideo market, to which mainly textile products (93.6 per cent) were sent, of which almost half were of foreign origin. 13
A Coruña’s inclusion in colonial trade and its profits enabled what had been a small mercantile sector to expand, giving rise to an active group of merchants. In 1778, the 48 merchants that had settled there formed a heterogeneous group. The majority were outsiders who thus made up for the lack of tradespeople in Galicia and who were unaffected by rentier interests: they came from the Basque Country to import hides from Río de la Plata for their tanneries; from Asturias to trade in linen; from Leon and Rioja to re-export wool; and from Catalonia to trade wines, spirits and cotton textiles. This contingent of outsiders was essential: between 1760 and 1823 more than 200 merchants, industrialists and shipowners – 35 from the Basque Country, 45 from Catalonia, 40 from Castile and La Rioja, 30 from Asturias and 14 foreigners, among others – settled in A Coruña. Notable amongst that group was the Castilian, Jerónimo Hijosa, who settled in A Coruña in 1751. From 1778 to 1796 there was a period of certain prosperity, albeit not as great as during the monopoly: trade was conducted in packet ships and, rarely, in privately owned vessels, of which fewer than 5 per cent were Galician, due to the low number of shipowners; there was continued subordination to the markets of Río de la Plata and the predominance of re-exports increased. In 1785, the Royal Consulate was created and mechanisms were developed to manage the routes with the Americas, to channel credit towards colonial trade and to create maritime insurance. As of 1787 there were signs of crisis and bankruptcy struck in 1796/97 owing to competition from other authorised ports, falling demand, the blockade caused by the war with England that began in 1797 and the reassignment of packet ships to military transport. The crisis wrought havoc from 1797 to 1818/20: small businesses almost disappeared, the oligarchy invested in real estate and sought alternatives, such as loans, the slave trade and privateering.
Jerónimo Hijosa (Medina de Rioseco, 1723) settled in A Coruña in 1751 and married the widow of a wealthy landowner who provided him with a considerable dowry. From the 1750s he found work as a correspondent for European merchants and shipowners – mainly French – and acted as a front man for transshipments for the Company of the Indies. The expansion of his business interests ran parallel to the maritime and commercial growth of A Coruña: a trader on the open markets, he drew bills, was a Crown contractor for the fortifications of Galicia and the Arsenal of Ferrol; an importer of Catalan wines, he sent ships with goods from Galicia to Cádiz, sold salted fish to Castile and Portugal, imported salt from Levante, re-exported American goods to Europe, brokered deals with all the major merchants of Ferrol and the inland cities of Galicia, Valladolid, Madrid, Barcelona, San Sebastian, Alicante, Cadiz, etc.; and he also represented the interests of foreign businesses – from Charleston, Amsterdam, Rouen, Brest, Bordeaux, Marseille, Lyon, Porto and Lisbon. In 1784 he created a maritime insurance company with agents in Havana and elsewhere, including North America, the sources of his cereal imports. He had an indirect relationship with the Americas from 1756 to 1764, clearing sugar imports into Galicia from Cuba, hides from Buenos Aires, cocoa from Venezuela, etc. This became a direct relationship thanks to the packet trade; he had the most ships plying the transatlantic trade route and he traded with destinations from Philadelphia to Chile – imports of hides, cocoa, logwood, coffee, tobacco, etc., and exports of food and Galician textiles. Like many others he was also a privateer. 14
Notable members of the French community included Joseph Codercq, who opened a ‘canvas and printed cotton (indianas)’ factory in A Coruña, and, above all, Juan F. Barrié, a merchant and industrialist active from 1792, who imported cereals and cod from Newfoundland. After having sent a shipment to the Americas, his dealings became regular after he became a Spanish citizen in 1803. He was a wholesale merchant, a broker, agent for companies from Cadiz, the Basque Country, France and England, a consular agent for Prussia, Austria, Russia and France, a shipper to the Indies, a slave dealer and a shipowner. In 1797, he acquired a hat factory, with subsidies from the consulate and the government, and investing significant capital himself. He employed 200 workers and produced 30,000 hats annually; this was a production capacity six times that of the 20 existing workshops in Galicia at that time – all of which were French and Portuguese – destined for the domestic market and for export to the Americas.
In short, colonial trade profited a powerful oligarchy, but it did not lead to the creation of a fleet or contribute to the industrial development of exportable products. The stiff competition with other authorised ports from 1778 forced them to trade better and more competitively priced goods with the Americas, the vast majority of which were of non-Galician origin, and this exposed a range of shortcomings that had only been surmounted during the times of the monopoly thanks to the reserved market and guaranteed transport aboard the packet ships.
