Money and Banking in the Twilight of Empire

Abstract

The eighteenth century was one of slow recovery for the Spanish economy as a whole, thanks largely to internal peace, to legal and administrative modernization by the Bourbon kings, and especially thanks to the gradual opening of the Spanish Americas to trade with the metropolis, which had been subject to tight restrictions before. In 1778 transatlantic trade with Spanish America was open for the most important ports on both shores of the Atlantic and for a series of Pacific harbours also. The so-called Free Commerce Decree of 1778 was followed by a brief trade boom, but politics put an end to this hopeful development.