99.     [CALIFORNIA PORTS]. SPAIN. LAWS (October 22, 1803). SECRETARIO DE ESTADO Y DEL DESPACHO (Miguel Cayetano Soler). [Decree of October 22, 1803, upgrading the status of California ports.] [At top] D. Joseph de Yturrigaray, Caballero profeso de la Orden de Santiago, teniente general de los Reales Exércitos…. [text commences] Con fecha de 22 de Octubre del año próximo anterior me ha comunicado el Exmô Señor Don Miguel Cayetano Soler…con objecto de fomentar la agricultura y comercio de las Californias, se ha servido el Rey habilitar sus puertos en calidad de menores…. [at end] Dado en México á 20 de Abril de 1804. Folio (42.7 x 30.5 cm). Broadside on watermarked laid paper with two ink sello quarto ink stamps on verso. With paraph of Joseph de Yturrigaray and ink signature of José Ignacio Negroponte y Sonia. Creased where formerly folded, minor edge soiling and wrinkling, small wormhole in upper and lower blank margins. Fine overall.

     First Mexican edition. Not in Medina, México. By this law, Spain gives increased, official recognition to ports in upper and lower California to allow additional imports and exports through them, as provided for in the original February 28, 1789, law. Distance from central New Spain made supply to the missions of the Californias a continual problem. The provinces were opened to external trade in general in 1789, and this decree assured opening of all California ports as minor ports to facilitate trade in supplies. Those measures produced no increase in trade, and the established smugglers remained as the principal “merchants.”

($200-400)

Auction 22 Abstracts