{ "id": "cuenta-por-una-mano-de-la-averia", "type": "entity", "name": "The convoy levy put into one hand: a reform of 1650–51 that prints its own bookkeeping formulas, withholds a minister's salary until he certifies an eight-day return, and concedes that the fund's creditors had been paid only where they had a hand in it — libro VIIII título VIII, leyes xxxxvij to liij", "summary": "Seven laws of the Recopilación de Leyes de Indias carry a reform of 1650 and 1651 into the audit of the avería, the levy that paid for the convoys of the Indies run. They put the account of what the fund spent into one office, print in the law the words each entry must use, make every office that issues a warrant on the fund report it within eight days on pain of its ministers' salary, open accounts with the fund's debtors and lenders, and order its creditors paid by priority.", "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", "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": "cargo-y-cuenta-del-receptor-de-la-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": "forma-de-la-contaduria-mayor-en-las-cuentas-de-averia" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "gastos-y-relaciones-del-derecho-de-averia" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "ministros-y-solicitadores-pagados-por-la-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": "contribucion-y-tanteo-del-derecho-de-averia" } ], "questions": [ "Who kept the account of what the avería, the convoy levy of the Spanish Indies trade, was spent on?", "Did Spanish law ever prescribe the exact wording of an accounting entry?", "What happened to a Spanish official who failed to report the warrants his office issued?", "Did the Spanish Crown borrow from the convoy fund of the Indies trade?", "In what order were the creditors of the avería paid?" ], "claims": [ { "id": "c1", "text": "The laws read in this entry resume the Recopilación's título on the accounting office of the average and carry a single reform through seven consecutive laws. 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\"; the margin and body of ley xxxxvij stand at the head of the left-hand column of the printed folio 102, and the seven laws read here run to the close of ley liij in the right-hand column of folio 103, where the rubric of ley liiij follows immediately. The margin of ley xxxxvij names the source of all seven: Philip IV at Madrid on 3 June 1650 and on 17 March 1651, whose chapters 1, 2, 5, 6, 3 and 4, 7 and 9 the seven laws reproduce in that order.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-viii-cuenta-por-una-mano" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c2", "text": "The reform's premise is a confession about the state of the fund's books. Ley xxxxvij recites that the account of what the average distributes ought to run \"por una mano, y no por tantas como hoy pasa\", because as things stood the Contadores Diputados held the account of sums warranted on the receiver, on the paymaster of the armada of the Indies, on the purveyor and on the accountant of other branches, \"de que resulta confusion, y dificultad\". The remedy is to order that it run through the Contadores Diputados alone, keeping the account of everything that entered and left the chest of the average in books where every item of collection and every warrant is entered as it comes.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-viii-cuenta-por-una-mano" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c3", "text": "The same law legislates the wording of a bookkeeping entry, and says why. Ley xxxxvij requires the receiver to be charged with the sums coming from the levy \"con la claridad necesaria, diciendo: En tal Galeon vino para Fulano tal cantidad, cuyas Averías montan tanto\" — in such a galleon there came for so-and-so such a sum, whose average comes to so much — and forbids the practice it replaces, charging him \"por mayor, como ahora se hace, cargándole todo lo que importan las Averías de un Galeon, en que puede haber algunos yerros, que no tienen comprobacion\". A lump sum per galleon cannot be checked against anything; an entry naming the consignee and the parcel can. The código prints the formula because the formula is the control.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-viii-cuenta-por-una-mano" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c4", "text": "A second formula is printed for warrants, and a minister's pay is made to depend on sending it. Ley xxxxviij requires the Contadores Diputados to take the record of every despatch to collect and to pay; and where another office issues the warrants, that office is bound to send them a return every eight days \"diciendo: Por libranza de tal dia se mandó pagar á Fulano por tal razon tanta cantidad\". The sanction is at the end of the law: no salary may be paid to the ministers who owe that eight-day return \"si no constare por Certificacion suya de la execucion\". The law also yields where it conflicts with practice — \"en lo que esta nuestra órden fuere contraria á lo que se estila, se hará en la forma que se acostumbra\" — so the pay sanction, not the command, is what the Crown relied on.