La PRINCESA 1767

The full index of our ship stamp archive
Post Reply
aukepalmhof
Posts: 7771
Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2009 1:28 am

La PRINCESA 1767

Post by aukepalmhof » Sun Oct 11, 2015 9:03 am

The subject for this stamp has been chosen by the Uruguay Post by Dr. Juan Villegas (historian) through a stamp contest.
On December 15th, 1767 the packet ship LA PRINCESA departed from the port La Coruna, Galicia. Spain bound for Montevideo. She had on board the official and private mail from Spain to South America, it was the first voyage in this new service of mail too that countries.
The first step for the founding of this mail links between Spain and her colonies in South America was taken by Charlos III King of Spain, which on 27 October 1763 put the Marquis of Grimaldi in charge of the organisation of a postal service between Spain and the American colonies.
The first service was established between Havana, Cuba and La Coruna. Every month, a packet ship sailed from Havana to La Coruna and another packet made the voyage from La Coruna to Havana.
In Havana the postal authorities received the mail from the packet ships which were coming from Spain and forwarded it to the final destinations.
The mail from the northern Spanish colonies was collected at Havana and send from there by a packet to Spain.
On the base of this successful experiment, the Marquis of Grimaldi organized a similar service which covered the River Plata Region and other southern South America countries.
At Montevideo, the postal authorities remained in charge of the mail, with destination Banda Oriental (the land east of the Uruguay River at present Uruguay), and forwarded the rest to Buenos Aires from where it was sent to its final destinations; the River Plata Provinces (at present Argentina), Paraguay, Alto Peru (at present Bolivia), Chile and even to the Viceroyalty of Peru.
All the mail from this countries to Spain in return was send to Montevideo, to the Postal Authorities there, then loaded on board of a packet to Spain. The first postmaster in charge of this mail at Montevideo was Melchor de Viana.
La Coruna, Havana and Montevideo became the main exchange points in this new postal system. Through this regular mail service the port of Montevideo expanded, not only in mail service but also in cargo handling, while also a few passengers arrived which needed new facilities to support the service. Montevideo provided the conditions required and supplied the service, given full support to the mail service and as a postal mail centre the city became even more important.
In this mail service, which sailing and arrivals took place as scheduled, six vessels were used, the DIANA, DILGENCA, NUEVA CANTABRIA, PALAGON, TUCUMAN and La PRINCESA.
The Packet La PRINCESA the vessel depict on the stamp sailed for the first time from La Coruna in this mail service on 17 December 1767, sailed again from Montevideo on 18 June 1768 and arrived La Coruna on 24 September 1768. I believe the ships were special built for this service, but could not find any detail on this packets. The Captain of the La PRINCESA was Cayetano Antúnez.
The stamp design also includes the logo of ESPAMER 98 Exhibition that was hosted at the Palacio de Correos in Buenos Aires, Argentina from 20-29 November 1998.
The cover was issued in 2014 for the Centro Gallego de Montevideo 135 Aniversario.

Uruguay 1998 $12 sg?, scott?
Source: Uruguay Postal web-site and internet.
Attachments
2014 (2).jpg
Image (47).jpg

Post Reply