{
  "id": "receptor-y-arca-del-derecho-de-averia",
  "type": "entity",
  "name": "The receiver of the convoy levy, bonded at thirty thousand ducats and made to run the risk of his own credit: a receipt in the register before the goods move, a chest of three keys, and a fourfold penalty of which a third went to whoever reported it — libro VIIII título VIIII, leyes iij, vj, viiij, x and xj",
  "summary": "Five laws of the Recopilación de Leyes de Indias build the machinery that actually collected the convoy levy of the Spanish Indies trade. They bind the receiver by oath and by sureties of thirty thousand ducats, make him receipt each parcel in the register before the goods are released so the payer cannot be charged twice, forbid him to give credit except at his own risk, send the cash into a chest of three keys, and name the eight officers through whom collection had to run.",
  "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": "contribucion-y-tanteo-del-derecho-de-averia"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "jurisdiccion-y-comiso-del-derecho-de-averia"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "cargo-y-cuenta-del-receptor-de-la-averia"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "contaduria-de-averias-de-la-casa-de-la-contratacion"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "cobranza-y-tanteo-de-la-hacienda-de-averia"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "libros-y-papeles-de-la-contaduria-de-averias"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "cuenta-por-generos-de-la-averia"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "pagador-de-las-armadas-y-flotas"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "examen-de-pilotos-y-maestres-de-la-carrera-de-indias"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "flotas-y-galeones-de-la-carrera-de-indias"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "consulados-de-lima-y-mexico"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "veitia-norte-de-la-contratacion-1672"
    }
  ],
  "questions": [
    "Who physically collected the avería, the convoy levy of the Spanish Indies trade?",
    "What security did a Spanish royal receiver have to give before taking office?",
    "How did Spanish law stop a merchant being charged the convoy levy twice?",
    "What was the arca de tres llaves and what went into it?",
    "Who could be rewarded for reporting unpaid customs in the Spanish Indies trade?"
  ],
  "claims": [
    {
      "id": "c1",
      "text": "These five laws stand in the Recopilación's título on the contribution and collection of the avería, and they describe collection rather than audit. In the fourth impression printed at Madrid in 1791 by the widow of Joaquín Ibarra for the Royal and Supreme Council of the Indies, ley iij stands in the right-hand column of the printed folio 109; leyes vj and vij open the left-hand column of folio 110; and leyes viiij, x and xj run to the close of ley xj in the right-hand column of folio 111, where the rubric of ley xij follows immediately. The running head of folio 111 reads \"De la Contribucion de Averías.\".",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-ix-receptor-y-arca"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c2",
      "text": "The receiver's duty is absolute and his own estate stands behind it. Ley iij requires him to collect in full everything owed to the avería \"sin dilacion, ni remision, pena de pagarlo de su hacienda\" — on pain of paying it out of his own property. Before being admitted to the office he must swear before the President and Judges of the Casa to do it well and faithfully, having given \"fianzas legas, llanas, y abonadas á satisfaccion de los dichos Presidente, y Jueces en cantidad de treinta mil ducados\", principal and sureties binding themselves that he will collect everything in his charge and render account with payment at the appointed times and whenever asked. The same bond is expressly made to answer \"para el juicio de las visitas que se hicieren á los Ministros de la Avería\" — the security covers the verdict of the inspection as well as the balance of the account. The margin runs from an ordinance of the avería of 1573 to Philip IV at Madrid on 30 December 1644.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-ix-receptor-y-arca"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c3",
