The Port Authority of A Coruña has published the fourth number of the collection of monographs on the history of the dock that includes various aspects of the events that have occurred or that are linked to the port development of the city. The new issue, the work of the scholar Andrés García Pascual and titled The Port and the Mailaddresses the history of the Maritime Post Office with England and the American colonies over three centuries.
What did the work of postal services mean for A Coruña during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries?
You have to realize and put yourself at the time, they didn’t have cell phones, computers, not even telephones or telegraph cables. It was word to ear or the epistle, that is, the writing. Therefore, sending news, business… had to be sent by letter. Therefore, an establishment of any type of line that was fixed, periodic and protected by the Crown was very important. The first postal, maritime and official line that Spain has in its entire history dates back to the 17th century when the Falmouth-A Coruña line was created. It is an agreement with England. That is the first line that official Spain has with a foreign country. This line, in principle, what is conducive to the city is that consuls and representatives of countries other than Europe are established here, because not only correspondence came here, but goods and passengers came, not in large quantities because it was a final line. . I always say that both this and the later one, which is much more important, the Indian Post, what brings to A Coruña are new ideas: ideas of American independence, of the French Revolution, of British parliamentarism. A series of ideas that were not handled here.
Did this have an influence on the city?
This influences the city so much that A Coruña is the city with the most liberal uprisings in the 19th century after Cádiz. Here an atmosphere of enlightened men is created like our Cornide Saavedra and other people who I know supplied themselves with the books that came on these ships, many of them prohibited, they came in smuggled writings from both manuscripts and prints that create a character . Jovellanos comments in his memory that part of his library comes from the books that enter through A Coruña. The character we have in A Coruña is open, consenting, that of live and let live, that form of life-long Coruña culture. The liberalism and progress of A Coruña comes from these ships. It took shape in the 19th century, when there were problems, when the French and when an undesirable character like Ferdinand VII arrived. Then the liberal uprisings begin throughout Spain.
Did the port play a key role in the development of the city?
It is not known if it was the city or the port before. A Coruña is a peninsula that has two sides to the sea. In fact, in Roman times ships did not dock in the port, they docked in the Orzán. So, since pre-Roman times there has been a population here that understands that it has a privileged position and the port is the entry and exit door that the couriers choose for their work. If you see the Iberian Peninsula, we are at the vertex of an angle, you take the north, the Cantabrian current and the Atlantic coast and we are at the vertex. What happen? There are many ports that are to the north: Gijón, Santander, Bilbao, San Sebastián. And there are also many that are to the west, Vigo, Lisbon, but none are as far north or as far west as us. We are at a strategic point. We are not the lemon pear, there are much more important ports, but there are few that are so strategically placed.
Does this location influence when launching the line with England?
That influences, they look for a strategic site. The Falmouth route is an initiative of the Duke of York, who realized that communication through France had many difficulties, the mail stopped. The Duke of York dedicated himself to looking at the possibility of making an agreement with the Kingdom of Spain to have a direct line. Why choose Falmouth and A Coruña? Well, if you look at the map, take England and you will see that Falmouth is in the bottom left corner and we are in the top left corner. It was the shortest and furthest area from France, which was the problem.
What impact did the postal service have with America?
A lot, first economic and commercial. The city doubled its population. A lot of works were done thanks to the money generated by all those businesses that came out with America. Right in front of the Port Authority are the Casas de Paredes, which are from that era. They are from rich merchants who can finance them.
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