{ "id": "cargo-y-cuenta-del-receptor-de-la-averia", "type": "entity", "name": "The receiver of the convoy levy and the making of his charge: a tax whose base the law states and whose rate it never does, an officer charged with what he ought to have collected, and a chest of three keys that alone proved a maravedí was spent — libro VIIII título VIII, leyes xxvij to xxx", "summary": "Four laws of the Recopilación de Leyes de Indias build the charge against the officer who collected the avería, the levy that paid for the convoys of the Indies run. They name what the levy was taken on without naming its rate, charge him with what he ought to have collected and not only with what he did, allow nothing as spent unless it had passed through a chest of three keys, and forbid closing his money account apart from his account of goods.", "locale": "en", "tags": [ "colonial-institutions", "colonial-law", "law-of-the-indies", "legislation", "legal-history", "recopilacion", "casa-de-contratacion", "public-finance", "real-hacienda", "taxation", "accountability", "record-keeping", "administration", "trade", "seville", "carrera-de-indias", "spanish-empire", "americas", "institutions", "sixteenth-century", "seventeenth-century" ], "relations": [ { "rel": "related", "target": "recopilacion-de-leyes-de-indias" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "casa-de-contratacion" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "contaduria-de-averias-de-la-casa-de-la-contratacion" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "libros-y-papeles-de-la-contaduria-de-averias" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "fenecimiento-de-las-cuentas-de-averia" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "cobranza-y-tanteo-de-la-hacienda-de-averia" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "cuenta-por-generos-de-la-averia" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "raciones-y-alarde-de-la-gente-de-mar-y-guerra" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "finiquitos-y-relaciones-al-consejo-de-las-cuentas-de-averia" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "flotas-y-galeones-de-la-carrera-de-indias" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "pagador-de-las-armadas-y-flotas" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "forma-y-prelacion-de-las-libranzas-de-las-indias" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "tribunales-de-cuentas-de-las-indias" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "consejo-de-indias" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "veitia-norte-de-la-contratacion-1672" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "cuenta-por-una-mano-de-la-averia" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "forma-de-la-contaduria-mayor-en-las-cuentas-de-averia" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "gastos-y-relaciones-del-derecho-de-averia" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "contribucion-y-tanteo-del-derecho-de-averia" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "receptor-y-arca-del-derecho-de-averia" } ], "questions": [ "Who actually collected the avería, the convoy levy of the Spanish Indies trade?", "What was the avería levied on?", "Did the Recopilación de Leyes de Indias state the rate of the avería?", "What was the arca de las tres llaves of the Casa de Contratación for?", "Could the receiver of the convoy levy be excused for money he failed to collect?" ], "claims": [ { "id": "c1", "text": "The laws read in this entry open the leaf on which the Recopilación de Leyes de Indias resumes its título on the accounting office of the average. In the fourth impression printed at Madrid in 1791 by the widow of Joaquín Ibarra for the Royal and Supreme Council of the Indies, libro VIIII título VIII is headed \"DE LA CONTADURÍA DE AVERÍAS, Y CONTADORES Diputados\"; ley xxvij stands at the head of the left-hand column of the printed folio 97, under the running head \"De la Contaduría de Averías.\", and the four laws read here run to the close of ley xxx in the right-hand column of folio 98. That ley xxvij opens folio 97 settles from this side that ley xxvj closed at the foot of folio 96.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-viii-cargo-del-receptor" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c2", "text": "One of these laws states the base of the levy, and it is the widest possible base on the Atlantic traffic. Ley xxviiij, from Philip II by ordinance 16 of the average of 1573 and at Madrid on 14 July 1574, makes the receiver bound to collect it \"de todas las mercaderías, y cosas, que se llevaren á las Indias, en las Flotas, que salieren de Sanlúcar, ó Cádiz, y de el oro, plata, mercaderías, y todas las demas cosas, que se traxeren de aquellos Reynos en Armada, ó Flota, ú otros qualesquier Navíos, estando obligados á venir en Flota\". Everything going out and everything coming back, including the bullion.