JOVELLANOS, GASPAR MELCHIOR de. — Statesman, man of letters, economist; b. at Gijón (Spain) 5 Feb. 1744, d. at Puerto de Vega 27 Nov. 1811.
He completed his legal, philosophical and literary studies at Alcalá and Avila. As “alcalde de crimen” at Seville he wrote the verse tragedy Pelayo (1772) and the tearful comedy El delincuente honrado (1774). In 1778 he became “alcalde de casa y corte” in Madrid and devoted himself to economics along moderate free-trade lines (Informe sobre el libre ejercicio de las artes, 1785). Involved in the downfall of his friend the financier Cabarrus, he was banished to Gijón, where he founded the Asturian Institute for the Sciences with a view to advancing Spanish agriculture (Informe acerca de la ley agraria, 1795). Together with Cabarrus he returned to Madrid as Minister of Justice (1797), but was soon relegated to Majorca (1801) because of his Informe del Tribunal de la Inquisición; there he wrote on history and art until freed by the French occupation (1808). He refused office under the invaders and retired to Puerto de Vega. Besides his works, his correspondence with Lord Vassal Holland on the war of independence and a private diary have been published. The Informe de la sociedad económica de Madrid was placed on the Index as an advocate of ecclesiastical jurisdictionalism and a tax against the higher clergy.