Los beneficios del mar: negocios e inversiones económicas de la oficialidad naval en el siglo XVIII

Throughout the eighteenth century, the Spanish navy was extensively reformed and enhanced as a consequence of the new model of Monarchy that the Bourbons introduced. Among the measures adopted, it is remarkable the erection of the naval officers corps according to the needs and obligations that maritime war had in this century. This group becomes the paradigm of the new professionalization and new training approach, and its members had great relevance due to its great mobility around the empire and the power of the naval institution. This means that a part of the naval officers were placed in privileged positions and at the intersection of diverse political, social and economic networks. This work aims to research this fact through the business and economic investments that these individuals undertook throughout the eighteenth century, especially their participation in the Cadiz trade. It can be concluded that the naval officers of the eighteenth century constituted a quite active economic group that looked for complementary forms of benefit beyond their salary as servants of the King and became essential nodes of the Atlantic economic framework of Spain