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New estimates of Spain's current-account balance with the «Indies» add new perspectives to the recent debate on the aims and results of Spanish commercial policy. At the height of «comercio libre» in 1784-92, Spain's private commercial interests appear to have drawn larger financial returns from the Indies than did their British counterparts from wider colonial engagement. On this as on other scores, by the eve of the French wars the Spanish empire appears to have become a sounder economic proposition than might be inferred from recent pessimistic views. The empire's subsequent demise may have involved a greater degree of geographical and dynastic accident than is seemingly apparent.

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This questionnaire discusses the U.S. Treasury Department´s annual trade statements from 1790 to 1819. In 1821 these statements were replaced with similar though increasingly more detailed annual accounts-now, for the first time, with official calculations of current import values. 2. Documents The documents considered here are annual accounts, all printed and bound in 2 volumes dated 1832 and 1834 (see American State Papers [ASP] in 9-a below). No synthetic statement of the U.S. trade and services balance was officially produced at the time. Export values at U.S. ports of departure were given for each year; but import values for goods subject to specific duties were not calculated at the time. For each of the years in the period 1795-1801, Mr. Joshua Dobson of the Treasury Department unofficially estimated the total import values at current prices by geographic origins (see Seybert, Statistical Annals..., pp. 266-78); but these values were thought to fall short of the true import values at U.S. ports: see U.S. Congress, "Report... 1819,", p. 393. Modern reconstructions of the U.S. balance of payments for this period include North, "The United States Balance of Payments, 1790-1860", 1960 (U.S. totals only for trade, invisibles, and other flows); and Cuenca-Esteban´s 2014 Working Paper "Financing U.S. External Trade" (here also including breakdowns by foreign countries, foreign countries´ colonies, and other geographic areas).