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-viii-cuenta-por-una-mano" ], "confidence": 0.85 }, { "id": "c5", "text": "Two of the seven laws exist because the convoy fund was a borrower. Ley xxxxviiij orders accounts to be armed with the persons to whom sums of the average were lent, and sums repaid to be entered as paid, so that it can be known \"si nuestra Real hacienda, ú otras personas deben algo á la Avería\" — whether the royal treasury, or anyone else, owes the fund anything. It recites that this is now so difficult \"como muestra la experiencia, por el mucho tiempo que pende la cuenta mandada ajustar de las pretensiones, y débitos que hay entre nuestra Real hacienda, y la Avería\". Ley lj orders the mirror account for those who lent to the fund, by credit and debit, with the charges divided \"por géneros\". The código is printing, as its own reason for legislating, that the Crown's treasury and the merchants' convoy fund had a long-pending reckoning between them.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-viii-cuenta-por-una-mano" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c6", "text": "One of the seven laws gives its own reason for fixing an order of payment, and the reason is about who had been getting paid. The law orders an account formed with those holding tributes charged on the average, recording why they enjoy them and what has been paid them, so that a claimant who comes can be told what he is owed; and then it orders the Casa de Contratación to pay the fund's creditors, whether by tribute or by loan, \"á cada uno por su antelacion: prefiriendo los de justicia á los de gracia, para excusar la desigualdad con que esto se ha hecho, cobrando solamente los que han tenido mano para ello\". Priority by date, claims of right before claims of favour — and the stated reason is that payment had until then been unequal, and that only those with a hand in it had been collecting.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-viii-cuenta-por-una-mano" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c7", "text": "Two of the laws are about keeping the accountants at the accounts. Ley l requires the whole record of despatches to be entered in the books themselves and not merely kept as copies, \"para que no sea necesario recurrir á los traslados\". Ley liij takes the fund's litigation away from the accountants altogether: so that they may have more time for the account, \"que es lo mas necesario\", all lawsuits touching the average are to be pleaded by the Crown's fiscal of the Casa, \"que lo hará con mayor autoridad, y conocimiento defendiendo la Avería conforme á derecho\". The fund of the merchants is thereby defended in court by a Crown law officer.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-viii-cuenta-por-una-mano" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c8", "text": "What the seven laws do for a payer of the levy, and what they do not. The entries ley xxxxvij prescribes are per consignee and per parcel, so a merchant's own average becomes a traceable item rather than part of a galleon's lump; and ley lij makes an account exist that a creditor coming to the Casa can be shown. But neither law gives anyone outside the Casa a right to demand sight of a book, and the account ley lij orders is to be sent to the Council of the Indies, not published. The eight-day return of ley xxxxviij runs between offices of the Crown. A payer of the average gains the existence of a legible record, not access to it.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-viii-cuenta-por-una-mano" ], "confidence": 0.8 }, { "id": "c9", "text": "What a flattering reading of these laws would leave out, and the leaves do not. All seven are remedial, and each recites the abuse it is correcting: an account kept by too many hands, a charge made in lump sums with errors that could not be checked, a reckoning between the treasury and the fund that had hung for years, creditors paid unequally according to who had influence. That is a record of failure as much as of reform, and it is dated 1650 and 1651 — a century and a half after the trade began and seventy years into the fund's own título. Ley xxxxviij, having ordered an eight-day return, concedes in the same sentence that where the order conflicts with custom, custom prevails. Ley liij moves the fund's lawsuits to a Crown officer, which relieves the accountants and also puts the defence of a levy raised on merchants into the hands of the Crown's own prosecutor. And nothing here states the rate of the average or what it yielded; the levy falls on the commerce of the Americas, and the cost of the machinery described in these laws was ultimately carried by that trade.