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-viii-cargo-del-receptor" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c3", "text": "The same law declines to state the rate, and refers it away. Ley xxviiij says only that the receiver is to collect \"conforme á la cantidad por ciento, que está ordenado, ó estuviere acordado\" — according to the percentage that is ordered, or that may be agreed. The código fixes the base of the average in its own text and leaves the rate to an order outside it, which is why a reader of these four laws can say exactly what was taxed and nothing at all about how much.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-viii-cargo-del-receptor" ], "confidence": 0.85 }, { "id": "c4", "text": "The charge against the collector is not what he collected but what he should have collected. Ley xxviiij orders that he be charged \"de lo que cobrare, y tambien de todo lo que debió cobrar\", and that a shortfall is not allowed him in discharge \"si no fuere mostrando bastantes diligencias, de forma que no haya quedado por su parte haberse cobrado\". The burden of proving diligence is laid on the officer, not the burden of proving negligence on the Crown; and he is required beforehand to pursue the money \"en juicio, ó fuera de él hasta haber cobrado con efecto\".", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-viii-cargo-del-receptor" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c5", "text": "Nothing counted as spent unless it could be traced through a chest of three keys. By ley xxviiij, what the receiver collected is not passed in his discharge \"si no constare haberlo introducido en el Arca de las tres llaves, y haberse sacado de ella por libranzas de quien tuviere poder para librar, y haberse gastado en provecho, y utilidad de la Avería\". Three conditions in one clause — the money went into the chest, it came out on a warrant from someone empowered to issue one, and it was spent to the fund's benefit — and the officer who cannot show all three is charged with the sum.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-viii-cargo-del-receptor" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c6", "text": "The charge itself is built from the shipping registers and signed by two hands. Ley xxvij, carried in the margin to Philip II by ordinance 34 of 1579 and at Lisbon on 8 July 1581, and to Philip III by ordinance 1 of 1607, requires that \"el Receptor, y Diputado de la Avería firmen los registros\", that the deputy charge him with what he receives, and that \"si no estuviere presente, no pueda el Receptor recibir ningunos maravedís\". The collector may not take money at all unless the officer who will charge him with it is standing there.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-viii-cargo-del-receptor" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c7", "text": "The same law puts a deadline on the reconciliation and prices the default. Ley xxvij requires that once the fleets are dispatched both officers check their books, that the receiver then collect the arrears \"en tal forma, que esté executado ántes que se empiece á cobrar la Avería de otra Flota, ó Armada\", and that if he does not, \"quede á su riesgo la cobranza\" — the uncollected balance of one fleet becomes his own risk before the next fleet's levy begins. Ley xxviij then fixes the method and the term of the check: after the silver is delivered the Contador Diputado verifies the account of each register \"por menor\", a second accountant charges the receiver, differences are noted and initialled item by item, the two officers confer where they disagree, and the whole is to be done \"en quatro meses\".", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-viii-cargo-del-receptor" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c8", "text": "The last of the four refuses to let a money account stand alone, and in doing so prints an entanglement the Crown was trying to undo. Ley xxx, from Philip III at Madrid on 10 April 1609 and at San Lorenzo on 16 October 1610, requires the receiver's accounts to be taken on sworn relations checked against the accountants' and the deputy's books, and extends them beyond money to \"las Armas, Artillería, Municiones, Xarcia, Bastimentos, buques de Navíos, géneros, y otras cosas quantiosas, prestadas de nuestra hacienda á la Avería, y de la Avería á nuestra hacienda\". The royal treasury and the convoy fund had been lending each other artillery, cordage, victuals and ships' hulls; and the law closes by forbidding the money account to be finished except together with the account of goods.