1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Campomanes, Pedro Rodriguez

CAMPOMANES, PEDRO RODRIGUEZ, Conde de (1723–1802), Spanish statesman and writer, was born at Santa Eulalia de Sorribia, in Asturias, on the 1st of July 1723. From 1788 to 1793 he was president of the council of Castile; but on the accession of Charles IV. he was removed from his office, and retired from public life, regretted by the true friends of his country. His first literary work was Antiquidad maritima de la republica de Cartago, with an appendix containing a translation of the Voyage of Hanno the Carthaginian, with curious notes. This appeared in a quarto volume in 1756. His principal works are two admirable essays, Discurso sobre el fomento de la industria popular, 1774, and Discurso sobre la educacion popular de los artesanos y su fomento, 1775. As a supplement to the last, he published four appendices, each considerably larger than the original essay. The first contains reflections on the origin of the decay of arts and manufactures in Spain during the last century. The second points out the steps necessary for improving or re-establishing the old manufactures, and contains a curious collection of royal ordinances and rescripts regarding the encouragement of arts and manufactures, and the introduction of foreign raw materials. The third treats of the gild laws of artisans, contrasted with the results of Spanish legislation and the municipal ordinances of towns. The fourth contains eight essays of Francisco Martinez de Mata on national commerce, with some observations adapted to present circumstances. These were all printed at Madrid in 1774 and 1777, in five volumes. Count Campomanes died on the 3rd of February 1802.

Don A. Rodriguez Villa has placed a biographical notice of Campomanes as an introduction to the first edition of his Cartas politico-economicas, published in 1878.