      "text": "The receipt is required before the goods move, and the law gives the reason, which is the payer's. Ley vj orders the receiver to acknowledge in the registers the parcels on which the duty is owed, \"refiriendo específicamente la cantidad, y el dia en que la recibe\", and to initial the entry so that the Contador Diputado can charge him with it at once; and this is to be done before the Jueces Oficiales or the masters deliver the parcels at the Casa, \"porque no se pueda pedir á las partes lo que deben por este derecho\". The sequence exists so that the merchant cannot afterwards be asked for a duty he has already paid: the receipt in the register is the payer's discharge, and it is made to precede release of the goods. The margin dates it to Aranjuez, 9 March 1580, from ordinance 7 of the visita of the licenciado Gamboa.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-ix-receptor-y-arca"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c4",
      "text": "Credit is allowed only where the receiver himself bears the loss. Ley viiij requires him to take what is paid in cash at the table where he despatches, with the Contador Diputado present to charge him immediately; and \"por ningun caso fie á ningun particular los derechos miéntras no traxere crédito de los compradores de plata, ó de otras personas abonadas, y á su satisfaccion, porque ha de correr el riesgo\". He may not extend credit without backing from silver buyers or other approved persons, and the stated reason is that the risk is his. The fund is thereby insulated from the receiver's own judgment about who is good for the money.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-ix-receptor-y-arca"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c5",
      "text": "Cash does not stay in the receiver's hands. The same ley viiij orders that what is collected in cash be put at once \"en el Arca de tres llaves, con intervencion de los demas Llaveros\" — a strongbox with three separate locks, opened only with the other key-holders present. The custody rule is stated in the same sentence as the collection rule, so that the interval between taking the money and locking it away is as short as the law can make it.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-ix-receptor-y-arca"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c6",
      "text": "Nothing crosses the counter until the duty is shown paid, and the proof is documentary. Ley x forbids the clerk of registers to pass any goods in them \"sin fe del Contador Diputado, de que está satisfecha la Avería, y pagado el Receptor, y asentado en el libro de su cargo\"; and the parcels of gold, silver and merchandise arriving in the homeward registers are not to be delivered by the Jueces Oficiales of the Casa or by the ships' masters unless the avería has first been satisfied. It is enough that the receiver enter and sign in the registers, in the margin of the parcel, that its avería is paid, \"porque allí se le haga cargo\" — the same marginal note that discharges the merchant charges the receiver.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-ix-receptor-y-arca"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c7",
      "text": "The penalty for releasing goods without that proof falls on the officials, and a third of it is a bounty. Ley x ends: officials and masters who deliver the parcels in any other form are bound to pay the avería \"con el quatro tanto para nuestra Cámara, y la tercera parte sea para el Denunciador\" — fourfold to the royal chamber, with a third of it to whoever reported the offence. The código thereby buys enforcement from inside the Casa and the ships, paying the informer out of the fine rather than out of the fund. The margin dates the law to ordinance 10 of 1575 with earlier orders of 1573 and 1574 and a later one of 1580.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-ix-receptor-y-arca"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c8",
      "text": "Ley xj names the whole collecting establishment in one sentence, and two of the eight are the merchants' own. The matters touching the avería are to be handled by the President and Jueces Oficiales of the Casa, the \"Prior, y Cónsules de la Universidad de Cargadores\", a judge of the avería, a Contador Diputado, a receiver who collects the apportionment, a clerk before whom \"se hagan los Acuerdos, y pagas\", and an inspector \"que entienda con fidelidad en el recibo, y gasto\" — each intervening in what belongs to him \"conforme á su exercicio, y título nuestro, con que le tuviere\". Two heads of the shippers' corporation sit in the collection of the levy the shippers paid; the last clause makes every one of them hold by royal title. The margin gives ordinance 2 of 1573.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-ix-receptor-y-arca"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c9",