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-viii-cargo-del-receptor" ], "confidence": 0.85 }, { "id": "c9", "text": "What a flattering reading of these four laws would leave out, and the leaves do not. The fund is a levy on the commerce of the Americas, so the cost of the convoys and of the machinery that audited them was ultimately carried by that trade, and nothing in these laws gives any merchant who paid the levy a right to see a register, a book or an account. The controls run inward: ley xxvij's sanction falls on the collector, not on anyone who obstructs him, and it is a transfer of risk rather than a penalty. Ley xxviiij's three-key test proves that money left the chest lawfully and says nothing about whether the convoy it bought was worth the cost. Ley xxx concedes that the Crown's own treasury was borrowing from the fund and lending to it in kind, which is the condition the law is trying to make legible rather than one it forbids; and it prescribes no term at all for the goods account whose completion it makes a condition of closing the money account.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-viii-cargo-del-receptor" ], "confidence": 0.8 }, { "id": "c10", "text": "What this entry does not establish. It reads four laws of one título in one impression. It says nothing about the rate of the average, which these laws do not state, about what the fund received or spent in any year, about who held the receivership or what it was worth, or about whether any register was in fact verified within the four months ley xxviij allows. The margins of the four laws print dates of 1573, 1574, 1579, 1581, 1607, 1609 and 1610, and those dates are as this impression gives them; they were not collated against the first impression, which this corpus also holds. The laws of this título before ley xxvij and after ley xxxxvj are not read here.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-viii-cargo-del-receptor" ], "confidence": 0.9 } ], "takeaways": [], "faqs": [], "evidence_tier": "primary", "evidence": { "level": "industry_observation", "source_types": [ "paper" ] }, "moat_flag": true, "winning_edge": "This entry reads the four laws of the Recopilación that describe the officer who actually took the average in, and what it adds is below the resolution of a summary of the código: the levy's base stated in full and its rate referred away to an order the código does not carry; a charge framed as what the collector ought to have collected, with the burden of showing diligence on him; a three-part test of three-key chest, warrant and benefit before a maravedí counts as spent; a reconciliation deadline keyed to the sailing of the next fleet and enforced by shifting the risk of the arrears onto the officer; and a requirement that his money account be closed only together with an account of arms, artillery, cordage, victuals and ships' hulls lent between the royal treasury and the fund. It prints beside them what the same laws concede: a control system in which no payer of the levy has standing, a sanction that transfers risk rather than punishing, and a treasury entangled with the fund it was auditing.", "confidence": 0.85, "last_verified": "2026-10-29", "media": [], "x": {}, "canonical_url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/k/cargo-y-cuenta-del-receptor-de-la-averia", "api_url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/api/k/cargo-y-cuenta-del-receptor-de-la-averia.json", "jsonld": { "@context": "https://schema.org", "name": "The receiver of the convoy levy and the making of his charge: a tax whose base the law states and whose rate it never does, an officer charged with what he ought to have collected, and a chest of three keys that alone proved a maravedí was spent — libro VIIII título VIII, leyes xxvij to xxx", "description": "Four laws of the Recopilación de Leyes de Indias build the charge against the officer who collected the avería, the levy that paid for the convoys of the Indies run. They name what the levy was taken on without naming its rate, charge him with what he ought to have collected and not only with what he did, allow nothing as spent unless it had passed through a chest of three keys, and forbid closing his money account apart from his account of goods.", "url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/k/cargo-y-cuenta-del-receptor-de-la-averia", "license": "https://spdx.org/licenses/CC-BY-4.0.html", "dateModified": "2026-10-29", "citation": [ { "@type": "CreativeWork", "name": "Recopilación de leyes de los reynos de las Indias, libro VIIII título VIII \"DE LA CONTADURÍA DE AVERÍAS, Y CONTADORES Diputados\" — leyes xxvij, xxviij, xxviiij and xxx, the laws that build the charge against the Receptor of the average out of the registers, prescribe how it is verified, state what the levy is taken on, and require his account to be taken on sworn relations covering goods as well as money. These four laws open the leaf after the lane read by the four entries registered on 2026-10-28: ley xxvij stands at the head of the left-hand column of the printed folio 97 and ley xxx closes in the right-hand column of folio 98. The running head of folio 97 reads \"De la Contaduría de Averías.