Dinero y diplomacia en la transición al liberalismo. Recorte financiero y drástica reducción de personal en el Ministerio de Estado, a través del Presupuesto de 11 de noviembre de 1820, primero en la historia constitucional española

Abstract

The location in the Vatican Secret Records of an official and complete edition of the Spanish Budget in 1820, the first one in the Spanish constitutional history (the one in 1813 did have no effectiveness and far less in 1816), elaborated by Jose de Canga Argüelles and approved on 11^th November 1820 for the economic year corresponding to 1^st July 1820 - 30^th June 1821, (edition non used until the moment), has allowed us, on the one hand, to reconstruct the organizational chart of the Ministry of State at the beginning of the 2^nd constitutional stage, via several budgetary items. And, on the other, it has let us do a detailed breakdown of those entries. Moreover, as far as the financing is concerned, three different blocks have appeared. That is: Salaries and allocations, Extraordinary Expenses and Other Expenses, with 18,186.700 «reales» altogether (4,546,675 of the old pesetas), an amount far beyond the 12,000.000 ones registered in some available studies, given that they do not provide for any sum assigned as Extraordinary Expenses and other several items. As regards the organization of the Ministry, we have also analysed it in detail along its very four sections: Secretary of the Office, Embassies, Legations and Consulates, all of them very affected by the budgetary cuts mentioned above.