Page:History of California, Volume 3 (Bancroft).djvu/76

58 or indirectly by Mexico — that is, the $22,000 sent in 1825, possibly one or two small amounts sent later, and a few drafts on the national treasury which in one way or another foreign or resident traders were induced to accept as security for loans or in payment for goods supplied. Theoretically, the national treasury should have paid the territorial expenses and received the net product of the territorial revenue; but practically, the territory was left to pay its own expenses, nominally about $130,000 a year, always excepting the small amounts furnished as before specified, and a considerable supply of very bad tobacco. To estimate the actual revenue with any approach to accuracy would probably have been wellnigh impossible at the time, and is entirely so now. Fully collected and honestly administered, the total revenue could hardly have amounted to one half the nominal expenditure; and indications are not wanting that a considerable portion was lost to the troops through smuggling operations and the rascality of officials. Moreover, there were charges of partiality and injustice in the final distribution of the net product,