Page:Memoir upon the negotiations between Spain and the United States of America which led to the treaty of 1819.djvu/107

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��to that sum, and 8 millions for which France must be responsible to Spain for the injuries caused by the French, as is also stipulated in the same trea- ty; amounting in all to 23 millions.*

To these two £;reat branches of publick reve- nue in the United States, must be added that of the duties which every inventor, or discoverer of a machine, or any useful invention^ has to pay when he requires from the government an exclu- sive patent, for using or disposing of his invention or discovery for the term of ten years. If the pa- tent is granted, he is obli2;ed to pay thirty dollars. The years 1812 and 1814 were those in which this small branch of revenue produced the largest sum: in the former it amounted to 6,660 dollars, and in the latter to 6,090. Lastly, must be added the revenue from the mail, which is an establish-

��* This reasoning of the Minister, sophistical as it is, no doubt had considerable weight with the Spanish Cortes; and if M. de Onis was enabled to persuade them, that Spain would gain 23 millions of dollars bj the cession of the Flo- ridas to the United States, he deserves immortal credit for his ingenuity. That France would ever pay them any por- tion of the sum at which they valued the ceded territory, never could have entered the imagination of so astute a poli- tician as Don Onis: it is difficult to conceive, therefore, why he should have been so anxious to obtain the ratification of his treaty, if the suspicions entertained of his predilection for the American Republick were not true. T. 18

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