1847 Havana Letter Regarding the Leasing of Seized Galleons at the San José Wharf

On offer is a neatly penned 1847 Havana manuscript letter addressed to the Jefe de la Sección de Bienes Embargados (Chief of the Section of Seized Properties) and signed by Havana merchant Juan de Rovirosa, submitting a formal bid for the leasing of “los galeones existentes en el Muelle de San José,” the galleons then docked at the San José Wharf and held by the colonial administration as confiscated property. Rovirosa references the conditions published in the Gaceta de la Habana and offers “veinte seis pesos en oro” (twenty-six pesos in gold) for the vessels listed in the attached relation.

The Sección de Bienes Embargados managed assets seized by the Spanish Crown in Cuba—property from bankrupt estates, unpaid debts, or criminal proceedings. Administrative letters like this reflect the bureaucratic and commercial life of Havana’s thriving port during the middle decades of the 19th century, a time when the island’s maritime economy was intertwined with both legitimate trade and the waning slave and coolie systems. The Muelle de San José stood among Havana’s busiest wharves, where ships were auctioned, repaired, or repurposed under government oversight.

Written in a clear colonial cursive hand in brown iron-gall ink, the single leaf bears the docket number “123” at the upper right, showing its inclusion in a formal expediente. Rovirosa’s elegant signature and the document’s official phrasing typify the transactional language of Havana’s port bureaucracy under Spanish rule.

A fine surviving example of Havana’s mid-19th-century administrative culture, illustrating the regulation of maritime and confiscated assets in the pre-reform era—an evocative remnant of the economic mechanisms that sustained the Spanish Caribbean before the decline of empire.

Condition: One folio leaf measuring approximately 12x8 inches with light toning, faint fold lines, minor marginal foxing; ink rich and fully legible.