Free trade and the end of the RCGC. But if the Guipuzcoana Company was able to maintain profitability for its shareholders over the years, from 1778 onwards, the conditions of Spanish colonial trade would change radically. If at first, the Regulations for Free Trade, published in October 1778, respected Venezuelan territory for the Guipuzcoana Company, after a few months, any individual could trade freely with Venezuela from authorized Spanish ports. The RCGC definitively lost its monopoly and had to consider new modes of trade. If we add to this the disruption caused by the war with England, d in 1779, it is not difficult to understand the critical situation it found itself in in 1780. In 1785, the Guipuzcoana Company closed its operations, leaving behind a complex history, but a positive balance sheet. The Guipuzcoana Company was the most important joint-stock trading company of its time. Its trade volume exceeded 150,000 tons. It created numerous jobs, largely filled by Gipuzkoans. And it was Gipuzkoans, with few exceptions, who, trusting both the Province and the Company's first directors, risked their funds in this almost new commercial venture in 18th-century Spain. -MGO