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-viii-cuenta-por-una-mano" ], "confidence": 0.8 }, { "id": "c10", "text": "What this entry does not establish. It reads seven laws of one título in one impression. It says nothing about whether the account was in fact brought into one hand, what the royal treasury owed the fund or the fund the treasury, who held tributes or made loans on the average, whether any creditor was paid in the order ley lij prescribes, or whether any minister's salary was in fact withheld. The margins of the seven laws carry the dates of 1650 and 1651 as this impression gives them, and they were not collated against the first impression, which this corpus also holds. The rubric of ley xxxxvij stands on folio 101, which this entry does not open, and nothing here is attributed to it. The laws of this título before ley xxxxvij and after ley liij are read in sibling entries of this corpus, not here.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-viii-cuenta-por-una-mano" ], "confidence": 0.9 } ], "takeaways": [], "faqs": [], "evidence_tier": "primary", "evidence": { "level": "industry_observation", "source_types": [ "paper" ] }, "moat_flag": true, "winning_edge": "This entry reads the seven laws of the Recopilación that carry Philip IV's reform of 1650 and 1651 into the accounting of the convoy levy, and what it adds is below the resolution of a summary of the código: a statute that prints the exact words an entry must use — \"En tal Galeon vino para Fulano tal cantidad, cuyas Averías montan tanto\" — and says why the lump-sum alternative cannot be checked; an eight-day reporting duty between offices enforced by withholding the reporting ministers' salary until they certify compliance; paired accounts opened with the fund's debtors and its lenders because the royal treasury and the convoy fund had a reckoning that had hung for years; and an order of payment by seniority, claims of right before claims of favour. It prints beside them what the same laws concede: that each is a remedy for a named failure, that one of them yields to custom in the sentence after it commands, and that the código records payment having gone to those \"que han tenido mano para ello\" — only those who had a hand in it.", "confidence": 0.85, "last_verified": "2026-10-30", "media": [], "x": {}, "canonical_url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/k/cuenta-por-una-mano-de-la-averia", "api_url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/api/k/cuenta-por-una-mano-de-la-averia.json", "jsonld": { "@context": "https://schema.org", "name": "The convoy levy put into one hand: a reform of 1650–51 that prints its own bookkeeping formulas, withholds a minister's salary until he certifies an eight-day return, and concedes that the fund's creditors had been paid only where they had a hand in it — libro VIIII título VIII, leyes xxxxvij to liij", "description": "Seven laws of the Recopilación de Leyes de Indias carry a reform of 1650 and 1651 into the audit of the avería, the levy that paid for the convoys of the Indies run. They put the account of what the fund spent into one office, print in the law the words each entry must use, make every office that issues a warrant on the fund report it within eight days on pain of its ministers' salary, open accounts with the fund's debtors and lenders, and order its creditors paid by priority.", "url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/k/cuenta-por-una-mano-de-la-averia", "license": "https://spdx.org/licenses/CC-BY-4.0.html", "dateModified": "2026-10-30", "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 xxxxvij, xxxxviij, xxxxviiij, l, lj, lij and liij, the seven laws by which Philip IV in 1650 and 1651 put the account of what the average distributed into a single office, prescribed the wording of its entries, required an eight-day return of every warrant issued on the fund, ordered accounts armed with those who lent to it and with those holding tributes charged on it, and moved its lawsuits to the fiscal of the Casa. The seven laws run from the margin and body of ley xxxxvij at the head of the left-hand column of the printed folio 102 to the close of ley liij in the right-hand column of folio 103; the rubric of ley xxxxvij stands on folio 101, which this registration does not open. Ley xxxxvij, margin \"D. Felipe IIII en Madrid á 3 de Junio de 1650. Y á 17 de Marzo de 1651. cap. 1.\", whose text reads \"POrque conviene, que la cuenta de lo que se distribuye, y gasta de Averías, corra por una mano, y no por tantas como hoy pasa, pues segun se ha entendido, los Contadores Diputados la tienen de las partidas que se libran en el Receptor de ella, y Pagador de la Armada de las Indias, el Proveedor, y Contador de otros diferentes ramos, de que resulta confusion, y dificultad: Ordenamos que corra solamente por los dichos Contadores Diputados, teniendo la cuenta de todo lo que entrare, y saliere del Arca de la Avería, formando libros, en que se asienten todas las partidas que procedieren de la cobranza de este derecho, como se fueren recibiendo, y tambien las que se libraren, con toda distincion, haciendo cargo de las que entraren en poder del Receptor, procedidas de él, con la claridad necesaria, diciendo: En tal Galeon vino para Fulano tal cantidad, cuyas Averías montan tanto; y no por mayor, como ahora se hace, cargándole todo lo que importan las Averías de un Galeon, en que puede haber algunos yerros, que no tienen comprobacion.