Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/405

 MEXICO. 365 on the King's account, to Spain, and to the Spanish Colo- nies, during a term of thirteen years, (from 1779 to 1791,)* which gives 108,428,677 dollars as the total, or 8,340,667 dollars, 3 reals, as the annual average amount of each of the thirteen years. To these, again, must be added 2,000,000, or 2,500,000 dollars, as the annual amount of illicit extraction by those engaged in the smuggling trade ; most of the articles thus introduced being paid for in specie upon the spot. The total annual Exports appear, therefore, to have been : From Veracruz Dollars. Rs. On Merchant's account. . . 9,432,333 2 On King's account. . . 8,340,667 3 From Acapulco (on both). . 1,500,000 Contraband Trade. . . 2,500,000 Total average value of Exports. 21,773,000 5 Allowing 227,000 dollars more, on each year, for the Con- traband trade, which appears to have increased in value in each successive year, although its exact amount cannot be ascertained, we shall have a total exportation of Twenty-two millions of dollars, to set against a total produce of Twenty- four millions ; so that, during the fifteen years that preceded the Revolution, the amount of the precious metals that accu- mulated in Mexico would appear to have been Thirty mil- lions of dollars. This estimate differs materially from that given by Baron Humboldt, who did not conceive, at the time of his visit, that the annual produce of the mines exceeded twenty-three millions of dollars. This calculation was perfectly natural in 1803, the average of the Coinage, from 1796 to that year, having only been
 * Vide Essai Politique, Book V. Chapter XII. page 444, 8vo. edition.