Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/436

 396 MEXICO. of the Silver raised, were very considerable. They consisted of the King's Fifth, (reduced, subsequently, to the Demi- quint, or tenth,) the duty of One per cent, {derecho del uno porciento), and the Mint dues (derechos de Monedage, y Se- noreage), amounting in all, to 3^ reals (of eight to the dollar) upon each marc of silver, which contained 68 reals, but for which the proprietor received only 64. Where gold was combined with the silver, the duties of the Casa del Apartado were added, which made a total of 19^ per cent. Those paid on pure silver were 16| . The amount of these duties was not nearly so detrimental to the interests of the Miner, as the necessity of transmitting the whole produce of his mine in Bars to the Mint of the Capital, where alone it could be converted into dollars. This, in the more distant Provinces, (from the enormous expense of land-carriage,) was equivalent to a very heavy additional duty, from which neither the Revenue, nor the Country de- rived any material benefit ; but which tended, unavoidably, to confine Mining operations to a smaller circle, and caused the rich Districts of the North to be neglected, while the Mining Capitals were employed, almost exclusively, upon the poorer ores of the South. A similar effect was produced by the re- strictions upon the sale of Quicksilver, the monopoly of which belonged to the Crown : for although, by a series of judi- cious reductions, the price of this essential article was so much lowered, as to place it within the reach of every class of Miners, still, the distribution of it, (which depended upon the Viceroy,) was by no means impartially regulated, the poorer Miners being generally sacrificed to the influence of the richer ; while the necessity of concentrating the supply in one great depot, (the Capital) and of effecting the importation through one solitary port, (Veracruz,) rendered the possi- bility of obtaining a sufficiency for the regular reduction of ores, in the North, extremely uncertain, although the want of it entailed upon the Mining proprietor inevitable ruin.