Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/441

 MEXICO. 401 valas, every article of ordinary consumption in the Mines, and extending this privilege to all the Mining Districts. But no encouragement, on the part of the Royal Govern- ment, could supply the want of capital, and of confidence ; and, with the exception of some works at Catorce,* Zacatecas, and Sombrerete, which were prosecuted successfully, after the reverses of the Insurgents in 1814, and 1815, by small Spanish capitalists, who resided upon the spot. Mining, throughout the Kingdom, was reduced to a mere shadow of what it had been. In 1821, even these partial works were given up, (on the declaration of the Independence,) and most of the Spaniards who had invested money in them withdrew their capitals, and returned to Europe. Such was the state of the Mining interests of Mexico, when the first Independent Government was established. Its attention was early, and unavoidably, drawn to the sub- ject, because the Mines had involved in their fall both agri- culture and trade, to which their restoration could alone give a new impulse. This part of the subject, however, belongs more properly to the observations with which it is my intention to close this Book. Here it will be sufficient for me to state the means adopted to afford immediate relief. By a Decree of the Regency, (dated '20th February, 1822,) the duties formerly paid under the denominations of One per cent. Royal Tenth, Seigneurage, and Bocado, were abolished, as were those exacted during the Revolution, on Plata, Pasta, or silver in a crude state ; in lieu of which, a duty of three per who returned to Spain, or France, with 60, or 70,000 dollars. The United Company has now almost all the Mines at Zacatecas, which were abandoned at this time, and also those belonging to Don Narciso Anitua, at Sombrerete, which he was compelled to give up just as he had completed the drainage. VOL. I. 2d
 * The emigrants from Catorce were very numerous; I mean those