\" Ley xxxxviij, rubric \"Que los Contadores Diputados tomen la razon de todos los Despachos en la forma de esta ley.\", margin \"D. Felipe IIII allí, cap. 2. El mismo allí á 17 de Marzo de 1651.\", whose text reads \"MAndamos que los Contadores Diputados tomen la razon de todos los Despachos para cobrar, y pagar, y de las Cartas de pago que se dieren para la cuenta general, aunque en alguna particular sea necesario tomarla en los demas Oficios, y que hagan el Despacho en sus libros, como si no se tomase en otros; y si hubiere embarazo en que tomen la razon los dichos Contadores Diputados de lo que se librare en el Receptor, supuesto que es preciso que los Ministros de la Armada de la Carrera de Indias, y los de la Artillería, tomen la razon de los Despachos: Ordenamos que el Oficio donde se hicieren las Libranzas, tenga obligacion de enviar cada ocho dias relacion á los Contadores Diputados de las que se hubieren dado, diciendo: Por libranza de tal dia se mandó pagar á Fulano por tal razon tanta cantidad. Con que los dichos Contadores tendrán la noticia conveniente, y los Ministros que han de darla de lo que se hubiere librado quando llegan los Galeones, y Flotas para ajustamiento de lo gastado en sus aprestos, y recibos: y los Contadores Diputados lo tendrán executado, teniendo asentadas en sus libros las partidas que se han gastado, de todos géneros: y en lo que esta nuestra órden fuere contraria á lo que se estila, se hará en la forma que se acostumbra, con calidad de que no se pueda pagar su salario á los Ministros que hubieren de dar la dicha relacion, y noticias cada ocho dias á los Contadores Diputados, si no constare por Certificacion suya de la execucion, para que se cumpla con efecto.\" Ley xxxxviiij, rubric \"Que se armen cuentas con las personas á quien se prestare Avería.\", margin \"El mismo cap. 5.\", whose text reads \"ASimismo se han de armar cuentas con las personas á quien se prestaren partidas de la Avería, y quando se satisfagan pónganse por pagadas, para que en todo tiempo conste de lo que se ha prestado, y satisfecho, con que será fácil de reconocer si nuestra Real hacienda, ú otras personas deben algo á la Avería, que ahora es tan dificultoso, como muestra la experiencia, por el mucho tiempo que pende la cuenta mandada ajustar de las pretensiones, y débitos que hay entre nuestra Real hacienda, y la Avería.\" Ley l, rubric \"Que en los libros se asiente toda la razon de los Despachos.\", margin \"El mismo cap. 6.\", whose text reads \"EN los libros se asiente toda la razon de los Despachos, aunque quede copia de ellos, como se hace en todos los Oficios de Contaduría, para que no sea necesario recurrir á los traslados, y en los libros haya todo lo conveniente á la mayor inteligencia.\" Ley lj, rubric \"Que se forme cuenta de lo que se prestare á la Avería.\", margin \"El mismo cap. 3. y 4.\", whose text reads \"CON las personas que prestaren algunas cantidades á la Avería para despacho de las Armadas, y Flotas, ú otros efectos, los Contadores Diputados armen cuenta, donde se les ponga por crédito lo que entregaren, y se cargue al que lo recibiere; y quando se dé el despacho para su cobranza, póngase por débito, y haga bueno en cuenta de la persona, en quien se librare, para que pueda constar de lo que se debe á cada uno, sin reconocer los libros, en que se gasta mucho tiempo; y los cargos se dividan por géneros, para que con mayor facilidad conste de lo que se ha recibido de cada uno.\" Ley lij, rubric \"Que se forme cuenta con los que tienen tributos sobre la Avería.\", margin \"Capítulo 7.\", whose text reads \"TAmbien se forme cuenta con los que tienen tributos sobre Avería, donde se ponga la razon por que los gozan, y se asiente lo que se les pagare, para que siempre que las partes acudieren se les pueda dar noticia de lo que se les debe. Y mandamos que los Contadores ajusten luego lo que se les debe de este género; y habiéndolo hecho, se envie la cuenta á nuestro Consejo, y nuestra Casa de Contratacion ordene, que de aquí adelante se pague á los acreedores de Avería, así por tributos, como por empréstitos, á cada uno por su antelacion: prefiriendo los de justicia á los de gracia, para excusar la desigualdad con que esto se ha hecho, cobrando solamente los que han tenido mano para ello.\" Ley liij, rubric \"Que los pleytos de Avería se substancien con el Fiscal de la Casa.\", margin \"Capítulo 9.\", whose text reads \"POrque los Contadores Diputados tengan mas tiempo para acudir á la cuenta, y razon de todo lo tocante á la Avería, que es lo mas necesario, y se les excuse de la vista de los Pleytos, y cosas tocantes á ella: Mandamos que todos los que se ofrecieren, se substancien con nuestro Fiscal de la Casa, que lo hará con mayor autoridad, y conocimiento defendiendo la Avería conforme á derecho.\"", "url": "https://books.google.com/books?id=t5EbF6Y1EM4C&pg=PA102" } ], "@type": "Article", "headline": "The convoy levy put into one hand: a reform of 1650–51 that prints its own bookkeeping formulas, withholds a minister's salary until he certifies an eight-day return, and concedes that the fund's creditors had been paid only where they had a hand in it — libro VIIII título VIII, leyes xxxxvij to liij" } }