On the other hand it cannot be denied that powerful influences were at work to secure privileges for private corporations, which in a measure threatened to undo what those commissions attained. The organization which came into being in Havana in the year 1740 under the name Real Compania de Comercio under the patronage of the Virgin del Rosario, was such a corporation and it seems doubtful whether the privileges it enjoyed and the profits that accrued from them did not outweigh the advantages which were promised to the colony. The company was given a general monopoly, including the exclusive right of exportation of tobacco and sugar; it had the right of importation of articles of consumption in the island without paying custom on goods imported into the interior. Of course, it pledged itself on its part to render the community certain services which should not be underestimated. It was to build in its dockyards vessels of war and of trade; to supply the warships anchored in the harbor with provisions for their crews; to furnish ten armed vessels for the persecution of contraband; and for the transportation of the country's products to the port of Cadiz; to bring from Spain the ammunition needed in Cuba; to provision the garrison of Florida; and to furnish articles of equipment to the weather-side fleet.
The Captain-General himself was given the office of Juez conservador (judge conservator). The first president of the company was D. Martin de Aroztegui. The organizers had at first counted upon a capital of one million pesos, but it barely exceeded nine hundred thousand. Each share was valued at five hundred duros (dollars) and eight shares were required to entitle the holder to a vote in the general conventions. There were at first five directors in all, but they were gradually reduced to two only. Some historians had warm praise for the work of the company, among them Arrate, who with many others was preoccupied by the economic interests and the commercial progress of the community. But there is no doubt that at the end it did not bring about the results that had been expected. During twenty years of its existence Cuba derived no tangible benefit. The importation of goods from Spain did not amount to more than three vessels annually. The exports amounted to less than twenty-one thousand arrobas of sugar (a weight of twenty-five pounds of sixteen ounces each).