\" and that of folio 98 \"Libro VIIII. Título VIII.\"; the foot of folio 97 carries the signature \"Tom. III.\" Ley xxvij, rubric \"Que el cargo del Receptor se forme por los registros, y por ellos se compruebe, y la data por los géneros, y libranzas.\", margin \"D. Felipe II Ordenanza 34. de 1579. En Lisboa á 8 de Julio de 1581. D. Felipe III Ordenanza 1. de 1607.\", whose text reads \"ORdenamos que el Receptor, y Diputado de la Avería firmen los registros, y el dicho Diputado le haga cargo de lo que recibiere, y si no estuviere presente, no pueda el Receptor recibir ningunos maravedís; y que ámbos luego, despachadas las Armadas, ó Flotas, comprueben sus libros, y cobre luego el Receptor los maravedís, que estuvieren por cobrar, en tal forma, que esté executado ántes que se empiece á cobrar la Avería de otra Flota, ó Armada, y si no lo hiciere, quede á su riesgo la cobranza.\" Ley xxviij, rubric \"Forma de comprobar las cuentas del Receptor.\", margin \"El mismo en Madrid á 8 de Julio de 1609.\", whose text reads \"MAndamos que despues de entregada la plata, el Contador Diputado de la Avería, vaya con todo cuidado comprobando las cuentas de cada registro por menor, y le entregue á un Contador de la Avería, el que estuviere mandado, y haga cargo al Receptor, el qual pase la cuenta de aquel registro, y si no hallare diferencia, lo advierta en cada partida, y lo rubrique, y quando la hallare, se junte con el Contador Diputado, y de esta forma vayan comprobando en quatro meses todos los registros, y hagan el cargo al Receptor, y por él se le tome cuenta en la Contaduría sin nueva comprobacion.\" Ley xxviiij, rubric \"Que al Receptor se le haga cargo para la cobranza, que debe hacer.\", margin \"D. Felipe II Ordenanza 16. de Averías de 1573. En Madrid á 14 de Julio de 1574. cap. 3.\", whose text reads \"EL Receptor de la Avería es obligado á cobrarla de todas las mercaderías, y cosas, que se llevaren á las Indias, en las Flotas, que salieren de Sanlúcar, ó Cádiz, y de el oro, plata, mercaderías, y todas las demas cosas, que se traxeren de aquellos Reynos en Armada, ó Flota, ú otros qualesquier Navíos, estando obligados á venir en Flota, lo qual cobre conforme á la cantidad por ciento, que está ordenado, ó estuviere acordado, y haga todas las diligencias en juicio, ó fuera de él hasta haber cobrado con efecto, y hágasele cargo de lo que cobrare, y tambien de todo lo que debió cobrar; y no se le ha de pasar en data, y descargo lo que no hubiere cobrado, si no fuere mostrando bastantes diligencias, de forma que no haya quedado por su parte haberse cobrado; ni lo que cobrare se le ha de pasar en data, y descargo, si no constare haberlo introducido en el Arca de las tres llaves, y haberse sacado de ella por libranzas de quien tuviere poder para librar, y haberse gastado en provecho, y utilidad de la Avería.\" Ley xxx, rubric \"Que las cuentas del Receptor se tomen por Relaciones juradas, y de maravedís, y géneros.\", margin \"D. Felipe III en Madrid á 10 de Abril de 1609. En S. Lorenzo á 16 de Octubre de 1610.\", whose text reads \"LAS cuentas del Receptor se tomen precediendo las Relaciones juradas, comprobadas con los libros de los Contadores, y Diputado, y las que se ofrecieren entre nuestra Real hacienda, y caudal de la Avería, demas de lo que tocare á maravedís, se tomen tambien de las Armas, Artillería, Municiones, Xarcia, Bastimentos, buques de Navíos, géneros, y otras cosas quantiosas, prestadas de nuestra hacienda á la Avería, y de la Avería á nuestra hacienda: Y mandamos que así se haga, y entre tanto, que se recogen las receptas de las Armas, y géneros referidos, y hacen las demas diligencias, se prosiga la cuenta de maravedís, y no se fenezca, si no fuere juntamente con la de géneros.\"", "url": "https://books.google.com/books?id=t5EbF6Y1EM4C&pg=PA97" } ], "@type": "Article", "headline": "The receiver of the convoy levy and the making of his charge: a tax whose base the law states and whose rate it never does, an officer charged with what he ought to have collected, and a chest of three keys that alone proved a maravedí was spent — libro VIIII título VIII, leyes xxvij to xxx" } }