Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/459

MEXICO. 419 of Mexico was all that he wished to convey ; and how could he illustrate their importance better, than by presenting statements of what had been done, as the best criterion of what might still be effected in a country, the mineral trea- sures of which he regarded as almost unexplored ? Unfortunately, the consequence of these statements was, to direct the attention of the world exclusively to spots, which, from the enormous quantity of mineral wealth that they have already yielded, may fairly be supposed to have seen their best days. I do not mean to say that the great Mines, taken up by our Companies, are exhausted ; on the contrary, I believe that they will still amply repay the Adventurers for the stake invested in them ; but I have, certainly, little doubt that, in many instances, the same capital might have been laid out, elsewhere, with a much more immediate prospect of ad- vantage. Besides, however good the Mines, the price paid for their former celebrity in the shape of " Alimentos," (a yearly al- lowance to their owners,) has proved a very serious addition to the first outlay of the Adventurers. Those paid by the Real del Monte Company to Count Regla, amount to 20,000 Dollars. The Anglo-Mexican Company, for the Mine of Valenciana alone, pays yearly 24,000 Dollars. On the preparations for draining the first, (the great Biscaina V ein,) nearly two millions of Dollars had been expended when I left Mexico, and at Guanajuato, the Valenciana Mine had cost, on the 1st of September, 1826, — 672,264 Dollars. Farther advances will be required in both cases, before the drainage can be completed ; and certainly, there ought not, in reason, or justice, to have been any sur- charge, in the shape of Alimentos, where so large an invest- ment of capital was necessary for the preliminary works. But this was one of the effects of that competition between the different Companies, which made each fear to find a rival 2 K 2