Sociedad Patriótica de Amigos del País de Quito, 1791: twenty-four members, a fortnightly paper, and a collapse inside two years

The president of the Audiencia of Quito set up an economic society in November 1791 with twenty-four members, put the bishop at its head and made the creole physician Eugenio Espejo its secretary. Espejo drafted its statutes and announced, in its name, the fortnightly Primicias de la Cultura de Quito; a Lima periodical printed the announcement within weeks. Its four commissions planned public conferences and catechisms of agriculture. Neither appeared, and it dissolved inside two years.