Vigo: An emerging port
The impact of colonial trade was also felt in Vigo, the growth of which contributed to the decline of neighbouring Pontevedra. The port of Pontevedra suffered from the fact that it was not sufficiently deep, but the town still had an active group of Catalans who worked in trade, tax collection, and the production of tanned hides, salted fish and other products; there were also Asturians, Basques, Castilians, etc. engaged in similar activities. After much lobbying in Madrid, they succeeded in having Pontevedra authorised to receive foreign ships in 1798. The main industry was a large textile factory created by the English businessmen – Benjamin and John Lees, who came to trade textile imports from England. The factory had its heyday from 1804 to 1807, when it employed 300 workers, but it was too dependent on public financing – from the Crown and the consulate of A Coruña – and on irregular raw material. However, the very location of Pontevedra and the potential of the port of Vigo led to it being relegated irretrievably to second place.
Vigo became a major port thanks to the magnificent natural conditions of its location, although jurisdictionally it was the property of nobility and the Crown had little authority over the town. 15 In 1752, it had 10 outsider traders – almost all merchants of textiles, spices and other products – and 27 retailers. This group of outsiders started to establish themselves in 1728, through a small group of young Asturian and Castilian merchants who managed the salt warehouses, the post office and other offices related to the port. For a few years, until 1742, Vigo maintained the right to trade with England and port traffic grew considerably, and after 1749, its status as a stopover between Portugal and London was consolidated. In 1761, it was granted authorisation, as with A Coruña and Santander, for the transshipment of goods from foreign ships bound for the Indies; in 1773 – thanks to lobbying by Marcó del Pont, Llorente Romero and Linares Pastor – it was granted trading rights with the Antilles through joint-stock companies; in 1783, due to the efforts of Marcó del Pont, two annual shipments to Montevideo and Buenos Aires were permitted; and finally, in 1794, it was given free-trade status. Thus, the magnificent natural conditions of the port and lobbying by powerful merchants explain how, with hardly any port infrastructure and a lack of good communication links with the interior, these concessions were granted and how traffic increased remarkably, especially after 1783.
In the time of Carlos III, at least 15 important businessmen may be mentioned. In 1811, there were more than 100 merchants and a dozen foreign companies with business interests there, and in 1812, there were 70 industrialists. There were a small number from England and Ireland, and from Italy, large numbers from Portugal – dedicated to the trade and manufacture of hats – and a handful of French, among whom Pedro de Tournelle, a grain importer who went on to work in the fishery and salting industries, stood out. He became French vice-consul and even worked as a public revenue officer. Among the non-Galicians, the Catalan merchants and fish dealers stood out, alongside people from La Rioja, and the most illustrious careers of the second half of the eighteenth century were those of Lorenzo Llorente Romero, a Riojan, and Marcó del Pont, who hailed from Catalonia. The former, who was related to Tournelle, traded with Andalusia, Portugal and the Basque Country, supplied Ferrol with wines, and became the second most important broker of foreign goods at the end of the eighteenth century, the owner of several ships, privateer, moneylender, promoter of they fishery and salting industries, all of which he complemented with the administration of public revenue and with interventions in municipal politics as a public prosecutor, deputy of supplies and mayor.
In the reign of Charles IV, and thanks to free trade, a new generation developed and reached its zenith at the beginning of the nineteenth century. They were mostly outsiders, with the occasional prominent Galician, like Pedro Abeleyra, whose career began in the 1780s, when he imported textile raw materials (linen and hemp from Russia), food – meat from England, cod from Newfoundland, sugar and coffee from Cuba, cocoa from Venezuela – and industrial products – hair hides from Montevideo and Buenos Aires – and, to a lesser extent, exported goods to Europe and the Americas, for which he built warehouses in the port of Vigo. He was also an agent of the Royal Company of the Philippines and at the beginning of the nineteenth century he diversified into fishing and salting.
In Vigo, initiatives to establish tanneries failed, perhaps because local demand was lacking, and only the tannery of Zenón Curbera, a Catalan salter and exporter, prospered; created in 1799, it would produce significant quantities of leather, but went bankrupt in 1812. Hat factories, on the other hand, abounded. The first was founded in 1775 by the businessman Angel Rodriguez Avalle, who employed 30 workers and produced 7,000 hats annually, which he exported to La Plata, in addition to selling them on the local market. In 1804, there were two others, run by Portuguese. There were also factories for soap and spirits, almost all established by Catalans.
