ABSTRACT
Spain made a remarkable recovery in the eighteenth century from the state of abject weakness into which it had fallen under the last Hapsburg kings. In the field of colonial reform the Bourbons moved slowly and cautiously, as was natural in view of the fact that powerful vested interests were identified with the old order of things. The most important Bourbon political reform was the transfer to the colonies, between 1782 and 1790, of the intendant system, already introduced in Spain from France. Contraband trade, never completely eliminated under the Bourbons, reached vast proportions during the frequent intervals of warfare in which British naval power swept Spanish shipping from the seas. The Bourbon reforms, combined with a rising European demand for Spanish American products, helped to produce a remarkable expansion of colonial trade and prosperity in the last half of the eighteenth century.
