Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/333

MEXICO. 293 all events been mingled with the evil. By the statement, which Mr. Esteva has already published, it appears that a considerable part of the proceeds of the loans has been em- ployed in the following manner. Purchase of Tobacco and paper for Fabrica, with Dollars. arrears due on preceding years . . 1,616,256 Old Credits paid . . . . , 439,287 Arms, Shipping, Clothing for troops, &c. . 9175549 Foreign Missions .... 108,995 Remittances to California, and for defence of frontiers ..... 400,000 In all . 3,482,087 This, at least, is money usefully spent, and, however dearly the accommodation may have been purchased, it ought not to be regretted, since without it, Mexico could never have risen from the state of general depression, into which the country was thrown by the long continuance of the civil war. It now only remains for me to recapitulate the leading facts contained in the preceding pages. The Revenue, for twenty years before the Revolution, (from 1790 to 1810,) averaged, according to the most authen- tic returns, twenty millions of dollars annually. Two of the principal sources of this revenue, the Duties on gold and silver, and the Indian Capitation tax, which pro- duced, the first . . . . 5,500,000 dollars and the second . . . 1,300,000 In all . . 6,800,000 have been abolished under the present System, (the one tem- porarily, the other for ever;) but their place is supplied by the Importation and Exportation duties, which, from the im- portance that the trade of the country has already acquired, have actually produced, as we have seen, 75043,237 dollars