But it was, naturally, the maritime economy that sustained the Vigo group. In 1710 privateers had their own fleet, which was at its largest between 1796 and 1801, when it represented 60 per cent of the tonnage of all ships registered in the maritime province of Pontevedra. The outfitting of these ships in the middle of the eighteenth century was handled by mercaderes de grosura and ship captains, whereas at the end of the century the town’s haute and middling bourgeoisie predominated, only six of whom – Marcó del Pont, in particular – owned 70 per cent of the total tonnage. Of even greater importance was the fishing industry, both the catching and salting of fish, which the Catalans dominated almost entirely from their arrival – not without local opposition, as was the case throughout Galicia – in the town and the surrounding areas in the 1760s and 1770s. Some had already taken up residence in Vigo, like José Caminada, who arrived before 1750 and married a member of a family of Italian merchants, the Magi, who had previously settled in the town. Caminada traded with Andalusia and Levante, owned fishing and trading boats, some of which he fitted out for privateering (1783), and bought houses and estates, but his prosperity went into rapid decline in the late eighteenth century and he ended up selling some and mortgaging others. Carlos Guixeras took up residence in 1764, as did the Fábregas family at around the same time, along with Pedro Cusí, Francisco Puig and many others who traded and controlled fishing and salting production, in association with each other or with other outsiders – the Magi and Tournelle families. The second phase of their penetration took place between 1780 and 1800, a time at which they specialised more in the fishing industry, in the trade of wines, liquors and spirits. The establishment of this group was vital, and key members included José Lluch, owner of a salting business in Vigo, merchant, privateer, shipowner (1800) and spirit and liquor wholesaler for Vigo and its surroundings in 1802; José Roura, owner of a salting business and occasional privateer; Ignacio Raich, exporter; and many others who placed Vigo at the forefront of the salting industry.
Buenaventura Marcó (Calella, Girona, 1738) arrived in Vigo in around 1759 and in the 1760s he sold products seized by French privateers and partnered with other Catalans to trade or to build salting factories in Vigo and nearby towns. His businesses grew so much that by 1780 he was one of the largest dealers in Galicia. Marcó had his own ships in which he exported fish – although he also used vessels owned by others – was an importer of cereals and flours, cod, naval raw materials, textiles, iron, etc., from France and England, and began to trade with the Americas to become the second biggest shipper in Galicia after Jerónimo Hijosa, once Vigo had been granted trading rights in 1783 thanks precisely to his insistence. He made shipments to Cuba in 1783, to Montevideo/Buenos Aires in 1786 – Galician and Catalan wines, Basque and English iron, printed cotton from Catalonia, and 680,000 foreign products – and in 1790 he sent to the same destination a shipment of Bordeaux pots, which also made up the bulk of the cargo of another shipment in 1793 and two others in 1795. He despatched, in 1785, a brigantine to La Guayra with Galician wines and beers, Catalan wines and spirits, Galician hams, linen, etc. From the Americas he brought, inter alia, rice from the United States, cod from Newfoundland, vanilla and logwood from Veracruz, and cocoa from Caracas and Guayaquil. In 1804, the volume of trade registered in his name at customs was 3,500,000 reales for exports – almost entirely to the Americas – and 1,128,000 reales for imports, and in Vigo alone he employed more than 100 people in the offices and warehouses that served his business interests. It goes without saying that he also pursued privateering from 1779, and between that year and 1783 he made prize of 13 British and Portuguese vessels, valued at more than six million reales. Under Charles IV he returned to this activity, capturing several prizes and receiving compensation from the Crown for the loss of five of his ships. His ‘services’ to the Crown also included collecting the Siete Rentillas tax, the sub-delegation of revenue collection for the province of Tui (1787) and the position of commander of the militias of Vigo. In 1782, he requested and was granted the noble title of hidalgo, and he served as public prosecutor and town ombudsman in the municipality of Vigo, among other honorary positions.
Conclusions
The coast of Galicia boasted an excellent location on the routes from Western Europe to the Americas, which had its advantages – the potential for financial gain – but also serious disadvantages – the risk of foreign attacks in times of war or plunder at the hands of privateers. Royal involvement in both aspects was very limited, although this improved substantially during the eighteenth century: the monarchy took an interest in gaining greater knowledge of the coast and, above all, the ports, and in undertaking projects and plans to improve their defence. The key location was the estuary of the town of Ferrol, where the Crown’s largest arsenal was created, and which became the capital of the Northern Maritime Department. However, the vast expenditure on that military port was not complemented by an improvement in the defence of the other ports and the maritime routes that passed by the coasts of Galicia and which could have benefited the region. Although it should be acknowledged that the actions of the monarchy led to the choice of Ferrol, and the establishment of the headquarters of the Correos Marítimos at A Coruña in 1764–67, few of these plans were brought to fruition. In parallel, the foreign powers, France in particular, gathered a large amount of data on the situation of the Galician coasts and ports and on their economic options. As soon as business opportunities arose, foreign traders flocked to the most dynamic ports – Ferrol, A Coruña and Vigo – ready to turn a profit; 16 the same was true for Catalans, Basques, Asturians, Castilians and Riojans, ready to fill the financial gaps left by the Galicians. 17 Summarising the situation of the Galician ports in the last third of the eighteenth century, it could be said that the weakness of the defences and port infrastructures was due to the lack of any real backing from the Crown; commercial and industrial development was facilitated more by regulations than by state funding and by the fact that it took place in spaces that were naturally protected by the estuaries, safe from foreign attacks. Therefore, the three questions posed at the beginning of this article are intertwined, but the question is whether the commercial and industrial benefits would have been greater if official projects had been brought to fruition.
