Consuls and Commerce: the Development of Malta’s Consular Service in Eighteenth-Century Spain

Abstract

Merchants in foreign lands trading in alien and occasionally hostile cities naturally banded together and often appointed a spokesman or leader to conduct affairs of common interest with the local authorities. In due course their role was taken over by consuls nominated by sending states and recognized by the receiving states but the transition was not always a smooth one, as is demonstrated by the evolution of Hospitaller Malta’s consular network in Early Modern Spain. Indeed, despite burgeoning trade links which resulted in the presence in eighteenth-century Spain of a widespread mercantile diaspora of Maltese traders the latter often had to do with makeshift arrangements for much of the century to defend and promote their interests.