      "text": "What a flattering reading of these five laws would leave out, and the leaves do not. Every one of them is a control on the Crown's own officers, and controls of this kind are written because the conduct existed: a receiver who had to be told to collect \"sin dilacion, ni remision\" under a thirty-thousand-ducat bond, officials and masters who had to be threatened with fourfold to stop them releasing parcels on unpaid duty, a clerk of registers who had to be forbidden to pass goods on his own word. The protection ley vj gives the payer is a by-product of the Crown's wish to charge the receiver promptly, and it is stated as such. The informer's third rewards denunciation inside a workplace. And the eight officers of ley xj, the inspector and the clerk among them, were all salaried — on the evidence of these leaves, out of the same levy, which is to say out of the trade of the Americas that paid it.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-ix-receptor-y-arca"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.8
    },
    {
      "id": "c10",
      "text": "What this entry does not establish. It reads five laws of one título in one impression. It says nothing about who held the receivership in any year, whether sureties of thirty thousand ducats were ever given or ever called in, whether the chest of three keys was kept as ordered, whether any master or official paid the fourfold penalty or any informer collected a third of one, or what the eight officers of ley xj were paid. The ordinances of the avería of 1573, 1575 and 1607 and the visita of the licenciado Gamboa of 1580, which the margins cite as the sources of these laws, are not in this código and were not opened. The remaining laws of this título are read in sibling entries of this corpus, not here.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-ix-receptor-y-arca"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    }
  ],
  "takeaways": [],
  "faqs": [],
  "evidence_tier": "primary",
  "evidence": {
    "level": "industry_observation",
    "source_types": [
      "paper"
    ]
  },
  "moat_flag": true,
  "winning_edge": "This entry reads the five laws of the Recopilación that built the collecting machinery of the convoy levy, and what it adds is below the resolution of a summary of the código: a receiver admitted to office only on oath and on lay, plain and approved sureties of thirty thousand ducats, expressly answerable for the verdict of his own inspection; a receipt written into the register before the goods are released, with the law stating the reason as the payer's — \"porque no se pueda pedir á las partes lo que deben por este derecho\"; a prohibition on credit except against approved backing \"porque ha de correr el riesgo\"; cash into a chest of three keys opened only with the other key-holders present; a fourfold penalty on the officials and masters who release goods on unpaid duty, a third of it to the informer; and a single sentence naming all eight officers of the collection, two of them the Prior and Consuls of the merchants' own corporation. It prints beside them what the same laws concede: that each is a control written because the conduct it forbids existed, and that the payer's protection is a by-product of the Crown's wish to charge its receiver promptly.",
  "confidence": 0.85,
  "last_verified": "2026-10-31",
  "media": [],
  "x": {},
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    "name": "The receiver of the convoy levy, bonded at thirty thousand ducats and made to run the risk of his own credit: a receipt in the register before the goods move, a chest of three keys, and a fourfold penalty of which a third went to whoever reported it — libro VIIII título VIIII, leyes iij, vj, viiij, x and xj",
    "description": "Five laws of the Recopilación de Leyes de Indias build the machinery that actually collected the convoy levy of the Spanish Indies trade. They bind the receiver by oath and by sureties of thirty thousand ducats, make him receipt each parcel in the register before the goods are released so the payer cannot be charged twice, forbid him to give credit except at his own risk, send the cash into a chest of three keys, and name the eight officers through whom collection had to run.",
    "url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/k/receptor-y-arca-del-derecho-de-averia",
    "license": "https://spdx.org/licenses/CC-BY-4.0.html",
    "dateModified": "2026-10-31",
    "citation": [
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "Recopilación de leyes de los reynos de las Indias, libro VIIII título VIIII \"DE LA CONTRIBUCION, ADMINISTRACION, y cobranza del derecho de Avería\" — leyes iij, vj, viiij, x and xj, the five laws that bind the receiver of the convoy levy by oath and by sureties of thirty thousand ducats, make him receipt every parcel in the register before the goods are released, forbid him to give credit on his own risk, send every maravedí collected in cash into a chest of three keys, bar the release of any parcel on which the levy is unpaid on pain of fourfold with a third to the informer, and name the eight officers through whom the collection has to run. The laws read here stand in the right-hand column of the printed folio 109 (ley iij) and run from the rubric of ley vj at the head of the left-hand column of folio 110 to the close of ley xj in the right-hand column of folio 111, where the rubric of ley xij follows; the running head of folio 111 reads \"De la Contribucion de Averías.