Abstract
This chapter analyses Mora’s youth and early training years. He was barely thirty years old when his career in journalism began during the 1810s. His first foray into journalism during the Sexenio Absolutista (1813–1820) was the Crónica científica y literaria (1817–1820). The periodical was a clear example of Mora’s ability to make the most of the few remaining openings for civil initiatives in Madrid under the absolutism regime. The Crónica was devoted to “the sciences and literature”, but also launched Mora’s career as a disseminator of political economy. He used brief anonymous notes, bibliographical information and especially reviews to promote this science. His ideological touchstone was neither Campomanes, Jovellanos nor other late Spanish Enlightenment writers, who were hardly mentioned in the Crónica, but Anglo-French classical economics, to which Mora would remain faithful throughout his life. Smith and Say were the two major sources of his economic thought in those years.
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Notes
- 1.
Information about these periods comes from Antonio Alcalá Galiano, Antonio Gil de Zárate and other journalists and politicians that knew Mora in mid-nineteenth-century Madrid. The best sources are Mellado (1842) and Ferrer del Río (1864). The books by Amunátegui (1888) and Monguió (1967) include the references to the contemporary authors cited. The works by Pitollet (1909), Durán (2015, 2018) and Gil Novales (1975, II, 887–88, 2010) are especially useful.
- 2.
All the details appear in Bustos (2005).
- 3.
AHN, Consejos, bundle 13,173.
- 4.
Mora became fluent in French and English, but he probably acquired them during his sojourns in France and London, in the second and third decades of the nineteenth century, respectively. He will explain in his private correspondence that his education in Cadiz was indebted to a “saintly Jansenist cleric” (Mora to José Hegan, London, 22/I/1855; González 1961, 282–84), in all probability the canon of its cathedral.
- 5.
AHN, Consejos, bundle 13,173.
- 6.
This term refers to the liberal supports of the 1812 Cadiz Constitution.
- 7.
- 8.
He worked between August 1816 and August 1817 in the office of a private lawyer. The Council of Castile ratified his law degree in December 1818 (AHN, Consejos, bundle 13,173).
- 9.
Historical-semantic analysis shows that expressions such as “partido liberal” and “liberalismo” had been used in Spanish before French or English, even if this did not mean that an articulated and coherent political theory had been adopted (Fernández Sebastián 2012a, 12).
- 10.
Authors from his circle in Madrid collaborated on the journal, among them Manuel Eduardo Gorostiza, who was editor during the last phase and who Mora was to meet again during his exile in London. All unsigned content, which was the vast majority, can be attributed to Mora himself.
- 11.
Mora admitted so in personal correspondence (Mesa and Gisbert 1965, 16). However, it has also been suggested the nature of these official trips may in fact have been more ambitious. Mora went to Italy to make contact with Capodistria and maybe to recruit members of the Vatican’s Swiss Guard to act as royal bodyguards. Then he went to France to ascertain the state of opinion on the establishment of the constitutional regime in 1820, after which he became convinced of the disrepute in which Ferdinand’s government was held (Gil Novales 2010, II, 2054). It is also thought that he took advantage of the trip to make connections with liberal sectors and suggest reforms to the government in order to save the regime (Durán 2015, 46).
- 12.
CCL, “Prospectus” (undated).
- 13.
Mora even included an extensive summary of Alexandre de Laborde’s book, accounting for these pedagogical methods, which were being introduced experimentally in Spain in those years (CCL, no. 176, 4/XII/1818, 5–20; Medina 2022, 63–64).
- 14.
Just a few years later, at the height of the Liberal Triennium, Mora stated bluntly that liberalism was “on the scale of political opinions what classical taste is on the scale of literary opinions” (El Constitucional, no. 526, 16/X/1820, 1).
- 15.
On the creation during the Spanish Enlightenment of economic reviews as a new popular genre, see Astigarraga et al. (2020).
- 16.
- 17.
An overall analysis appears in Astigarraga and Zabalza (2021).
- 18.
The first was a French translation and the second referred to a piece by Owen. Although Mora admitted that his projects had contributed to correcting the low educational and moral condition of the working classes, he considered them generally unrealistic (CCL, no. 105, 31/III/1818, 3–4; no. 175, 1/XII/1818, 3–4).
- 19.
CCL (n. 75, 16/XII/1817). In some cases, with the support of the very young prestigious future economist Ramón de la Sagra.
- 20.
It was one of the first reviews of this work to be published in Spain; see Almenar (2014).
- 21.
CCL (no. 54, 3/X/1817; n. 289, 4/I/1820).
- 22.
See CCL (no. 68, 21/XI/1817; no. 194, 5/II/1819).
- 23.
CCL (no. 278, 26/XI/1819; no. 279, 30/XI/1819).
- 24.
On this reform, see Fontana (1971, 159–71, 305–11).
- 25.
See opinions in favour of the “new” Treasury system in the CCL (no. 53, 30/IX/1817; no. 67, 18/XI/1817).
- 26.
- 27.
During absolutism the MCA only published articles on economic statistics and agronomy. Only after the constitutional restoration did it include articles on political economy by Manuel María Gutiérrez (MCA, no. 43, 7/II/1820; no. 44, 9/II/1829; no. 45, 11/II/1820). For its part, the MR only occasionally provided information on supply policy and reviews dedicated to Saint Aubin (1817) and Tracy (1818).
- 28.
The information on the Matritense in this chapter has been provided by Elisa Martín-Valdepeñas. Mora was also a member of the Granada and Cadiz economic societies.
- 29.
In 1818 he co-authored a report on de Ramón Valdés’ traders’ handbook (ARSEM, bundle 262/13).
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Astigarraga, J., Usoz, J., Zabalza, J. (2024). The Sexenio Absolutista (1814–1820): The Encounter with Smith and Say. In: The Economic Legacy of José Joaquín de Mora. Palgrave Studies in the History of Economic Thought. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-49446-8_2
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