Un proyecto frustrado de Compañía General de Comercio de los Países Bajos en tiempos de Carlos II

Laburpena

From an economic point of view, the Flemish, under the rule of Catholic Monarchy, did not agree with playing second fiddle on this Empire. Along the seventeenth century, given the competition from the Dutch, the English, the French and, in particular, from the commercial and monopolist big companies in this countries, several proposals were made by them to the Crown, in order to take benefit of the rich resources of the Empire, and at the same time, taking a leading role on by themselves. This article studies an ambitious project to form a General Company of Trade in the southerns Netherlands, which was arisen about 1690-91. The content of this project is orderly analized the ups and downs of the plan, taking into account the intervention, both the King and the High Institutions of the Spanish and Flemish States. And all this, until the beginning of the eighteenth century when the idea became obsolete. Sources from Spanish and Belgian archives have been used in this article