THE INTRODUCTION OF ‘FREE TRADE’, 1765–89

The decision of Charles III to promulgate the famous Reglamento para el comercio libre of 1778 on the symbolic date of 12 October, the anniversary of the discovery of America by Columbus, was designed to emphasise the importance which he and his ministers attached to this fundamental measure of commercial reform. The document's guiding principle, its preamble explained, was the king's fundamental goal, which had determined all his policies since his accession to the throne in 1759, of securing ‘the happiness of my beloved Vassals of these Kingdoms and those of the Indies’ and his conviction that ‘only a free and protected Commerce between European and American Spaniards can restore Agriculture, Industry, and Population in my dominions to their former vigour’. This belief, it was explained, had already promoted a number of piecemeal modifications to the imperial commercial structure, made in the aftermath of Spain's humiliating defeat by Britain in the Seven Years’ War, a factor which underlay so many of Charles III's reforms. The crucial first step had been the decree of 16 October 1765, which opened the principal Spanish islands of the Caribbean (Cuba, Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico, Margarita and Trinidad) to direct trade with nine Spanish ports (Alicante, Barcelona, Cádiz, Cartagena, Gijón, La Coruña, Málaga, Santander and Seville). Its novelty, of course, lay in its abandonment of the principle that all trade should be channelled through Cádiz at the Spanish end of the imperial commercial system, and through a limited number of American ports, although the detail of the 1765 decree fell far short of the radical report submitted to the crown by a technical commission, established in 1764 in the immediate aftermath of the Seven Years’ War, to investigate the commercial question. The commission had recommended that trade be opened to 14 Spanish ports (those excluded by the 1765 decree were Bilbao, San Sebastían, Santoña, Tortosa and Vigo), and to no less than 35 American ports, including a number which were to be denied full participation in the free trade system until 1789.