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Rh rancheros and pobladores were at least as well off as in earlier Spanish times, the improved market for their produce afforded by the trading fleet counterbalancing the heavy duties that were now exacted. Few if any of these classes seem to have made an effort to do more than support themselves and families; and this, save to the incorrigibly lazy, was an easy task. The lands produced food both for the owners and for the Indian laborers who did most of the work; while the natural increase of their herds furnished hides and tallow more than enough to be bartered with the agents of Hartnell or Gale for groceries, implements, and clothing. So far as the records show, they did not even deem it worth their while to complain of excessive duties and consequent high prices.

For the support of the military establishment and to defray other expenses, the only resources were the duties collected on imports and exports — or the taxes on production, which practically took the place of the latter — the chief source of revenue, but one liable to considerable variation; contributions exacted from the missions as gifts, loans, sales on credit, or special taxes, given by the padres more and more grudgingly as the years passed by; and finally the supplies furnished