Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/335

MEXICO. 295 During the same period, the estimates of expenditure have been reduced, from . . . 17,986,674 dollars, or, with the interest on the foreign loans, not included above, . . . 2,109,600 20,096,274 to 13,363,098 dollars : so that even allowing one million of dollars over and above Mr. Esteva's estimate, for expenses in the War Department, still, a saving of nearly six millions of dollars will have been effected in the course of four years : viz. Dollars. Estimates for 1827, including interest on loans . 13,363,098 Add one million for War Department . . 14,363,098 Estimates for 1825, with Dividends on loan . 20,096,274 Saving in 1827, 5,733,176 This is a result, which ought to afford more satisfaction to those whose interests have been affected by the late want of remittances from Mexico, than the most specious attempt to demonstrate, upon paper, the existence of a Surplus Revenue, from which no practical benefit can be derived. It proves that the resources of the country are unimpaired ; that, with very limited assistance from foreign capitalists, the Revenue department has been re-organized, the complicated machinery of former times simplified ; and a system established, which has already produced, in ten months, eleven millions and a half of dollars ; and that, although the Receipts do not yet quite cover the Expenditure, there is every prospect that they will do so in 1828, since that expenditure can hardly exceed the Estimates of the present year, while a lamentable change indeed must take place, in order to prevent the Re- venue from producing the fourteen millions of dollars, at which, upon the most careful, and dispassionate computation, I have estimated it in the preceding pages.