Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/420

380 the whole of that time, no remittances to Madrid can have been made. The Tobacco monopoly, and the duties upon Gold and Silver, of which the "sobrante liquido, remisible," was composed before the Revolution, failed entirely ; and, although new taxes were substituted for them, these were barely sufficient to defray the expenses of the war. After 1816, things became more settled, and some trifling remit- tances were made, which ceased again entirely upon the decla- ration of Independence in 1821, so that I should not calculate them in all, during the whole fifteen years, at more than ten millions of dollars.

With regard to the Smuggling trade, this was by no means the case, for, if the demand for European manufactures became less amidst the general distress, the profits of the illicit trader increased ; the facility with which goods were introduced being proportionably greater, and the reduction in the price, consequently, such as to enable him to defy com- petition. I do not, therefore, conceive the amount of the Contraband trade ever to have fallen below the average before the Revolution, viz. two, or two and a half, millions of dollars.

We must, therefore, make the following additions to the registered Exports as given above, viz. : —