Accounting regulations in the spanish navy in the period 1700-1850

special reference to the administration of provisions supply

Abstract

The arrival to the throne by the first Bourbon King, Philip V (1700) and the subsequent naming of José Patiño y Rosales (1717) as Quartermaster General led the situation of the Spanish Navy to undergo an important transformation in its military and administrative organisation, which in terms of legislation meant the publication of different Ordinances and regulatory dispositions. The subsequent development of which, at different historic

     

¹ El autor desea expresar su agradecimiento al personal del Archivo Naval de Cartagena por la inestimable ayuda recibida en la realización del presente trabajo de investigación.

moments, is analysed in the present study, for the period 1700-1850. The struggle for supremacy in the command between the Cuerpo de los Oficiales de Guerra [War Officers’ Corps] and the Cuerpo Administrativo del Ministerio [Ministry Administrative Corps] marks the historical period summarised, with diverse disputes, which from the point of view of legislation was finally decided in favour of the “sword” of the military jurisdiction, with the “pen” of the administrative jurisdiction being relegated to following the orders.

The importance of supplying the warships with provisions oriented the study toward the analysis of the administrative legislation that specifically regulates said question, given the enormo us normalizing effort contained in each of the ordnances and regulations analysed. This presents a profound and very detailed picture of the development of the control of provisions, the normalization of the forms offered by the Ordinances of Charles IV, published in 1793, for the anticipation in their standard regulations.

The accounting system charge and discharge method was implemented in the Spanish Navy during practically all the time examined, although, after the publication in 1850 of the Bravo Murillo’s Law for the Administration and Accountancy of the Public Treasury, a change is detected towards the double entry accounting method, which would more or less explicitly implement the Accountancy Regulations for the Navy in 1850, and which be expressly gathered together in a subsequent regulation in 1858.

The documentation handled in order to carry out this paper has largely been that from primary sources of the Naval Archive of Cartagena, as well as that of other legislation obtained from the Archive of the Treasury Ministry in Madrid.