Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/434

394 MEXICO. that the produce of the Mines increased, (in a term of ten years,) from 112,828,860 dollars, (the amount of silver raised from I76O to 1769,) to 193,504,554 dollars, which were yielded by the mines from I78O to 1789, when the ameliora- tions introduced began to produce their full effect. From 1790 to 1799, still farther progress was made, the produce having amounted to 231,080,214 dollars, or more than double what it had been in 1769 ; and there is little doubt that the increase would have continued in a similar ratio, during the next ten years, (from 1779 to 1809,) when the produce only amounted to 226,265,711 dollars, had not the munificent donations of Charles III. been swallowed up by the distresses of his Successors. During the wars which followed the French Revolution, the Tribunal of Mines, in addition to a voluntary gift of half a million of dollars, was forced to assist the Royal Treasury with a loan of three millions more. The whole of its disposable funds were swept away by these ad- vances, and more than half its revenue has been absorbed since, by the interest of the money raised in order to meet such unexpected demands. The Miners, forced again to depend upon the speculations of individuals for " Avios,"" confined their operations within narrower limits ; and although in two years of the term under consideration the Coinage at- tained the Maximum of Twenty-seven millions of dollars, (in 1804 and 1805,) still, there was a decrease upon the whole term, as compared with that ending in 1799, of nearly five millions. The Mining Code of Mexico, (Las Ordonanzas de Mine- ria) having been published in English, with notes, it will be sufficient for me to observe, that the object of its provisions was rather to determine disputes between individuals, than to settle any differences between the Mining proprietors and the Sovereign. The whole Mining property of the Country was, indeed, supposed to be invested in the Crown, but the only use which the King made of his rights, was to concede to any