Footnotes
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The research work was supported by Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad under grants HAR2016-81812-REDT, HAR2015-64014-C3-2-R and HAR2015-64014-C3-3-R, the Spanish State Research Agency and the European Regional Development Fund.
1.
Laureano Rubio Pérez, La Burguesía maragata: dimensión social, comercio y capital en la corona de Castilla durante la edad moderna (León, 1995).
2.
José Manuel Vázquez Lijó, La matrícula de mar en la España del siglo XVIII (Madrid, 2007).
3.
Manuel-Reyes García Hurtado, ‘An Analysis of the Backbone of the Coastal Defences of the Maritime Department of Northern Spain in the Eighteenth Century: Illusory Impregnability’, in press.
4.
Paris, Archives Diplomatiques de La Courneuve (hereafter A.D.C.), 37CP/667. Letter from Admiral Thomas Alexander Cochrane (1775-1860), commander of the British squadron stationed at the entrance to the Ferrol estuary, to the captain general of the navy and governor of Ferrol, 25 September 1804.
5.
Manuel-Reyes García Hurtado, ‘La defensa de la frontera acuática de Galicia en el siglo XVIII y principios del XIX: líneas maestras y problemas’, in Miguel Ángel Melón Jiménez, Miguel Rodríguez Cancho, Isabel Testón Núñez and María Rocío Sánchez Rubio (eds), Dinámica de las fronteras en periodo de conflicto. El imperio Español (1640-1815) (Cáceres, 2019), 229–252.
6.
For example, Paris, Archives Nationale (hereafter A.N.), MAR/3/JJ/183, Dupin de Belugard and Pierre-Timoléon, Journal de navigation de la flotte du Roi la Coulisse. . .destinée à porter des poudres de guerre à La Corogne, 14 March 1766.
7.
Vicente Tofiño, Derrotero de las costas de España en el Océano Atlántico (Madrid, 1789).
8.
A.N., AE/B/III/371, letter from Levignac to the Marqués de Castries, Ferrol, 6 November 1781.
9.
A.N., MAR/3/JJ/183, Gabriel de Bory, Relation d’un voiage fait par ordre du Roi a la coste d’Espagne pour determiner par des observations astronomiques la position des Caps Finisterre et Ortegal, 1751.
10.
Luis Alonso Álvarez, ‘Galicia y el comercio americano. Las limitaciones del modelo ilustrado de crecimiento económico’, Manuscrits (1988), 117; Xoan Carmona Badiá, El atraso industrial de Galicia (Barcelona, 1990).
11.
Antonio Meijide Pardo, Economía marítima de la Galicia cantábrica en el siglo XVIII (Valladolid, 1971), 87.
12.
Alfredo Martín García, Demografía y comportamientos demográficos en la Galicia moderna: la villa de Ferrol y su tierra, siglos XVI-XIX (León, 2003). Alfredo Martín García, Una sociedad en cambio. Ferrol a finales del Antiguo Régimen (Ferrol, 2003).
13.
These data were obtained from Luis Alonso Alvarez, Comercio colonial y crisis del Antiguo Régimen (1778-1818) (A Coruña, 1986); Erminio Martínez Barreiro, La Coruña y el comercio colonial gallego en el siglo XVIII (A Coruña, 1981). Baudilio Barreiro Mallón, La Coruña. Según las Respuestas Generales del Catastro de Ensenada (Madrid, 1990).
14.
Antonio Meijide Pardo, ‘Hombres de negocios en La Coruña dieciochesca: Jerónimo de Hijosa’, Revista del Instituto José Cornide de Estudios Coruñeses (1967), 65.
15.
Antonio Meijide Pardo, ‘Aspectos de la vida económica de Vigo en el siglo XVIII’, in Álvaro Cunqueiro and José M. Álvarez Blázquez (eds), Vigo en su Historia (Vigo, 1980), 279.
16.
Ofelia Rey Castelao, ‘Los extranjeros en la España Noroccidental durante la Edad Moderna’, in Begoña Villar García and Pilar Pezzi (eds), Los extranjeros en la España Monderna (Málaga, 2003), II, 23–58.
17.
Ofelia Rey Castelao, ‘Las burguesías en la Galicia de fines del Antiguo Régimen’, in F. J. Aranda Pérez (ed.), Burgueses o ciudadanos en la España Moderna (Cuenca, 2003), 199–254.