CAMPOMANES, D. Pedro Rodrigues, Conde de, a Spanish statesman, and writer of great celebrity, particularly on subjects of political philosophy, was born in the Asturias towards the year 1710. We learn from the Biographie Universelle that he was appointed by Charles III. fiscal of the royal and supreme council of Castile; that, on the accession of Charles IV. in 1788, he was appointed president of this council, and afterwards minister of state; and that he was expelled from the council, and deprived of all his employments, when Count Florida Blanca came into power. He was director of the Royal Academy of History, and an honorary member of most of the other similar establishments in Europe. He supported his expulsion from office and power with firmness and dignity; and died at Madrid, according to the Dictionnaire Universel, in 1789, but according to the Biographie Universelle, not till after the commencement of the present century.

The number of his works, and the variety of subjects which they embrace, show him to have been a man of uncommon activity, as well as versatility of talent, while some of them display such a depth of political knowledge, and superiority to the prejudices of his country and age, as have ranked him in the first class of modern writers on political economy and legislation. The following list contains abridged titles of his principal works, all of which, we believe, were published in the Spanish language, but none of them, as far as we know, has ever yet appeared in an English dress.

1. Historical Dissertations on the Order of the Knights Templars. Madrid, 1747. 2. A Translation of the Pe riplus of Hanno, with Notes. 1756. This translation was made from Hudson’s edition of the Periplus, and the notes contain a refutation of the objections urged by Dodwell against the authenticity of this celebrated journal, which is now universally admitted to be one of the most curious relics of antiquity. The learning and ability which he displayed in support of it procured him an unsolicited place among the corresponding members of the French Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres. 3. A Geographical Account of the Kingdom of Portugal. 1762. 4. Two Memorials relative to the means of regulating and employing Gypsies and Vagrants. 1763—4. 5. A Memorial on the necessity of a Free Commerce in Grain. 1764. 6. Memorial on the provisioning of the city of Madrid, drawn up and published by order of the supreme council. 1768, 2 vols. 8vo. 7. Discourse on the Protection of Industry. 1774, in 8vo. 8. Discourse on the Education of Artisans, 8vo, 1775. In 1777 he gave to the world an Appendix to this work, containing a view of the causes which have led to the decline of arts and manufactures in Spain, in 4 vols. 8vo. Of these two great works, the Discurso sobre el fomento de la Industria popular, and Discurso sobre la Educacion popular de los Artesanos, Dr Robertson speaks as follows: “Almost every point of importance with respect to interior police, taxation, agriculture, manufactures, and trade, domestic as well as foreign, is examined in the course of them; and there are not many authors, even in the nations most eminent for commercial knowledge, who have carried on their inquiries with more thorough knowledge of those various subjects, and a more perfect freedom from vulgar and national prejudices, or who have united more happily the calm researches of philosophy with the ardent zeal of a public-spirited citizen.”

The above seem to be the chief productions of the pen of Campomanes; but, besides these, he was author of several other pieces on historical and literary subjects; and he published a complete edition of the voluminous works of Feyjoo, to which he prefixed an account of the life of that learned benedictine.