Joseph looked at Campomanes. "How much does New Granada pay its officials and soldiers each year?"
Campomanes thought for a moment. "About 600,000 escudos. Closer to a million if you include church spending." Joseph went on, "And military expenses? Or other major expenditures?"
"I don't remember the exact figures. Military spending last year was a little over 1.8 million escudos. Maintaining the Monopoly Bureau and the saltworks cost 300,000, and dredging harbors, maintaining roads, and the like cost another 400,000 or so."
Joseph waved a hand. "You see, the expenses on the books alone come to 3.5 million escudos.
"I'm sure the sums embezzled by officials at every level over the year were staggering as well.
"If colonial administration were handed over to an autonomous government, the empire could save nearly four million in New Granada alone. Even if tax and monopoly-trade revenues fell by more than eighty percent, I believe the empire's annual surplus from the territory would still rise substantially."
Campomanes stood frozen, his mind racing.
Last year, New Granada's total revenue had been 3.87 million escudos, while total expenditure had been 4.1 million. With unrest erupting repeatedly across the colonies these past two years, a deficit was only to be expected.
If revenue fell to 800,000 escudos as the French regent proposed, but nearly all expenditure was cut, there would still be a surplus of at least 600,000.
Mad as the approach seemed, it was a brilliant way to improve colonial finances!
All of Europe still believed in ruling its colonies outright. Britain's model of "indirect control and economic bloodsucking" had yet to take shape; Britain itself still enforced the Navigation Acts, which kept colonial trade completely locked down.
To the Spanish, Joseph had opened a door onto a new world.
Joseph continued, "And that is only