78 MEXICO. opportunity of enricliing themselves increasing at every step, until they were enabled, at last, to retire in affluence to the Peninsula. Nor was it to government offices alone that this preference was confined. The superior advantages enjoy- ed by Europeans threw the whole trade of the country into their hands, for the good understanding which they were enabled to cultivate with their countrymen in the custom- houses on the coast, and the faciUty with which they obtained licences from the Viceroy for the introduction of prohibited articles, rendered competition impossible. It is difficult to conceive any thing more universal than the corruption which prevailed throughout the revenue depart- ment of the colonies : the Viceroys themselves gave a splen- did example, for both in Peru and Mexico, with a nominal salary of only 60,000 dollars, they kept up all the pageant of a court, and, after distinguishing themselves, for some years, by their magnificence, as the Representatives of Royalty, they returned to their native country with a fortune of a million, or a million and a half of dollars, the whole of which it was notorious that they must have derived from some unfair mode of turning the advantages of their situation to account. The distribution of quicksilver, which was a Royal mo- nopoly, was, in Mexico, one source of these illegal profits.* The sale of titles, and distinctions, which the King usually granted at their recommendation, was another ; but the most lucrative of all, was the power of granting licences for the in- troduction of any article of foreign produce, during a limited period, to which I have already alluded : for these, enormous sums were paid by the great commercial houses of Mexico, and Veracruz ; or a share in the profits of the speculation was given to the A^iceroy's agent, without any participation in the risk. The system of dilapidation, beginning with the chief, extended through every branch of the government ; the in-
- The supply seldom being equal to the demand, the miners paid large
sums for the privilege of being allowed to purchase in preference to others.