\" and that of folio 110 \"Libro VIIII. Título VIIII.\". Ley iij, rubric \"Que el Receptor de la Avería jure, y dé fianzas de treinta mil ducados, y de que dará cuenta.\", margin \"D. Felipe II Ordenanza 7. de la Avería de 1573. D. Felipe III en Madrid á 10 de Octubre de 1607. Ordenanza 2. Y á 27 de Noviembre de él. D. Felipe IIII allí á 30 de Diciembre de 1644. D. Cárlos II en esta Recopilacion.\", whose text reads \"EL Receptor de la Avería ha de cobrar enteramente todo lo que de ella se debiere, sin dilacion, ni remision, pena de pagarlo de su hacienda; y para ser recibido al uso, y exercicio de su oficio, jure ante el Presidente, y Jueces de la Casa de hacerlo bien, y fielmente, habiendo dado fianzas legas, llanas, y abonadas á satisfaccion de los dichos Presidente, y Jueces en cantidad de treinta mil ducados, obligándose principal, y fiadores á que cobrará todo lo que fuere á su cargo, y perteneciere á la Avería, y dará cuenta con pago de lo que cobrare, á los tiempos que está obligado, y quando le fuere pedida; y asímismo para el juicio de las visitas que se hicieren á los Ministros de la Avería. Y mandamos que la Casa de Contratacion le dé todo el favor, y auxîlio necesario para la cobranza.\" Ley vj, rubric \"Que el Receptor de la Avería satisfaga en los registros las partidas.\", margin \"D. Felipe II en Aranjuez á 9 de Marzo de 1580. Ordenanza 7. de la Visita del Licenciado Gamboa.\", whose text reads \"MAndamos que el Receptor de la Avería satisfaga en los registros las partidas de que se debe, refiriendo específicamente la cantidad, y el dia en que la recibe, y rubrique la partida, para que el Contador Diputado le pueda hacer luego el cargo, y esto sea ántes que los Jueces Oficiales, ó los Maestres entreguen en la Casa las partidas, porque no se pueda pedir á las partes lo que deben por este derecho.\" Ley viiij, rubric \"Que la Avería se cobre de contado en la tabla, y el Contador Diputado haga luego cargo de ello, y no se fie sin crédito abonado.\", margin \"D. Felipe III Ordenanza 4. de la Avería de 1607\", whose text reads \"HA de recibir el Receptor lo que se pagare, y cobrare de contado por el derecho de Avería en la tabla donde despacha, con el Contador Diputado, para que le haga luego cargo, y el Receptor por ningun caso fie á ningun particular los derechos miéntras no traxere crédito de los compradores de plata, ó de otras personas abonadas, y á su satisfaccion, porque ha de correr el riesgo: y lo que se cobrare de contado, póngase luego en el Arca de tres llaves, con intervencion de los demas Llaveros.\" Ley x, rubric \"Que no se entregue partida si no constare, que está pagada la Avería.\", margin \"D. Felipe II Ordenanza 10. de 1575. En Madrid á 23 de Agosto de 1573. Y á 4 de Julio de 1574. Ordenanza 2. En Aranjuez á 9 de Marzo de 1580.\", whose text reads \"EL Escribano de Registros no pase en ellos ningunas mercaderías sin fe del Contador Diputado, de que está satisfecha la Avería, y pagado el Receptor, y asentado en el libro de su cargo: y las partidas, así de oro, y plata, como de mercaderías, y otras cosas, que vinieren en los Registros de vuelta de viage, no se entreguen por los Jueces Oficiales de la Casa, ni por los Maestres de Navíos, si no estuviere primero satisfecha la Avería, y baste que el Receptor de ella asiente, y firme en los Registros al márgen de la partida, que la Avería de ella está pagada, porque allí se le haga cargo; pena de que los Oficiales, y Maestres, que de otra forma entregaren las partidas, sean obligados á pagar la Avería, con el quatro tanto para nuestra Cámara, y la tercera parte sea para el Denunciador.\" Ley xj, rubric \"Que la cobranza de Avería corra por los Ministros que esta ley dispone.\", margin \"El mismo Ordenanza 2. de 1573.\", whose text reads \"EL Presidente, y Jueces Oficiales de la Casa, Prior, y Cónsules de la Universidad de Cargadores, un Juez de Avería, un Contador Diputado, un Receptor, que cobre el repartimiento, un Escribano, ante quien se hagan los Acuerdos, y pagas, un Veedor, que entienda con fidelidad en el recibo, y gasto, han de intervenir en las materias tocantes á Avería, cada uno por lo que le tocare, conforme á su exercicio, y título nuestro, con que le tuviere.\"",
        "url": "https://books.google.com/books?id=t5EbF6Y1EM4C&pg=PA109"
      }
    ],
    "@type": "Article",
    "headline": "The receiver of the convoy levy, bonded at thirty thousand ducats and made to run the risk of his own credit: a receipt in the register before the goods move, a chest of three keys, and a fourfold penalty of which a third went to whoever reported it — libro VIIII título VIIII, leyes iij, vj, viiij, x and xj"
  }
}